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27-475: 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

54-674: A Proto-Anglo-Frisian language as disproven, as far as such postulates are falsifiable. Nevertheless, the close ties and strong similarities between the Anglic and the Frisian grouping are part of the scientific consensus . Therefore, the concept of Anglo-Frisian languages can be useful and is today employed without these implications. Geography isolated the settlers of Great Britain from Continental Europe , except from contact with communities capable of open water navigation. This resulted in more Old Norse and Norman language influences during

81-554: A group of closely related dialects that underwent several areal changes in relative unison. The extinction of two little-attested and presumably North Sea Germanic languages, Old Old Anglian and Old Jutish , in their homelands (modern southern Schleswig and Jutland respectively), mat have led to a form of " survivorship bias " in classification. Since Old Anglian and Jutish were, like Old Saxon, direct ancestors of Old English, it might follow that Old Saxon, Old Anglian and/or Jutish were more closely related to English than any of them

108-910: A process known as "breaking". An unrelated sound change where /i/ became /iu/ if /u/ or /w/ followed in the next syllable occurred later, after I-mutation. Vowels were fronted or raised in before /i/ , /j/ a process called I-mutation : The old Germanic diphthongs * ai and * au become ē / ā and ā , respectively, in Old Frisian, as in ēn / ān ("one") from Proto-Germanic * ainaz , and brād from * braudą ("bread"). In comparison, these diphthongs become ā and ēa ( ān and brēad ) in Old English, and ē and ō ( ēn and brōd ) in Old Saxon. The diphthong * eu generally becomes ia , and Germanic * iu

135-457: A single or few words. Old Frisian had three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), two numbers (singular and plural), and four cases (Nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, although traces of an instrumental and locative case exist) Dual forms are unattested in Old Frisian but their presence is confirmed by their continued existence in later Frisian dialects until the mid-20th century. A significant portion of Old Frisian nouns fall into

162-516: Is attested in only a few personal names and place-names. Old Frisian evolved into Middle Frisian , spoken from the 16th to the 19th century. In the early Middle Ages, Frisia stretched from the area around Bruges , in what is now Belgium , to the Weser River in northern Germany . At the time, the Frisian language was spoken along the entire southern North Sea coast. This region is referred to as Greater Frisia or Magna Frisia , and many of

189-859: Is considered disproved by some scholars. These are the words for the numbers one to 12 in the Anglo-Frisian languages, with Dutch, West-Flemish and German included for comparison: * Ae [eː] , [jeː] is an adjectival form used before nouns. North Sea Germanic , also known as Ingvaeonic, is a proposed grouping of the West Germanic languages that encompasses Old Frisian , Old English , and Old Saxon . The North Sea Germanic grouping may be regarded as an alternative to Anglo-Frisian, or as ancestral to it. Since Anglo-Frisian features occur in Low German – especially in its older stages such as Old Saxon – some scholars regard

216-682: Is part of its mainland district of Pinneberg ). North Frisian has approximately 8,000 speakers. The East Frisian language is spoken by only about 2,000 people; speakers are located in Saterland in Germany. There are no known East Frisian dialects, but there are three dialects of West Frisian and ten of North Frisian. The following is a summary of the major sound changes affecting vowels in chronological order. For additional detail, see Phonological history of Old English . That these were simultaneous and in that order for all Anglo-Frisian languages

243-424: Is retained. These diphthongs initially began with a syllabic (stressed) i , but the stress later shifts to the second component, giving to iā and iū . For example, thiād ("people") and liūde from Proto-Germanic * þeudō and * liudīz . Old Frisian ( c.  1150  – c.  1550 ) retained grammatical cases . Some of the texts that are preserved from this period are from

270-619: The Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law , which is present in Low German as well, Anglo-Frisian brightening and palatalization of /k/ are for the most part unique to the modern Anglo-Frisian languages: The grouping is usually implied as a separate branch in regards to the tree model . According to this reading, English and Frisian would have had a proximal ancestral form in common that no other attested group shares. The early Anglo-Frisian varieties, like Old English and Old Frisian , and

297-635: The Netherlands and Germany . West Frisian , by far the most spoken of the three main branches with 875,840 total speakers, constitutes an official language in the Dutch province of Friesland . North Frisian is spoken on some North Frisian Islands and parts of mainland North Frisia in the northernmost German district of Nordfriesland , and also in Heligoland in the German Bight , both part of Schleswig-Holstein state (Heligoland

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324-557: The palatalisation of velar consonants also found in Old English. For example, whereas the closely related Old Saxon and Old Dutch retain the velar in dag , Old Frisian has dei and Old English has dæġ [dæj] . When initial and followed by front vowels the Germanic /k/ , changed to the sounds /ts/ and /j/ . Proto-Germanic /ɣ/ became /j/ after /e/ , and word-initially before front vowels. Proto-Germanic /g/ , where it existed, became /dz/ . The Old Frisian for church

