Portal:Faroe Islands

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Introduction

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The Faroe Islands (/ˈfɛər/; Faroese: Føroyar, pronounced [ˈfœɹjaɹ]; Danish: Færøerne, pronounced [ˈfæɐ̯øːˀɐnə]), or the Faeroe Islands—a North Atlantic archipelago located 200 miles (320 km) north-northwest of Scotland and about halfway between Norway and Iceland—are an autonomous country of the Kingdom of Denmark. Total area is about 540 square miles (1,400 km2) with a population of 50,322 in October 2017.

The terrain is rugged; the climate is subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc)—windy, wet, cloudy, and cool. Temperatures average above freezing throughout the year because of the Gulf Stream.

Selected article

Church of Norðragøta on Eysturoy island
The Church of the Faroe Islands (Faroese Fólkakirkjan) is the national church of the Faroe Islands and the smallest of the world's few remaining state churches. About 85% of the Faroese people belong to the state church. Other churches on the Faroe Islands include the Plymouth Brethren and Roman Catholics.

According to the Færeyinga saga, it was the Viking chief Sigmundur Brestisson, who brought Christianity to the Faroe Islands. On the orders of the Norwegian King Olav Trygvason, Sigmundur forced the island people to convert to Christianity in 999 AD. Resistance to the new religion, led by the notorious Tróndur í Gøtu, was quickly suppressed; and even though Sigmundur himself lost his life, Christianity gained a foothold.

In 1540 the last Catholic bishop in the Faroe Islands was removed from his position, signifying the reformation of Faroese religion and the introduction of Lutheranism.

In 1990 the Faroe Islands became an independent diocese with its own bishop within the Church of Denmark and on the 29th July 29 2007, the Faroese Church became totally independent of the Church of Denmark.

Selected biography

Faroe Islands stamp honouring Hammershaimb
Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb (March 25, 1819 – April 4, 1909) was a Faroese Lutheran minister who established the modern orthography of Faroese, the language of the Faroe Islands, based on the Icelandic language, which like Faroese derives from Old Norse.

Hammershaimb created his spelling system for Faroese in 1846. It was etymological, with the vowels based on written Icelandic, rather than phonetically descriptive (as in for example Welsh.) For instance, the letter Eth (Ð) has no phonemes attached to it. In this Hammershaimb had accepted the advice of the Icelandic independence leader Jón Sigurðsson, who had seen the manuscript for his "Bemerkninger med Hensyn til den Færøiske Udtale" (Notes with Respect to Faroese Pronunciation); Hammershaimb considered that despite its artificiality, this was the only approach that would overcome the problems of differing dialects in the islands.

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Wikipedia in Faroese language

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There is a Faroese version of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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