Re: CHAT: Frisian

 --- Roberto Suarez Soto wrote:

>         Sorry to play the fool, but ... what language is frisian? I've
> heard of it sometimes, but it seemed to me like a dead language, like
> latin :-m Am I very wrong?
Dead? Not at all, Frisian is just a small language, spoken mainly in Friesland
(a Northern province of the Netherlands). The regions where the language is
spoken stretches from the IJsselmeer through Northwest Germany to the Danish
border. Once upon a time in the past Frisian existed also in Denmark, but AFAIK
that part is extinct now.

As John wrote, Friesland is officially bilingual. "Our" West Frisian is
perfectly standardized, both as a written and a spoken language. I know very
little about the other dialects (known as East Frisian and North Frisian), all
I can say is that they are vastly outnumbered by West Frisian.

Languages or dialects? That's always a difficult point. Everybody agrees that
Dutch is one language, notwithstanding the fact that it has a huge number of
mutually completely ununderstandable dialects. But Holland has a long history
of statehood, centralization and standardization, a feature that the Frisians,
being the speakers of a minority language scattered over (traditionally) three
countries, lack completely.
Therefore, I would prefer to describe Frisian as one language, subdivided into
three groups of dialects.

Linguistically, Frisian is closest to Anglo-Saxon, but West Frisian orthography
leans as heavily on Dutch orthography as my Wenedyk leans on Polish.

Frisian is essentially Old English spoken and written by a Dutchman who doesn't
even know his own language.

Jan

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com

Replies