Frisian languages

There are three main groups of Frisian varieties: West Frisian, Saterland Frisian, and North Frisian. Some linguists consider these three varieties, despite their mutual unintelligibility, to be dialects of one single Frisian language,^{[citation needed]} whereas others consider them to be a number of separate languages equal to or greater than the number of main branches discussed here. Indeed, the insular varieties of West Frisian are not intelligible to the mainland, and by that standard are additional languages, and North Frisian is also divided into several strongly diverse dialects, which are not all mutually intelligible among themselves. West Frisian is strongly influenced by Dutch. The other Frisian languages, meanwhile, have been influenced by Low German and German. Stadsfries and West Frisian Dutch are not Frisian, but Dutch dialects influenced by West Frisian. Frisian is called Frysk in West Frisian, Fräisk in Saterland Frisian,^[6] and Friisk, fresk, freesk, frasch, fräisch, and freesch in the varieties of North Frisian.

The situation in the Dutch province of Groningen and the German region of East Frisia is similar: The local Low German/Low Saxon dialects of Gronings and East Frisian Low Saxon still bear some Frisian elements due to East Frisian substrate. Frisian was spoken there at one time, only to have been gradually replaced by Low Saxon since the Middle Ages. This local language is now, like Frisian, under threat by standard Dutch and German.

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  Frisia highlighted on a map of Europe
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  Frisia
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  West and East Frisia were once connected. North Frisia was colonized by Frisians via the North Sea and they first settled on Sylt, Amrum and Föhr.
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  The languages in the northern Netherlands (in German)
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  Language situation in northern Schleswig-Holstein as it developed since the 19th century
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  The North Frisian dialects (in German)
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  North Frisian map of the North Frisian dialects (1-Sylt, 2a-Föhr, 2b-Amrum)
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  Map of Saterland (in Saterland Frisian)
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  The former East Frisian-speaking area
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  East Frisia (in German)
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  The former East Frisian dialects in Lower Saxony (in German)
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  The East Frisian Low Saxon area (colloquially called East Frisian and formed on an East Frisian substratum)

Most Frisian speakers live in the Netherlands, primarily in the province of Friesland, which since 1997 officially uses its West Frisian name of Fryslân, where the number of native speakers is about 400,000,^{[7][page needed]} which is about 75% of the inhabitants of Friesland.^{[8][page needed]} An increasing number of native Dutch speakers in the province are learning Frisian as a second language.

In Germany, there are about 2,000^[9] speakers of Saterland Frisian in the marshy Saterland region of Lower Saxony. Saterland Frisian has resisted encroachment from Low German and Standard German, but Saterland Frisian still remains seriously endangered because of the small size of the speech community and of the lack of institutional support to help preserve and spread the language.^{[8][page needed]}

In the North Frisia (Nordfriesland) region of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, there were 10,000 North Frisian speakers.^[10] Although many of these live on the mainland, most are found on the islands, notably Sylt, Föhr, Amrum, and Heligoland. The local corresponding North Frisian dialects are still in use.

West Frisian-Dutch bilinguals are split into two categories: Speakers who had Dutch as their first language tended to maintain the Dutch system of homophony between plural and linking suffixes when speaking West Frisian, by using the West Frisian plural as a linking morpheme. Speakers who had West Frisian as their first language often maintained the West Frisian system of no homophony when speaking West Frisian.

Saterland and North Frisian^{[11][better source needed]} are officially recognised and protected as minority languages in Germany, and West Frisian is one of the two official languages in the Netherlands, the other being Dutch. ISO 639-1 code fy and ISO 639-2 code fry were assigned to "Frisian", but that was changed in November 2005 to "Western Frisian". According to the ISO 639 Registration Authority the "previous usage of [this] code has been for Western Frisian, although [the] language name was 'Frisian'".^[12]

The new ISO 639 code stq is used for the Saterland Frisian language, a variety of Eastern Frisian (not to be confused with East Frisian Low Saxon, a West Low German dialect). The new ISO 639 code frr is used for the North Frisian language variants spoken in parts of Schleswig-Holstein.

