AHC Independent Fareo islands

[arctic warrior]

My two cents on the Greenlandic language situation:

It's worth noting, incidentally, that the Danicization of Greenland seems to be perhaps overestimated. One recent study of language usage in schools in the capital of Nuuk finds a high rate of Greenlandic use. The contrast with Inuktitut in Iqaluit, in Canada, is noteworthy.

http://www3.brandonu.ca/cjns/21.2/cjnsv21no2_pg235-274.pdf

It's a very interesting report, but it doesn't say anything greater about the Greenlandic society, it just tell us that primary Greenlandic speakers use their own language in society and the primarily Danish and Greenland speakers rarely interact. The Danish/Greenlandic state doesn't really report on how many L1 speakers of the different languages there's on Greenland, the best we have are guesses based on where people live and where they originate from, but A Danish speaker born on Greenland will be counted as Inuit in the unofficial statistic. Atassut and Demokraatit are in general the "Danish" parties with Siumut being popular among Danish immigrants and expats on Greenland. Based on what I have could find, a good guess would be the L1 Danish population on Greenland are something like 20-25% with around 12-13% being monolingual (In the context Greenlandic/Danish most of them speak English, while French and German also being commonly spoken by them) with the rest being "bilingual"[1]. Intersting the spread of Danish came in the 70ties and continued into the early 90ties and was based on domestic politics and as part of the Greenlandic nation building project, where Danish was seen as necessary to develop Greenland. The Danish state have never really had any great interest in forcing the Greenlanders to speak Danish.

[1]The bilingualism of this group are likely overrated, any Danish speakers who master Greenlandic to some degree would likely call themselves bilingual in this context.

The reports rather old dating from no earlier than 2001 (year of journal) since then the number of adolescents in Greenland going for a secondary/gymnasium education have reached something like 5-600 a year. Today the Greenlandic gymnasium is still a majority Danish speaking institution judging from its website - in Danish and West Greenlandic/Inuit which is the written language.
Its difficult to base any assumption on language in Greenland during 2000/1 upon the sponses of 30 peoples!

Today the Danish/alien element in Greenland numbers little more than 10% of population - in capital Nuuk some 33%.

Anybody may claim to be a Greenlander! So of course statistics won't differentiate upon language. Bilingualism by Danes may be anything from mastering West Greenlandic to kitchen-greenlandic. The latter anything from making yourself understood - do shopping - just be polite!

The Danish language wasn't forced upon Greenlanders; it was the logical outcome of society initially run by Danes. The teachers in my boyhood was all Danes.
Later as stated the aim of "nation" was to secure the local language survival against Danish though logic demanded that Danish be an integral part of education; as when you were to attend tertiary education you had to go to Denmark! Its only a few years ago that Greenlanders aware of the future of their children would put these in Danish speaking schools!

The interesting thing is that the Church early on was quite Greenlandic speaking as Inuits were trained as Catechist's. Who also worked as teachers in the remote settlements.

How many of the L1 Danish speakers in Greenland are ethnic Danes by number and/or percentage? How many of th Greenlandic Inuit are L1 Danish speakers? When intermarriage occurs do these unions and there offspring tend to affiliate with Danish or Inuit most? Immigrants to Greenland do they tend to choose Danish or Inuit?

The average Greenlander which aren't a Danish immigrant or child of one, are 1/4 European. Pretty much all Greenlanders are partly Danish. As for the children of modern intermarriage, they mostly end up monolingual Danish speaking or bilingual with Danish as main language (as Danes on Greenland rarely learn Greenlandic).

Is all the European ancestry of greenlanders Danish in orgin? I once read that some of the whalers working around Greenland, would sometimes find Greenlandic spouses. The same text also claimed that little to none of the European ancestry in Greenlanders orginate in the Greenlandic Norse.

Does this Danish immigration to Greenland that we see in the dna, mean that Greenland was more integrated with Denmark than Norway, Iceland or the Faroes?

Women are more willing and/or wanting to move to more urbanised areas.

