Faroese Language Conflict - Revival As Church Language

Revival As Church Language

Since the Reformation in the 16th century, Danish had been the exclusive liturgical language in the Faroese archipelago. Only Danish was used in the People's Church, and this was one of the main reasons why no written tradition in Faroese developed.

In 1903 Faroese became permitted under certain conditions for use in the church: the communion must take place in Danish, and Faroese could be used to preach only if all church authorities, the Provost and local council agreed. From 1912 the communion service could be held in Faroese, but only if the bishop gave his consent beforehand.

It was the Faroese people themselves who achieved a general penetration of their mother tongue as the church language. Most of the faithful conservatively associated the Danish language firmly with the liturgy, with the hymns, and not least with the Bible. Even today certain Faroese church songs are still sung gladly in the old Danish. In Tórshavn an opinion poll was taken, and the majority of the churchgoers expressed a desire for the retention of Danish in church.

Nevertheless, the question was discussed several times in the Løgting, and some Samband politicians argued pragmatically for the retention of Danish: many of the priests were Danes, and if each priest could choose in which language he preaches, this would lead to general confusion, e.g., if a community was accustomed to a church service in Faroese but then got a Danish pastor.

As with education, the penetration of the native language into the church was only a matter of time and depended on the availability of literature. As early as 1823 the Gospel of Matthew appeared in Faroese, but it met with no broad approval by the people because of the uncertainty of the Faroese orthography that prevailed before Hammershaimb's time. In 1908 the Gospel of John in Faroese was published, but only because the minister Jákup Dahl assisted the revival of Faroese as the church language; he presented a Faroese hymn book in 1921 and completed a translation of the New Testament in 1937. Up to his death in 1944 Dahl continued to work on a translation of the Old Testament, which was completed by Kristian Osvald Viderø in 1961.

The Evangelical-Lutheran national church authorized each of Dahl's works immediately after it appeared. Dahl also translated the catechism and a religious history. Dahl's collection of sermons in book form became important for the Faroese. In the remote areas of the islands it was normal for a pastor to be in charge of up to six churches, which he visited in sequence. When the pastor could not be present the services in the churches were conducted by laymen, who used sermons from Dahl’s printed collection.

March 13, 1939, is the day on which Faroese became fully authorized as a church language. Today the native clergy use Faroese almost exclusively.