For those of you thinking of visiting the Faroe Islands you might be interested to know that they have started their own online translation service. This is in a bid to have their native Germanic language, Faroese, featured on Google Translate.

The Faroe Islands Translate service has been set up by the ‘Visit Faroes’ tourism organisation, which (instead of providing instant machine translation) passes your request onto a volunteer, who then provides a live or pre-recorded video translation. “We have enlisted a whole host of local Faroese people to allow us to help those who want to learn a little Faroese. In doing so, we also build up a video database that visually and audibly logs the Faroese language, something that’s never been done before” says Faroe Islands Translate Project Manager Levi Hanssen

The language, which derives from Old Norse, is spoken by some 66,000 people, approximately two thirds of whom reside on the Faroe Islands.

What we think at TW Languages: “Have a look at the website, an innovative and fun way to learn a Faroese!”

Credit to: ‘News from Elsewhere’