Talk:Frisian languages

Does anyone else find it HIGHLY improbable that Frisian is really in the top 20 for Google? Is that a separatist movement raising a profile by executing web searches? I can say anecdotally that in my lifetime I've read more about Frisians the cows than about Frisian the language, and I'm a medievalist (a time when Frisia actually existed as a tribal group and a place. St. Wilibrod, Apostle to the Frisians, is of mild interest to me.) --MichaelTinkler

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There are two explanations for this. One would be that it is simply co-incidence. This is based only on 4 hits on one day, it might just be that by coincidence on 25 May there were a few of these searches. Another would be that the page contains some words that make it come up in Google for some on mildly related search term, and people look at the page without realising it's not what they are really looking for.

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Ahah! Then there were dairy farmers on the web. I don't think I realized what this was until I clicked - pages HERE discovered in a Google search. Thanks. --MichaelTinkler

I removed the stubs for subpages - all that information (if and when someone actually puts some information on Frisian phonology, etc., into wikipedia) belongs on the page, not on subpages, as per French language, Hebrew language, Arabic language, etc.

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Does someone have some recent information about the number of speakers? I've seen the 700,000 figure at ethnologue, but it was for the 1970s. I find 730,000 a bit optimistic, when there are only 440,000 speakers inside Friesland. Guaka 15:30, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I got the figures from ethnologue - so I don't have anything better. Secretlondon 15:34, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Like English

Is it true that this language is closer to English than any other currently spoken language? Just curious... Tuf-Kat 07:31, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Yes - if you count Scots as a variety of English and ignore English-based creoles. It's not that obvious when you look at modern English and Frisian together, because they've been evolving seperately for over a millennium, and English has been heavily inflenced by French while Frisian has been influenced by Dutch and German. Nevertheless, when you compare the same word in English, Frisian, Dutch and German, it is clear that English and Frisian resemble each other more than the other two; e.g. Eng. cheese, Fr. tsiis, Du. kaas and Germ. Käse or Eng. key, Fr. kaai, Du. sleutel and Germ. Schlüssel. Hedgehog 10:21, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It could also be because linguists are basing their judgement on the oldest stages of the languages, rather than the modern lexicon (unless the original language gets nearly dwarfed in borrowings or similar) .

I looked at the Tok Pisin wikipedia, and I believe Friesian is actually closer to english, than some of the creoles... =P

My father tells me that, as a British Army officer in the liberation of Frisia in 1945, he was able to make himself understood in (and understand) Frisian simply by speaking slowly in English. He couldn't do that anywhere else! Has anyone tried more recently?

Nowadays all Dutch children are being thought English starting at age 10, and that's not counting the influence of English television series. So I think you won't have a hard time making yourself understood :D. In the old days kids were also thought French and German that early, which is the reason the Dutch still have a reputation of knowing many foreign languages ;).

The Name

What does the "Fries"/"Fris" etc. in Frisian mean? If it comes from a geographical name, what does the name mean? Considering that all of High German, Dutch and West Frisian use an "ie" vowel combination in their words for freeze, It seems probable that it somehow derives from the word "Freeze". Is that correct?

(In Frysk "Fris" means cools/fresh.) The word Frisian/Frisii/Friezen is known from roman times. It probably referred to tribes living in the north-west of what are now The Netherlands , and has done so ever since (though whether the same tribes kept living there is a matter of debate). This Frisii is sometimes taken to be derived from Germanic Freisias , from Indo-European Preisios. From there interpretations have ranged from the peaceful, by way of the friends (as opposed to the enemy romans or as opposed to the tribesmen of some germanic tribe?), to the sons of Freya. Other explanations include the low/wet dwellers en the fierce. Aliter 17:50, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As stated above, It could have the same root as modern English "Free", Old English/Anglo-Saxon "Ferth", Old Norse "Frith" and be associated with the old Germanic gods Freyr & Freya. It means 'plenty', 'prosperity', 'freedom', 'harvest', 'peace', 'pleasure', 'comfort' etc. With no direct modern English equivalent. Nagelfar 13:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Topic

The page now has: This page covers the West Frisian language, spoken in the Netherlands. For other Frisian languages see Frisian language (disambiguation). It continues with a treatment of the super language, with only occasional reference to West-Frisian. Something is not quite right there. Aliter 17:50, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Former capitalisation of common nouns?

I've either read or heard that several Germanic languages besides German used to capitalise all common nouns. In Danish this practice was abolished in a spelling reform in the late 1940s. Can anybody tell me if this was ever practiced in Frisian and if so when was it abolished? — Hippietrail 16:56, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're wrong on this one, Old English certainly did not capitalise nouns, I don't think Dutch did either, nor Swedish, Noregian or Icelandic. It's one of those things the just happened to arise when German and Danish orthographys were divised, for no reason at all. All West Germanic "dialects" spoken within German, Austrian, and Swiss borders happen to be written this way (I'm not sure about Luxemburgish), and dialects in the same continiuum within Dutch and Belguim borders happen not to capitalise nouns.Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian)(talk)

At the time of Old English (up to the end of the 11th century) no western European languages had a standard system of capitalization as we think of it today — capital letters were used primarily for visual purposes, e.g. to start a new section of a text or otherwise emphasize a word (the same way you might choose a font today). By the early modern English period in the 16th century, you do start to see some capitalization of common nouns in printed English texts, and if I recall correctly, you can find it right on through the 18th century, though it's not a rule that everyone followed. After that, different languages/countries/regions standardized orthography in different ways, formally or informally. David 16:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Colonial Frisian?

While Frisian is a "minority language" in Europe, I been wondering if there ever have been Frisian "minoritys" in coloys of the Western world. For example, the Europen colonists in both Canada and what is today the USA (Nice play Shakespeare, Racine, Goethe, etc/usw) arived speaking many different European languages, including French and German (I wonder how many and which dialects they arrived speaking), did any (significant group) arrive speaking Frisian or any other European minority language?Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian)(talk)

Does Kent count? ThW5 20:48, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Language or Language Group?

In some places in this article, Frisian is called one language, but then in other places the "Frisian Languages" are mentioned. Which is correct?

Audio samples

Does anyone know if there are any audio samples of a Frisian language available on the net?--Blackfield 15:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)