Middle Frisian was a language that evolved from Old Frisian around the year 1550 and was spoken until 1800.[1][2][3]
Up until the 15th century Old Frisian was a language widely spoken and written in what are now the northern Netherlands and north-western Germany, 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 – when Duke Albert III, Duke of Saxony, replaced Frisian as the language of government with Dutch. As late as 1599, the London dramatist Thomas Dekker could introduce whole scenes in the mixed Frisian-Dutch argot of the coast in The Shoemaker's Holiday, in confidence that his English-speaking audience could follow it.[4]
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, 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 Japix (1603–1666), a schoolmaster and cantor from the city of Boalsert, seen as the father of modern West Frisian literature and spelling, was an exception to the trend. His example was not followed until the 19th century, when new 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 Súdwesthoeksk. Therefore, the Modern Frisian period is considered to have begun at this point in time, around 1820.
The Frisian languages are a closely related group of West Germanic languages, spoken by about 400,000 Frisian people, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. The Frisian languages are the closest living language group to the Anglic languages; the two groups make up the Anglo-Frisian languages group and together with the Low German dialects these form the North Sea Germanic languages. However, modern English and Frisian are not mutually intelligible, nor are Frisian languages intelligible among themselves, owing to independent linguistic innovations and language contact with neighboring languages.
The Frisians are an ethnic group indigenous to the coastal regions of the Netherlands, north-western Germany and southern Denmark, and during the Early Middle Ages in the north-western coastal zone of Flanders, Belgium. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, East Frisia and North Frisia.
Frisia is a cross-border cultural region in Northwestern Europe. Stretching along the Wadden Sea, it encompasses the north of the Netherlands and parts of northwestern Germany. Wider definitions of ‘Frisia’ may include the island of Rem and the other Danish Wadden Sea Islands. The region is traditionally inhabited by the Frisians, a West Germanic ethnic group.
In historical and comparative linguistics, Low Franconian is a linguistic category used to classify a number of historical and contemporary West Germanic varieties closely related to, and including, the Dutch language. Most dialects and languages included within this category are spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium (Flanders), in the Nord department of France, in western Germany, as well as in Suriname, South Africa and Namibia.
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages. The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into three branches: Ingvaeonic, which includes English and the Frisian languages; Istvaeonic, which encompasses Dutch and its close relatives; and Irminonic, which includes German and its close relatives and variants.
Low German is a West Germanic language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide.
Stadsfries or Town Frisian is a set of dialects spoken in certain cities in the province of Friesland in the northern Netherlands, namely Leeuwarden, Sneek, Bolsward, Franeker, Dokkum, Harlingen, Stavoren, and to some extent in Heerenveen. For linguistic reasons, the outlying and insular dialects of Midsland (Terschelling), Ameland, Het Bildt, and Kollum are also sometimes tied to Stadsfries.
West Frisian, or simply Frisian, is a West Germanic language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands, mostly by those of Frisian ancestry. It is the most widely spoken of the Frisian languages.
Saterland Frisian, also known as Sater Frisian, Saterfrisian or Saterlandic, spoken in the Saterland municipality of Lower Saxony in Germany, is the last living dialect of the East Frisian language. It is closely related to the other Frisian languages: North Frisian, spoken in Germany as well, and West Frisian, spoken in the Dutch province of Friesland.
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German. It is a West Germanic language, closely related to the Anglo-Frisian languages. It is documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it gradually evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken throughout modern northwestern Germany, primarily in the coastal regions and in the eastern Netherlands by Saxons, a Germanic tribe that inhabited the region of Saxony. It partially shares Anglo-Frisian's Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law which sets it apart from Low Franconian and Irminonic languages, such as Dutch, Luxembourgish and German.
Final-obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as Catalan, German, Dutch, Quebec French, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voiced obstruents in final position become voiceless before voiceless consonants and in pausa. The process can be written as *C[+ obstruent, +voice] → C[-voice]/__#.
The Anglo-Frisian languages are the Anglic and Frisian varieties of the West Germanic languages.
Dutch is a West Germanic language, that originated from the Old Frankish dialects.
The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Both Belgium and the Netherlands derived their names from earlier names for the region, due to nether meaning "low" and Belgica being the Latinized name for all the Low Countries, a nomenclature that became obsolete after Belgium's secession in 1830.
Dutch dialects are primarily the dialects that are both cognate with the Dutch language and spoken in the same language area as the Dutch standard language. They are remarkably diverse and are found within Europe mainly in the Netherlands and northern Belgium.
Dutch is a West Germanic language, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the native language of most of the population of the Netherlands and Flanders. In South America, it is the native language of the majority of the population of Suriname, and spoken as a second language in the polyglot Caribbean island countries of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. All these countries have recognised Dutch as one of their official languages, and are involved in one way or another in the Dutch Language Union. Dutch Caribbean municipalities have Dutch as one of the official languages too. Up to half a million native speakers reside in the United States, Canada and Australia combined, and historical linguistic minorities on the verge of extinction remain in parts of France and Germany.
The grammar of the West Frisian language, a West Germanic language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland (Fryslân) in the north of the Netherlands, is similar to other West Germanic languages, most notably Dutch. West Frisian is more analytic than its ancestor language Old Frisian, largely abandoning the latter's case system. It features two genders and inflects nouns in the singular and plural numbers.
This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the West Frisian language.
Frisian nationalism refers to the nationalism which views Frisians as a nation with a shared culture. Frisian nationalism seeks to achieve greater levels of autonomy for Frisian people, and also supports the cultural unity of all Frisians regardless of modern-day territorial borders. The Frisians derive their name from the Frisii, an ancient Germanic tribe which inhabited the northern coastal areas in what today is the northern Netherlands, although historical research has indicated a lack of direct ethnic continuity between the ancient Frisii and later medieval 'Frisians' from whom modern Frisians descend. In the Middle Ages, these Frisians formed the Kingdom of Frisia and later the Frisian freedom confederation, before being subsumed by stronger foreign powers up to this day.
The Anglo-Saxon settlement in the Netherlands was a movement of continental Angles, Saxons, Franks and possibly English Anglo-Saxons into the lands formerly inhabited by the ancient Frisii, Cananefates and Batavians. These migrations occurred after the population drop of the Frisii during the 5th century up until the 7th century. These new migrants from northwestern Germany were later referred to as the Frisians by the Merovingian Franks who may have taken this name from older Roman historiography. During these migrations, almost the entire population of the coastal Netherlands was demographically replaced.
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