The Ried fan de Fryske Beweging is an organization which works for the preservation of the West Frisian language and culture in the Dutch province of Friesland. The Fryske Academy also plays a large role, since its foundation in 1938, to conduct research on Frisian language, history, and society, including attempts at forming a larger dictionary.^{[7][page needed]} Recent attempts have allowed Frisian be used somewhat more in some of the domains of education, media and public administration.^{[13][page needed]} Nevertheless, Saterland Frisian and most dialects of North Frisian are seriously endangered^[14] and West Frisian is considered as vulnerable to being endangered.^[15] Moreover, for all advances in integrating Frisian in daily life, there is still a lack of education and media awareness of the Frisian language, perhaps reflecting its rural origins and its lack of prestige^{[16][page needed]} Therefore, in a sociological sense it is considered more a dialect than a standard language, even though linguistically it is a separate language.^{[16][page needed]}

For L2 speakers, both the quality and amount of time Frisian is taught in the classroom is low, concluding that Frisian lessons do not contribute meaningfully to the linguistic and cultural development of the students.^{[7][page needed]} Moreover, Frisian runs the risk of dissolving into Dutch, especially in Friesland, where both languages are used.^{[13][page needed]}

 

In the Early Middle Ages the Frisian lands stretched from the area around Bruges, in what is now Belgium, to the river Weser, in northern Germany. At that time, the Frisian language was spoken along the entire southern North Sea coast. Today this region is sometimes referred to as Great Frisia or Frisia Magna, and many of the areas within it still treasure their Frisian heritage, even though in most places the Frisian languages have been lost.

Frisian is the language most closely related to English and Scots, but after at least five hundred years of being subject to the influence of Dutch, modern Frisian in some aspects bears a greater similarity to Dutch than to English; one must also take into account the centuries-long drift of English away from Frisian. Thus the two languages have become less mutually intelligible over time, partly due to the influence which Dutch and Low German have had on Frisian, and partly due to the vast influence some languages (in particular Norman French) have had on English throughout the centuries.

Old Frisian,^{[8][page needed]} however, was very similar to Old English. Historically, both English and Frisian are marked by the loss of the Germanic nasal in words like us (ús; uns in German), soft (sêft; sanft) or goose (goes; Gans): see Anglo-Frisian nasal spirant law. Also, when followed by some vowels, the Germanic k softened to a ch sound; for example, the Frisian for cheese and church is tsiis and tsjerke, whereas in Dutch it is kaas and kerk, and in High German the respective words are Käse and Kirche. Contrarily, this did not happen for chin and choose, which are kin and kieze.^{[17][18][better source needed]}

One rhyme demonstrates the palpable similarity between Frisian and English: "Butter, bread and green cheese is good English and good Frisian," which is pronounced more or less the same in both languages (West Frisian: "Bûter, brea en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk.")^{[19][page needed]}

One major difference between Old Frisian and modern Frisian is that in the Old Frisian period (c. 1150 – c. 1550) grammatical cases still existed. Some of the texts that are preserved from this period are from the 12th or 13th, but most are from the 14th and 15th centuries. Generally, all these texts are restricted to legalistic writings. Although the earliest definite written examples of Frisian are from approximately the 9th century, there are a few examples of runic inscriptions from the region which are probably older and possibly in the Frisian language. These runic writings however usually do not amount to more than single- or few-word inscriptions, and cannot be said to constitute literature as such. The transition from the Old Frisian to the Middle Frisian period (c.1550-c.1820) in the 16th century is based on the fairly abrupt halt in the use of Frisian as a written language.

Up until the 15th century, Frisian was a language widely spoken and written, but from 1500 onwards it became an almost exclusively oral language, mainly used in rural areas. This was in part due to the occupation of its stronghold, the Dutch province of Friesland (Fryslân), in 1498, by Albert III, Duke of Saxony, who replaced West Frisian as the language of government with Dutch.

Afterwards this practice was continued under the Habsburg rulers of the Netherlands (the German Emperor Charles V and his son, the Spanish King Philip II), and even when the Netherlands became independent, in 1585, West Frisian did not regain its former status. The reason for this was the rise of Holland as the dominant part of the Netherlands, and its language, Dutch, as the dominant language in judicial, administrative and religious affairs.

In this period the great Frisian poet Gysbert Japiks (1603–66), a schoolteacher and cantor from the city of Bolsward, who largely fathered modern West Frisian literature and orthography, was really an exception to the rule.

His example was not followed until the 19th century, when entire generations of West Frisian authors and poets appeared. This coincided with the introduction of the so-called newer breaking system, a prominent grammatical feature in almost all West Frisian dialects, with the notable exception of Southwest Frisian. Therefore, the Modern West Frisian period is considered to have begun at this point in time, around 1820.

