Introduction to Frisian

From UniLang Wiki

Frisian is a West-Germanic language spoken along the south coast of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany up to the Danish border.
Frisian has some properties in common with English like
- assibilation of k: Fris. tsjerke, Engl. church against Dutch kerk, German Kirche.
- unrounding of vowels: Fris. fiele, Engl. to feel against Dutch voelen, German fühlen.
In addition it has a number of properties of its own like
- breaking of vowels (like North Germanic): Fris. tsjok against Engl. thick, Dutch dik, German dick. (Cf. Swedish tjock.)
- preservation of the second class of weak verbs: Fris. keapje ‘to buy’ against Dutch kopen, German kaufen.

The Frisii were already mentioned by the Romans since the beginning of our era, but signs of a Frisian language do not appear before 700 A.D., particularly in names. Only from 1323 on manuscripts in Old Frisian are preserved, mainly lawbooks. These sources dry soon up after 1500, as the Frisian freedom was lost.
An interesting thing in Frisian is its great dialectal difference, where all dialects differ considerably from Old Frisian. A possible reason of that difference: [[1]].

Some words about the human head to show dialect difference; successively continental North Frisian (Mooring), insular North Frisian (Ferring), Sater Frisian and West Frisian contrasted to English, Dutch, and German:

English	NorthC	NorthI	Sater	West	Dutch	German
head	hood	hood	Kop	holle	hoofd	Kopf
forehead	foorhood	braanj	Stierne	foarholle	voorhoofd	Stirn
eye	uug	uug	Ooge	each	oog	Auge
nose	noos	nöös	Noose	noas	neus	Nase
mouth	müs	mös	Mule	mûle	mond	Mund
tooth	täis	tus	Tusk	tosk	tand	Zahn
chin	kan	kan	Keeue	kin	kin	Kinn
cheek	siik	sjuuk	Sooke	wang	wang	Wange
temple	teening	--	Tuddenge	sliep	slaap	Schläfe
ear	uur	uar	Oor	ear	oor	Ohr

Characteristic words in italics.

For Frisian language and history in general, much can be found at [[2]].