As already written theres no statistics on languagespeakers. Theres seems to be some 6000 aliens of these some 5000+ ethnic Danes in Greenland today.
The fun thing being that ethnicity and language isn't either - or; you may find Inuits speaking only Danish and ethnic caucasians/Danes speaking West Greenlandic! Quite the fun when watching the reaction in Tivoli of ethnic Danes!

Generally yes Greenland Inuit seems to have been the larger recipient of the Danish genepool than the other nationalities mentioned primarily due to necessity of running and then transforming Greenland from a hunter-gatherer civilization to a modern Danish Amt/County and then an autonomous entity.

 

[Hvalrossen]

The reports rather old dating from no earlier than 2001 (year of journal) since then the number of adolescents in Greenland going for a secondary/gymnasium education have reached something like 5-600 a year. Today the Greenlandic gymnasium is still a majority Danish speaking institution judging from its website - in Danish and West Greenlandic/Inuit which is the written language.
Its difficult to base any assumption on language in Greenland during 2000/1 upon the sponses of 30 peoples!

Today the Danish/alien element in Greenland numbers little more than 10% of population - in capital Nuuk some 33%.

Anybody may claim to be a Greenlander! So of course statistics won't differentiate upon language. Bilingualism by Danes may be anything from mastering West Greenlandic to kitchen-greenlandic. The latter anything from making yourself understood - do shopping - just be polite!

The Danish language wasn't forced upon Greenlanders; it was the logical outcome of society initially run by Danes. The teachers in my boyhood was all Danes.
Later as stated the aim of "nation" was to secure the local language survival against Danish though logic demanded that Danish be an integral part of education; as when you were to attend tertiary education you had to go to Denmark! Its only a few years ago that Greenlanders aware of the future of their children would put these in Danish speaking schools!

Does the first marked line suggesting that ethnic Danes are decling as a proportion of Greenlands population? If so is this related to greater emigration of Danes than Inuits? Or do Inuits have a greater birth rate than Danes?

The second marked line. Were these teachers imported from Denmark proper or were they homegrown?

The interesting thing is that the Church early on was quite Greenlandic speaking as Inuits were trained as Catechist's. Who also worked as teachers in the remote settlements.

Has the Greenlandic Inuit language many danish loanwords then? I assume that it do as many of the innovations came to Greenalnd via contact with Danes. How does the church vocabulary of Greenland compare to Danish?

As already written theres no statistics on languagespeakers. Theres seems to be some 6000 aliens of these some 5000+ ethnic Danes in Greenland today.
The fun thing being that ethnicity and language isn't either - or; you may find Inuits speaking only Danish and ethnic caucasians/Danes speaking West Greenlandic! Quite the fun when watching the reaction in Tivoli of ethnic Danes!

Generally yes Greenland Inuit seems to have been the larger recipient of the Danish genepool than the other nationalities mentioned primarily due to necessity of running and then transforming Greenland from a hunter-gatherer civilization to a modern Danish Amt/County and then an autonomous entity.

Ethnic Danes from the mainland i assume, as Danes in Greenland are probably used to seing Danes speaking Inuit Greenlandic.

Do you know if any of the Greenlandic genepool stem from the Greenlandic norse? Is it neglible, none or is there something there?

 

[Jürgen]

Does the first marked line suggesting that ethnic Danes are decling as a proportion of Greenlands population? If so is this related to greater emigration of Danes than Inuits? Or do Inuits have a greater birth rate than Danes?

Greenland (2,00) have a slightly higher birthrate than Denmark (1,69), it's somewhat between the birthrate of rural and urban municipalities in Denmark, while Faroe birthrate (2,40) are in the high end of rural municipalities in Denmark. In general the Greenlandic birth rate are too low when we mix it with emigration. As for Danes declining, Danes are defined as people born in Denmark without a Greenlandic parent. This means if two Danes produce a child on Greenland, the child will be counted as Greenlanders[1], even if the child never speak a word of Greenlandic. As such it's the policy of Greenland to replace Danish expats/guest workers with a skilled local workers, the fact that 12% of the population are still Danish expats tell how unsuccessful Greenland have been.

