Faroese (, ) is a
North Germanic language spoken as a native language by about 66,000 people, 45,000 of whom reside on the
Faroe Islands and 21,000 in other areas, mainly
Denmark. It is one of five languages descended from
Old West Norse spoken in the
Middle Ages, the others being
Norwegian,
Icelandic, and the extinct
Norn and
Greenlandic Norse. Faroese and Icelandic, its closest extant relative, are not mutually intelligible in speech, but the written languages resemble each other quite closely, largely owing to Faroese's
etymological orthography.