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The 2015 Polyglot Gathering is brought to you by Italki.

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Become fluent in any language.

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[Slovakian?]

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French, is it fine?

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Be welcome.

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Here we go on with the Lightning Talks.

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You have another occasion

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to speak about a topic you are interested in.

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That means that everyone has three minutes.

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Five? – He gives five? Who has more?

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Well, everyone has five minutes to

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speak about anything he wants.

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We can use … No? – We have nothing to use.

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I agree. We will just speak.

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Who will begin? – Thomas.

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I will have a look at the watch and will give a sign.

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I will use the International Language.

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I am going to speak about Faroese.

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It’s a finding when I learned Icelandic.

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Icelandic and Faroese are in the group 
of Insular Scandinavian languages.

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Faroese has 44,000 speakers on the Faroe Islands themselves.

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It is a group of islands between Norway and Iceland.

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It’s an autonomous part of Denmark.

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There are perhaps from 60,000 to 100,000 native speakers.

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In 2000 a hundred seventy book were published,

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between them 66 translations from foreign languages.

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One book per 325 inhabitants.
That’s a record.

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From 1538 on there is no more written language,

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because everything was written in Danish.

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But the Faroese preserved their language
by dancing – chain dances.

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One takes the hand of another 
and forms a great circle.

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And one dances stepping four steps to the left and two steps to the right.

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Well, this way they preserved more than 40,000 verses.

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And the whole language was reconstructed
out of those verses in the 19th century.

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In the 20th century they got autonomy 
after World War II.

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And they began to drive out the Danish language.

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Now in the beginning they learn Faroese only,
and Danish not before the third class,

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but up to a native speaker’s level, 
at least written

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in order to have the possibility to study 
in Copenhagen or elsewhere in Denmark.

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I thought that it was worth learning the language,

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because it is interesting in history 
and you have a lot of books and music.

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The best known group is Týr,
who make rock music, metal rock music,

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in Faroese, in Danish and in English 
and also in German.

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The most famous dance and ballad is 
“Ormurin langi.”

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That’s “The Long Snake.”

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Thank you!