The lexicography of Faroese

This chapter deals with lexicographical questions of Faroese, a North Germanic language, structurally similar to Icelandic, but lexically much affected by Danish as the Faroe Islands have for centuries been in a political affiliation with Denmark. Due to that, the main question of Faroese lexicography has for a long time been to what extent Faroese lexicography shall depend on linguistic purism or not. As a result, this chapter focuses on linguistic purism in Faroese dictionaries, and thus on the Faroese standard as a whole, diachronically and synchronously. Traditionally, Faroese dictionaries have been prescriptive, but in modern dictionaries a more descriptive attitude is found, resulting in a relatively high number of imported words. This new tendency is more explicit in foreign-Faroese dictionaries than in Faroese-foreign dictionaries.