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Some Faroese isoglosses Until the 15th century, Faroese had a similar orthography to Icelandic and NorwegianNorwegian is a Germanic language spoken in Norway. Norwegian is closely related to, and generally mutually intelligible with Swedish and Danish. Together with these two languages, Norwegian belongs to the Northern, or Scandinavian group of the Germanic la, but after the Reformation, the ruling Danes outlawed its use in schools, churches and official documents, i.e the main places where written languages survive in an essentially illiterate society. The Islanders continued using the language in ballads, folktalesFolklore is the ethnographic concept of the tales, legends, or superstitions current among a particular ethnic population, a part of the oral history of a particular culture. The academic study of folklore is known as folkloristics. The concept of folklor, and everyday life. This maintained a rich spoken tradition, but for 300 years, this was not reflected in text.

As a written language, Modern Faroese has only existed since a standard was published in 1854 by Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb . Although this would have been an opportunity to create a phonetically true orthography, as in Welsh, he produced an orthography consistent with having a continuous written tradition to the Old Norse language. The letter ð, for example, has no phonemes attached to it. Also, although the letter ' m' corresponds to the bilabial nasal as it does in English, in the Dative ending -inum, it corresponds to the alveolar nasal ' n' due to phonological assimilation .

Hammershaimb's grammar was met with some opposition, for being so complicated, and a rival orthography was devised by Jakob Jakobsen . Jakobsen's grammar was closer to the spoken language, but was never taken up by the masses.

In 1937, Faroese replaced Danish as the official language of the Faroe Islands.