351-462: The 12th or 13th century, but most are from the 14th and 15th centuries. Generally, all these texts are restricted to legal writings. Although the earliest written examples of Frisian—stray words in a Latin context—are from approximately the 9th century, there are a few examples of runic inscriptions from the region which are older and in a very early form of the Frisian language. These runic writings however usually consist of no more than inscriptions of

378-501: The 13th century, in particular official and legal documents. They show a considerable degree of linguistic uniformity. Anglo-Frisian languages Anglic: Frisian : The Anglo-Frisian languages are the Anglic ( English , Scots , Fingallian †, and Yola †) and Frisian ( North Frisian , East Frisian , and West Frisian ) varieties of the West Germanic languages . The Anglo-Frisian languages are distinct from other West Germanic languages due to several sound changes : besides

405-470: The Modern Frisian period is considered to have begun at this point in time, around 1820. This article about Germanic languages is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Netherlands -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Germany -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Old Frisian Old Frisian

432-497: The North Sea Germanic classification as more meaningful than a sharp division into Anglo-Frisian and Low German. In other words, because Old Saxon came under strong Old High German and Old Low Franconian influence at an early stage, it lost some North Sea Germanic features, that it had previously shared with Old English and Old Frisian. North Sea Germanic is not thought of as a monolithic proto-language , but rather as

459-558: 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

486-473: The a-stem declension pattern. Most a-stem nouns are masculine or neuter. Certain words like dei "day" have "g" in the plural endings. All nouns in the ō-stem declension were feminine. The nominative Singular -e comes from the accusative case. There are some early Frisian names preserved in Latin texts, and some runic ( Futhorc ) inscriptions, but the oldest surviving texts in Old Frisian date from

513-716: The areas within it still treasure their Frisian heritage. However, by 1300, their territory had been pushed back to the Zuiderzee (now the IJsselmeer ), and the Frisian language survives along the coast only as a substrate. A close relationship exists between Old Frisian and Old English ; this is due to a shared history, language and culture of the people from Northern Germany and Denmark who came to settle in England from around 400 A.D. onwards. Generally, Old Frisian phonologically resembles Old English. In particular, it shares

540-447: 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,

567-491: The development of Late Modern English , whereas the modern Frisian languages developed under contact with the southern Germanic populations, restricted to the continent. The proposed Anglo-Frisian family tree is: Anglic , Insular Germanic , or English languages encompass Old English and all the linguistic varieties descended from it. These include Middle English , Early Modern English , and Late Modern English ; Early Scots , Middle Scots , and Modern Scots ; and

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594-510: The extinct Fingallian and Yola dialects in Ireland . English-based creole languages are not generally included, as mainly only their lexicon and not necessarily their grammar, phonology, etc. comes from Early Modern English and Late Modern English . The Frisian languages are a group of languages spoken by about 500,000 Frisian people on the southern fringes of the North Sea in

621-458: The gradual spread of the shift from th to d from south to north, beginning in southern Germany in the 9th century, but not reaching Frisian until the 13th or 14th century. Another feature shared between Old Frisian and Old English is the Anglo-Frisian brightening, which fronted a to æ except in certain conditions: Much later, after breaking, /æ/ became /e/ . Before /xx/ , /xs/ , /xt/ , short /e/ , /i/ became /iu/ in

648-644: 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. Afterwards this practice was continued under the Habsburg rulers of the Netherlands (the German Emperor Charles V and his son,

675-551: The third Ingvaeonic group at the time, the ancestor of Low German Old Saxon , were spoken by intercommunicating populations. While this has been cited as a reason for a few traits exclusively shared by Old Saxon and either Old English or Old Frisian, a genetic unity of the Anglo-Frisian languages beyond that of an Ingvaeonic subfamily cannot be considered a majority opinion. In fact, the groupings of Ingvaeonic and West Germanic languages are highly debated, even though they rely on much more innovations and evidence. Some scholars consider

702-488: Was tzirke or tzerke , in Old English it was ċiriċe [ˈtʃiritʃe] , while Old Saxon and Old Dutch have the unpalatalised kirika . Palatalization postdated fronting, and predated monophthongization and i-umlaut. Between vowels, h generally disappears ( sian from * sehwaną ), as in Old English and Old Dutch. Word-initial h- on the other hand is retained. Old Frisian retains th in all positions for longer than Old Dutch and Old Saxon do, showing

729-612: Was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Friesland ) also spoke Old Frisian, but there are no known medieval texts from this area. The language of the earlier inhabitants of the region between the Zuiderzee and Ems River (the Frisii mentioned by Tacitus )

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