Convergence in generic pronouns: Language contact and Faroese mann

Remco Knooihuizen

doi:10.1080/03740463.2015.1114322

Abstract

Despite state-driven language policy against Danish linguistic influence, the Faroese language has borrowed the Danish generic pronoun mann ‘one’. As in Danish, this pronoun varies with generically used tú ‘you’. An analysis of the variation in Faroese shows that Faroese tú is used more often than its Danish equivalent du (26% vs. 16.5%) and that although there is extensive inter-individual variation, different linguistic factors (inclusion of the addressee in the referent of the pronoun, use in a conditional construction and verb tense) and social factors (age, gender and peripherality of location; possibly also speech style) constrain this variation in Faroese and in Danish. This suggests that extensive bilingualism has not led to sociolinguistic convergence between Faroese and Danish. Inclusion of sociolinguistic analysis in language contact research can help further our understanding of contact processes and inform language policy.

Highlights

With an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 speakers (Petersen 2010a, 31), Faroese is the smallest of the North Germanic languages
Some of the items that are transferred from Danish into Faroese are subject to sociolinguistic variation in Danish, which adds another dimension to the question of linguistic transfer: Is transfer restricted to purely linguistic matter, or may sociolinguistic patterns be transferred along with it? And if, as previous research suggests, the latter is the case, what may be the constraints on transferring a faithful copy of this variation from one variety to another?
This paper aims to contribute to this ongoing debate by analysing variation in the use of the Faroese generic pronouns mann and tú, and comparing the results to the equivalent variation in Danish, which has recently been thoroughly investigated (Jensen 2009a and others)

Summary

Introduction

With an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 speakers (Petersen 2010a, 31), Faroese is the smallest of the North Germanic languages. It is the dominant language in the Faroe Islands, all speakers of schooling age and over speak Danish, the other official language in the islands and the language of wider communication within Denmark, to which the Faroe Islands belong administratively. In the face of these prohibitive language policies, there has been considerable transfer of linguistic material between Faroese and Danish, leading some scholars to talk about convergence between the two languages Some of the items that are transferred from Danish into Faroese are subject to sociolinguistic variation in Danish, which adds another dimension to the question of linguistic transfer: Is transfer restricted to purely linguistic matter, or may sociolinguistic patterns be transferred along with it? And if, as previous research suggests, the latter is the case, what may be the constraints on transferring a faithful copy of this variation from one variety to another?

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