The second marked line. Were these teachers imported from Denmark proper or were they homegrown?

First of all I want to say @arctic warrior is the guy on this board who know the most about Greenland. So if he disagree with what I write here, he's the expect. But from I have read the teachers on Greenland are overwhelming Danes, with the exception of Greenlandic classes.

Has the Greenlandic Inuit language many danish loanwords then? I assume that it do as many of the innovations came to Greenalnd via contact with Danes. How does the church vocabulary of Greenland compare to Danish?

First of all Greenlandic are three languages, but the main one have a lot of Danish loanword, but it's not to any degree understandable for a Dane. But if you see news from Greenland, any modern concept have a Danish loanword.

Do you know if any of the Greenlandic genepool stem from the Greenlandic norse? Is it neglible, none or is there something there?

It have pretty much disappeared in the genetic noise. The Greenlandic Norse was closely related to the Icelanders, and since then the greenlanders have gotten genes from Dutch whalers, German missionaries, Icelandic and Norwegian adventures and Danish administrators. The main modern influx is from Denmark, as such we can't really see whether they got some influx from the Norse remnant or Icelanders while both was under Danish rule. We know some Norse was taken as loots by Inuit in some raid, and they likely had some effect of the Inuit genepool, but to what degree are unknown today.

[1]In Greenlandic political context these will be called "Dansksprogede Grønlændere".

 

[Hvalrossen]

Greenland (2,00) have a slightly higher birthrate than Denmark (1,69), it's somewhat between the birthrate of rural and urban municipalities in Denmark, while Faroe birthrate (2,40) are in the high end of rural municipalities in Denmark. In general the Greenlandic birth rate are too low when we mix it with emigration. As for Danes declining, Danes are defined as people born in Denmark without a Greenlandic parent. This means if two Danes produce a child on Greenland, the child will be counted as Greenlanders[1], even if the child never speak a word of Greenlandic. As such it's the policy of Greenland to replace Danish expats/guest workers with a skilled local workers, the fact that 12% of the population are still Danish expats tell how unsuccessful Greenland have been.

1. What do you mean by the Greenlandic birth rate being too low?

2. I was thinking about Danish in the ethnic sense of the word.

First of all I want to say @arctic warrior is the guy on this board who know the most about Greenland. So if he disagree with what I write here, he's the expect. But from I have read the teachers on Greenland are overwhelming Danes, with the exception of Greenlandic classes.

The Danish guestworkers/expats in Greenland i assume they are incentivised by higher wages or why do they migrate to Greenland?

It have pretty much disappeared in the genetic noise. The Greenlandic Norse was closely related to the Icelanders, and since then the greenlanders have gotten genes from Dutch whalers, German missionaries, Icelandic and Norwegian adventures and Danish administrators. The main modern influx is from Denmark, as such we can't really see whether they got some influx from the Norse remnant or Icelanders while both was under Danish rule. We know some Norse was taken as loots by Inuit in some raid, and they likely had some effect of the Inuit genepool, but to what degree are unknown today.

Would those taken in raids be only women or would male children be taken and assimilated aswell?

 

[Fuchsia]

First of all let's discuss why the Danish government decided to not recognise the referendum in 1946.

First it had a low turnout[1]. Next the yes to independence won by 166 votes[2], which was a plurality of the vote and not a majority. This very small plurality meant the Danish government didn't find the referendum legitimate. Iceland also had a right to dissolve the union while Faroe[3] didn't.

But let's imagine the Faroese was able to drum up greater support, so the Danish government recognise Faroese independence. If the Faroese can get a absolute majority of the electorate Denmark would likely have decided to recognise their independence. It would in general have been recognised around the world afterward.

The island have roughly 30.000 people in 1945 and the population have grown to roughly 50.000 people today. But beside that 30.000 people born on the Faroe lives in Denmark. Beside that let's be inspired by Iceland.

