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Fårömål (Fårö Gutnish) is the dialect of Gutnish spoken on the Baltic island of Fårö north of Gotland. The name "Fårö" (in Gutnish, Fåre) is derived from the words ö, meaning island, and probably far-, which is a word stem associated with travel, as in the Swedish verb fara (to travel). The name Fårö probably means 'the island you have to travel to' or 'the traveler's island'. Mainland Swedes might misinterpret the name Fårö to be derived from får, the Standard Swedish word for 'sheep', due to the many sheep on the island. That word is absent from Modern Gutnish, which uses the word lamm (which in Swedish means 'lamb') instead. Gotlanders describe Fårömål as sounding "coarse" and as characterized by "mumbling".

Fårömål is the most archaic dialect of Gutnish in terms of morphology and phonetics. The dialect is closest to Old Gutnish and has retained, for example, the a-ending of the infinitive. There are also verb endings that no longer exist in the dialect of the main island (Storlandsmål) as in Swedish and Danish (e. g.: ja kimbur, däu kumbort, han kumbur). And while the unstressed endings are often dropped in the Main Island dialect, the Fårö Gutnish has preserved them (e. g. Han skudd' gleid' (gläid') ti Fol u kaup' skog on the main island → Han skudde gläida till Fola u kaupa skog in Farømål).

In Fårömålet there are sentence constructions, where Swedish or Danish would normally insert a det (e.g. da bleir an mild vintor instead of då blir det en mild vinter in Swedish or der bliver det en mild vinter in Danish). The dialect also shares similarities with Danish (e.g. inte rätt/rett stor instead of inte särskilt stor). At the same time is the intonation (linguistics) a little closer to Swedish.

Notes

1. Fastlande has the literal meaning of 'mainland'.

References

1. Oliver, Niel (2021). The Vikings. New York City, New York: Pegasus Books. p. 124. ISBN 978-1-63936-126-7. OCLC 1285165842.
2. Öhlund, Lovisa (2010). De e gotländske de ska va! En uppsats om gotländska ungdomars dialekt [De e gotländske de ska va! An Essay on the Dialect of Young People in Gotland] (MA thesis) (in Swedish). Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University. p. 43.
3. Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet - Indledning till studium, Visby 2015, p. 19, ISBN 978-91-85803-88-0
4. Kristina Hagren: Fårömålet, 2007, p. 454
5. Kristina Hagren: Fårömålet, 2007, p. 457
6. Gutamålsgillet: Gutamål – ett språk med historia
7. "Gutamålsgillet". Gutamålsgillet (in Swedish). Retrieved 2022-05-05.

Bibliography

• Gunilla Brogren: Um Fåre u Fåreboar pa fåröiskå, Fårö hembygdsförening (Udg.) 2013 ISBN 9789198054712
• Herbert Gustavson: Gutamålet – inledning till studium. 3. oplag. Barry Press Förlag, Visby 1977.
• Adolf Noreen: Fårömålets ljudlära, Stockholm 1875

External links

• Loogna, Martin (4 August 2020). "Loogna besöker vackra Fårö och försöker lära sig Fårömål" [Loogna visits beautiful Fårö and tries to learn Fårö Gutnish]. Star FM (in Swedish). Retrieved 6 May 2022.
• Gotlands Museum: Hör du skillnad mellan storlandsgutamål och fårömål?
• Sveriges Radio P4 Gotland: Fåröborna vill rädda sitt språk

• Gutnish
• Gotland
• North Germanic languages
• Endangered Germanic languages
• Languages of Sweden
• Scandinavian culture
• Germanic languages