ABSTRACT
It’s late evening on the hills above the town of Tórshavn, in the Faroe Islands. Because the islands are so far north, even in August the sky is light until quite late and the children can play outside until 10 p.m. or later. Tonight some boys – about ten years old – are playing in an outdoor playground that belongs to the local nursery. The language of everyday life in the Faroes is Føroyske (Faroese), a Germanic language closely related to Icelandic, and the boys are talking in Faroese as they play. One of them climbs to the front of a mock ship and straddles the foredeck and the cabin with one foot on each. As he does this, another boy reaches up trying to slap his backside. With each swipe, the second boy calls out in English, ‘Nice ass, nice ass’.
