Faroese: Dialects

[盲人瞎馬]

Is it true that, despite being a very small country, the Faroe Islands are equally as rich in dialects as, for example, Norway? If that's true, is there an explanation as to why such dialectal diversity doesn't exist in Iceland, a much bigger country (it is agreed upon that Iceland has no dialects at all, I heard)?

Thanks.

 

[klandri]

Can't comment on the Faroese but it's true that Icelandic has no dialects by any sane definition of the word but only minor regional pronunciation differences. Those regional differences used to be more pronounced but declined significantly in the 20th century and many of the variations are all but dead while others are only found in old people but even so you can still often tell if someone is from the North.

Not sure why exactly Icelandic is so uniform actually.

 

[Ben Jamin]

Not sure why exactly Icelandic is so uniform actually.

Small size of the country, few inhabitants, early litteracy?

 

[Rafeind]

People moved around more than you would expect and the fact that Alþingi lived on quite long as a court of law and many people from everywhere in the country went there every year which meant changes had easier time spreading. The country it self is not small, but few inhabitants most likely had something to do with it. And early literacy and the fact that Icelandic never went away as a literary language (which is not true of Faroese or even Norwegian really) most likely had something to do with it too.