Iceland had Danish as first foreign language until 1999, after which it became second foreign language afterward, you can choose to learn another East Scandinavian language, but in practice people learn Danish. Because of the low Icelandic population, a lot Icelander take their education in the rest of Scandinavia, historical Denmark was the main place to study abroad and the Icelanders got special right to study there even after the union was dissolved, but today Norway have as many Icelanders as Denmark, while Sweden have a few less. The main differences between Icelanders and Faroese are that Faroe had a less developed education sector in 1944, they had less pride about their language[4], they was also far more religious and traditional. Denmark also together with USA take care of a lot of Icelandic national security. A important factor is that Reykjavik have grown since independence to have around half the population of Iceland.

So what do I think will happens? Could Faroe survive as a independent state; yes it could, but it would be far poorer.

But here we run inmto the problems Faroe need to industrialise and build up a education sector. Faroese will likely keep their favoured access to education in Denmark, so they need to send people abroad to get education. I think this will work to weaken the position of the Faroese language. In fact I think the greater (relative) poverty of the Faroese, will work to the education sector being behind OTL, and having a far greater use of Danish. We will likely see Thorshavns to large extent being Danish speaking[5].

The industrialisation will mostly build on fish, fish and fish. We may see some diversification, I could see a few shipyards being very important for the economy. We will likely also see a greater diversification of the economy to ensure a BOP surplus. But these will likely be mostly for domestic use. We will likely see forest plantage to ensure a domestic supply of timber, we will see some of the coal mines being kept open, we may see growth house growing vegetable.

Population-wise I expect the islands to have 100.000 people by modern day, most of the population increase will be in Thorshavn, which would be home to half the islands population, they will likely have a GDP per capita (nominal) around 40.000$, not bad but far lower than modern day Faroe. I could see up to a third of the population being L1 Danish speakers. It will mean that Danish are first foreign language, but we would likely see something of a Kulturkampf in modern Faroe to limit the position of Danish, with people pushing for English to replace Danish as first foreign language and pushing for greater use of Faroese in tertiary education. The Danish speakers will likely see themselves much like Swedish speakers in Finland does.

Foreign policy; Faroe won't have a army or navy leaving that to Denmark, it will be a NATO member later it will become part of EFTA, but it won't join EU out of fear of its fishing rights. It will of course be a member of the Nordic Council. The large number of Danish speakers (Thorshavn beating Flensburg as city with most Danish speakers abroad) will likely mean Denmark have a special relationship with Faroe.


[1]67,5% compared to the Icelandic 98,4%

[2]48,7% vote for independence on Faroe compared to 99,5% on Iceland.

[3]the reason I call it Faroe instead of Faroe Island are because "oe" means island(s). So I will never call them "Sheep Islands Islands".

[4]It should be said this is common, no one love their language as much as the Icelanders, not even the French. Danish was in general used as the language of public media until the 80ties.

[5]Likely using Gøtadanskt/Gøta ("Street Danish" in Faroese), a local variant of Danish used by Faroese speakers, Danish are also today spoken as first language by 5% of all school children and a unknown number of adults. Example

Eivør almost sounds Swedish when she talks.

 

[Jürgen]

Eivør almost sounds Swedish when she talks.

I'm going to guess you're a non-Scandinavian, because for me it sound like something between Danish and Norwegian. It's pretty much a version of Danish created by the Faroese to ease the learning of a understandable Standard Danish, while keeping a higher mutual intelligibility with Norwegian and Swedish, by avoiding the mumbling and guttural sounds of Danish. It's pretty interesting, because if the Danish-Norwegian realm had survived, we could easily have imagined that much of Norway and Iceland having adopted a similar version of Standard Danish beside their own dialects and languages.

 

[Fuchsia]

I am actually Swedish and even though I am aware that her language is mainly Danish when it comes to grammar an vocabulary (for instance when she uses the word "huske" for remember and "bange" for afraid), I do insist that her kind of prosody resembles some kind of Swedish even more than Norwegian in a strange way. It has something to do with the pitch she uses when she ends her sentences. If you compare her speech to the spoken language of the guy who is interviewing her, you'll notice that his pronunciation is more Norwegian.

