Re: CHAT: Frisian

On Fri, 06 Sep 2002 01:50, John Cowan wrote:
> Wesley Parish scripsit:
> > East Frisian I don't know much about, only that there's an enclave of it
> > somewhere in Saxony inland south of Hamburg,
>
> That's East Frisian.
>
> > and the rest of it is spread
> > over the West Coast and related islands of Denmark.
>
> That's North Frisian, which overall is no more like East Frisian than
> either is like West Frisian, except that both North and East are overlaid
> by German, and East is less broken up into dialects just because there are
> so few speakers overall.
Sorry about that - my interest is mostly in the West Frisian, and I haven't
paid _any_ attention to either North or East Frisian.

Mea culpa.

Wesley Parish

>
> > Well, the major sociolinguistic criteria in this case is having some form
> > of written language.  I would say that West Frisian is the defined
> > language, while the question of East Frisian is still up in the air.
>
> I think you can say something stronger: if a lect were to gain a written
> form, would it need a unique one, or can it share with related lects?
> By that standard, North, East, and West Frisian are distinct.
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."