# Icelandic and Faroese



## KarenRei (Jul 27, 2017)

It's weird to hear all of the debate in the states - even in cold places - about putting winter tires on. I mean, pretty much everyone here does. To be fair, our winter is very long, and stormy. But we're not super-cold, so we have lots of days for snow / ice to melt away, unlike a lot of places in the US.

Here the main challenge is to _stop people_ from putting on _too extreme_ winter tires (aka studded tires) too early  There are dates between when you're allowed to have them, and you get ticketed if you have them on outside that range. IMHO, unless you live in the countryside you shouldn't have studded tires. They're not just noisy, polluting and destroy the roads, but they also increase your stopping distance when it's not icy/snowy (aka, what city dwellers on well plowed/driven-on roads drive on).

As a minor off-topic: the Faroese word for studded tires is "píkadekk" (or just "píka" / "píkur" for short), which sounds bloody hilarious in Icelandic 










Reading the Faroese as badly-spelled Icelandic, it says "_From Sunday the 15th of October it's again permissible to utilize **píkur**. One might be tempted to set the **píkur** up before the upcoming week change, but it's not advisable to put on the **píkur** for example on Friday or Saturday, only from Sunday."_


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## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

KarenRei said:


> As a minor off-topic: the Faroese word for studded tires is "píkadekk" (or just "píka" / "píkur" for short), which sounds bloody hilarious in Icelandic


Is Faroese your native tongue?

If so, your English puts us native English speakers to shame! Then again, I never had to pay much attention in English class, I just went with what sounded natural (because both parents spoke proper English) and got by well enough. Lazy me. There are places in America where it wouldn't be "bloody hillarious" they would wash your mouth out with soap.


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## Mad Hungarian (May 20, 2016)

KarenRei said:


> It's weird to hear all of the debate in the states - even in cold places - about putting winter tires on. I mean, pretty much everyone here does. To be fair, our winter is very long, and stormy. But we're not super-cold, so we have lots of days for snow / ice to melt away, unlike a lot of places in the US.
> 
> Here the main challenge is to _stop people_ from putting on _too extreme_ winter tires (aka studded tires) too early  There are dates between when you're allowed to have them, and you get ticketed if you have them on outside that range. IMHO, unless you live in the countryside you shouldn't have studded tires. They're not just noisy, polluting and destroy the roads, but they also increase your stopping distance when it's not icy/snowy (aka, what city dwellers on well plowed/driven-on roads drive on).
> 
> ...


When I say I LOL'd when I opened that translation link, I mean I genuinely *LOL'D*...


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## PNWmisty (Aug 19, 2017)

Mad Hungarian said:


> When I say I LOL'd when I opened that translation link, I mean I genuinely *LOL'D*...


It's similar to the polite word in the USA for "butt" is "fanny". The Brittish think it's hilarious. Especially if you refer to your "fanny pack".


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## KarenRei (Jul 27, 2017)

PNWmisty said:


> It's similar to the polite word in the USA for "butt" is "fanny". The Brittish think it's hilarious. Especially if you refer to your "fanny pack".


Think of how funny some Britishisms can be in the US and vice versa. Now multiply that by a hundred for Icelandic vs. Faroese. They're further apart, lingustically, than British and US English, but when they created their writing system, they based it around Icelandic, trying to get the words similar even when the pronunciations are different. The net result is that the two languages look by and large like badly spelled versions of each other, but with many key words being _radically_ different.

Some random examples:









*Faroese*: The Red Cross
*Icelandic*: The Angry Cross









*Faroese*: "Are you a member?"
*Icelandic*: "Are you a pe**s?"









*Faroese*: "* Riding school * Riding rentals * Riding tours...."
*Icelandic*: "* Skúli the F***er * F***able * F***ing tours...."

More random examples:

ástand (F=painting ladder, I=situation)
yfirgangsfólk (F=terrorists; I=overbearing people)
bumba (F=bomb; I=paunch)
afmynda (F=photograph; I=distort)
spæla (F=play; I=fry)
ljóð (F=sound; I=poem)
skuldsettur (F=arrested; I=indebted)
sjúkrabilur (F=ambulance; I=ambulabroken)
herbergi (F=outhouse; I=room)
dýna (F=duvet; I=mattress)
sæng (F=mattress; I=duvet)










But the thing is, enough is the same (or at least immediately recognizable) that it doesn't interfere with your ability to read it... except for the random, *totally wrong* words. It's popular for Icelanders to take a short vacation in the Faroes in part just to giggle at the signs. And vice versa.

One presumes that a good time to visit would be when people are putting píkur on their cars


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