Edit: I misinterpreted her word "viser" which means "songs" first. That is a word that is quite similar in Swedish as well.

 

[arctic warrior]

Does the first marked line suggesting that ethnic Danes are decling as a proportion of Greenlands population? If so is this related to greater emigration of Danes than Inuits? Or do Inuits have a greater birth rate than Danes?

@Jürgen answered this I'll just add that the Statistical bureau of Greenland write that the yearly population increase of Greenland is offset by migration from Greenland. The Greenlanders haven't really been able to replace all skilled Danish workers.

The second marked line. Were these teachers imported from Denmark proper or were they homegrown?

Back in the day - some four decades ago almost all teachers were Danish.
My younger sister and brother in law are both teachers and so was my late older sister. Teaching is a popular occupation as you get free travel to Denmark every two years; actually the Greenlandic teachers Union have been able to negotiate for them the former Danish teachers agreement when going to Greenland!
Besides that all children are tought both languages today; secondary school as being the gateway to tertiary education is still because herof mostly Danish speaking.

Has the Greenlandic Inuit language many danish loanwords then? I assume that it do as many of the innovations came to Greenalnd via contact with Danes. How does the church vocabulary of Greenland compare to Danish?

Quite a lot of loanwords though as Westgreenlandic is a polysynthetic language hence words in Danish are given the proper suffix to define time and person/s. Thus the root Danish word remains and has suffixes added. In the Westgreenlandic context you may have some understanding of what is going on though not always!

Been to christenings and weddings in Greenland; the language is Westgreenlandic (of course East in East if vicar is Inuit or Inuit in North if vicar is from up there). Which of course brings us to language as such; Westgreenlandic is the "official" language but as noted East Greenlandic and Inuit is spoken languages too. Westgreenlandic have apparently three dialects though I've only encountered two - West and South. Mainly as I understand some wovel shifts.
The rituals the same - if you don't know the language watch the rest and you'd get the gist.

Ethnic Danes from the mainland i assume, as Danes in Greenland are probably used to seing Danes speaking Inuit Greenlandic.

If by mainland you mean the Kingdom in the south then yes.

Do you know if any of the Greenlandic genepool stem from the Greenlandic norse? Is it neglible, none or is there something there?

Again @Jürgen answered already. I think I read something on this and the conclusion was that.
From Greenland history there wasn't much interaction between Norse and Inuit except what saga's and myth relates which seems to have been some occations of conflict. Problem is history disappears with the demise/disappearance of the Norse from Greenland some time during the early 15. century.
Interesting thing is there don't seem to have been a sudden die-off; starvation or epidemic. Houses have been found with utensils and peoples were getting burid. No skeletons in the street. The domesticated animals disappeared too.

 

[arctic warrior]

2. I was thinking about Danish in the ethnic sense of the word.

It is just a no-go question. Danes aren't figured out in statistics as a group though neighter is any other ethnicities. Basically anybody with abode in Greenland is considered a Greenlander as referenced in post #21.
Though around 12 % are ethnic Danes temporarily - more or less so - having taken up abode in Greenland for mainly work. These will be ethnic Danes however we are going to define this by 2018 standards within the global village and the migrations going on...

The Danish guestworkers/expats in Greenland i assume they are incentivised by higher wages or why do they migrate to Greenland?

Higher wages though not as much anymore and it really depends upon the time of abode/residence if you're being taxed according to Greenland or Danish regulations. It isn't big win it used to be prior to ca. 1987 when taxation was changes though peoples with desired skills may still be treated as experts; and get some lighter taxation.

Would those taken in raids be only women or would male children be taken and assimilated aswell?

As I remember only women in those old tales as the Norse men would fight the Inuit. Anyway this is OTL myth and we're talking history... I really should be doing some more reading on subject.