Talk:Frisian languages

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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.

Frisian cows? (moved)

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

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.

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

The secret to the Google popularity is that the normal English spelling for the cows is 'Friesian', where as it is normal when referring to the languages and people to use 'Frisian' without an 'e'. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:31, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Number of speakers

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 taught 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 taught French and German that early, which is the reason the Dutch still have a reputation of knowing many foreign languages ;).

It is somewhat politically charged to discount Scots when talking about the Germanic languages most similar to English, and also contradicts content elsewhere on Wikipedia. As I write this, the last sentence of the introduction is Frisian is the living language most closely related to the English language family. I think the phrasing of 'English language family' tempers the controversy, but the link to the English language article counters this. Yet the similarity to English is surely vital in introducing the topic to readers of the English Wikipedia. I am proposing an alternative phrasing Modern Frisian, like Scots, is closely related to the modern English language. What do you think? By the way - for further reading see English language#Classification_and_related_languages. User:anonymous

VincentG, you recently added "although English and Frisian are unintelligible to each other" to the lead section. I am not sure that is true, given the anecdotes above. I am not sure of the need for your edit, as many English speakers, especially those from southern England, find Scots unintelligible (but that is not a problem as nearly all Scots are good English speakers, and unconsciously use code-switching to use standard English to make themselves perfectly well understood.) I personally find simple written Frisian quite intelligible, but that is just another anecdote, and is probably a result of my familiarity with Scots and Northern British varieties of English, which seem to have more in common with Frisian than standard English does.

What do you think? --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:31, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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?

I suspect that both are correct - similar to discussing the German languages (such as Luxemburgish, Swiss German, Low German ....) but other times talking about the German language.--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 09:31, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

Frisian..

Hi, ehm.. if someone will ever read this.. can someone provide with a frisian pronunciation tabel, like those of other languages, i mean those table of consonants and vowels with IPA value, or better a new page like "frisian phonology", i mean there are many languages that have a page dedicated to their phonology, anyway for an exact pronunciation there are many sites, first for a very "table like" pronunciaton there is http://www.omniglot.com/writing/frisian.htm or others ( http://www.allezhop.de/frysk/staver_e.htm ) ..so

Gender

Is it correct that Frisian used to have masculine/feminine/neuter but now has common/neuter? Or is the truth more complicated like the case with Dutch? — Hippietrail 05:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Danish

Are you certain Danish would retain much intelligibility with Frisian? I know Danish has borrowed much vocabulary from Middle Low Saxon (rather closely related to Dutch) and that Friesian seems to have been quite affected by Dutch, but I doubt that would have a significant impact to cause notable intelligibility. (Although the lexical similarity between Danish and Dutch probably is rather high.) 惑乱分からん 10:55, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Move To 'Frisian Language Family' & That Would Make The Necessary Changes To Whatlinkshere Articles, I.E.,: It's Corresponding Disambiguation Page

100110100 20:38, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why make the article title longer? The disambiguation is a separate issue. I propose we change the top note to:

See also East Frisian Low Saxon, which is a variety of German

Then everything is clear. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 21:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One Frisian language?

Despite the header "Frisian is a Germanic group of closely related languages," the article title implies one language. Are the languages (Frysk, Fräisk, Frasch, Freesk, etc.) really close enough to be considered a single language? — AjaxSmack 01:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Official in Netherlands at a national lever?

Maybe the statement that Frisian language is together with Dutch the two official languages of the Netherlands is exaggerated and imprecise. Check Mercator-legislation page on frisian, a specialised study center. It also contradicts with Netherlands#Languages. --Michkalas 18:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ISO 639-3 code

There seems to be a contradiction on the SIL web sites as to the language code for West Frisian (Frysk). The SIL ISO 639-3 website uses the code fry, while Ethnologue uses fri. This confusion is carried over to Wikipedia. This article has fri, while the West Frisian article has fry. - Parsa 00:31, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Frisian Middle English

Hello, could someone maybe put in the article that Frisian is close to Middle English (...) mainly because they were one of the tribes that along with the Saxons and Angles invaded England; and with the Angles they put the basis for English? Don't know the years right now but still. I read in an article, don't remember it was this one or the Old Frisian...that the two languages were related. 81.69.203.77 20:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC) Mallerd[reply]