The revival of the West Frisian Language was led by the poet Gysbert Japiks, who had begun to write in the language as a way to show that it was possible, and created a collective West Frisian identity and West Frisian standard of writing through his poetry.^{[20][page needed]} Later on, Johannes Hilarides would build off Gysbert Japiks' work by building on West Frisian orthography, particularly on its pronunciation; he also, unlike Japiks, set a standard of the West Frisian language that focused more heavily on how the common people used it as an everyday language.^{[20][page needed]}

Perhaps the most important figure in the spreading of the West Frisian language was minister Joost. H. Halbertsma (1789–1869), who translated many works into the West Frisian language, such as the New Testament ^{[20][page needed]} He had however, like Hilarides, focused mostly on the vernacular of the West Frisian language, where he focused on translating texts, plays and songs for the lower and middle classes in order to teach and expand the West Frisian language.^{[20][page needed]} The compiled literary work of the Halbertsma brothers (Joost, Tjalling, and Eeltje), Rimen en Teltsjes, is regarded as the standard Frisian literary work. This had begun the effort to continuously preserve the West Frisian language, which continues unto this day. It was however not until the first half of the 20th century that the West Frisian revival movement began to gain strength, not only through its language, but also through its culture and history, supporting singing and acting in West Frisian in order to facilitate West Frisian speaking.^{[16][page needed]}

It was not until 1960 that Dutch began to dominate West Frisian in Friesland; with many non-Frisian immigrants into Friesland, the language gradually began to diminish, and survives now only due to the constant effort of scholars and organisations.^{[20][page needed]} In recent years, it has been the province of Friesland, rather than the language itself, that has become a more important part of the West Frisian identity; as such, the language has become less important for cultural preservation purposes.^{[21][page needed]} It is especially written West Frisian that seems to have trouble surviving, with only 30% of the West Frisian population competent in it;^{[21][page needed]} it went out of use in the 16th century and continues to be barely taught today.^{[22][page needed]}

Frisian-language signs

 

Bilingual signs Hindeloopen in Friesland (Netherlands) with the West Frisian name above and the Dutch below

 

Bilingual sign in Niebüll in North Frisia (Germany) with the German name above and the North Frisian name below

 

Bilingual sign in Ramsloh, Saterland (Germany) with the German name above and the East Frisian name below

Frisian languages belong to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages, the most widespread language family in Europe and the world. Its closest living genealogical relatives are the Anglic languages, i.e. English and Scots (Anglo-Frisian languages); together with the also closely related Low Saxon dialects the two groups make up the group of North Sea Germanic languages.

NB:
* See also West Frisian language#Sample text.
** Which was changed to "who", in earth to "on earth," and them that to "those who" in the 1928 version of the Church of England prayer book and used in other later Anglican prayer books too. The words given here are those of the 1662 book.

• English: The boy stroked the girl about the chin and kissed her on the cheeks.
• Saterland Frisian: Die Wänt strookede dät Wucht uum ju Keeuwe un oapede hier ap do Sooken.
• North Frisian (Mooring dialect): Di dreng aide dåt foomen am dåt kan än mäket har aw da siike.
• Nordfriesisch (Söl'ring): Di Dreeng strekt dit faamen om't Ken en taatjet / kleepet höör üp di Sjaken
• West Frisian: De jonge streake it famke om it kin en tute har op 'e wangen.
• Gronings: t Jong fleerde t wicht om kinne tou en smokte heur op wange.
• East Frisian Low Saxon: De Jung (Fent) straktde dat Wicht um't Kinn to un tuutjede hör up de Wangen.
• German: Der Junge streichelte das Mädchen ums Kinn und küsste es (sie) auf die Wangen.
• Dutch: De jongen aaide (streelde, streek) het meisje langs/over haar/de kin en kuste/zoende haar op de wangen.
• Afrikaans: Die seun streel die meisie oor haar/die ken en soen haar op die wange.
• Danish: Drengen strøg/aede pigen på hagen og kyssede hende på kinderne.
• Norwegian (Bokmål): Gutten strøk jenta på haken og kysset henne på kinnene.
• Norwegian (Nynorsk): Guten strauk jenta på haka og kyssa henne på kinna.

NB: These are not always literal translations of each other.

• East Frisian Low Saxon
• Frisia
• Frisian Islands
• Frisians
• Imperativus pro infinitivo

 

North Frisian edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

West Frisian edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Saterland Frisian edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Ferring Stiftung, a foundation from North Frisia
• West-Frisian-English dictionary
• [PDF]Hewett, Waterman Thomas, The Frisian language and literature
• 'Hover & Hear' West Frisian pronunciations, and compare with equivalents in English and other Germanic languages.
• "Frisian: Standardisation in Progress of a Language in Decay" (PDF). (231 KiB)
• Radio in West Frisian
• Radio news in North Frisian
• Online (German-Frisian) Dictionary for multiple North Frisian dialects