West Frisian (Frysk) is a language Language is a term most commonly used to refer to so called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. By extension the term also refers to the type of human thought process which creates and uses language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation, maintenance and use of systems of spoken mostly in the province of Friesland Fryslân ( pronunciation , West Frisian, official: Fryslân, Dutch: Friesland) is a province in the north of the Netherlands (Fryslân) in the north of the Netherlands The Netherlands (pronounced /ˈnɛðɚləndz/ ; Dutch: Nederland, pronounced [ˈneːdərlɑnt] ( listen)) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in North-West Europe. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany. West Frisian is the name by which this language is usually known outside of the Netherlands, to distinguish it from the closely related Frisian languages The Frisian languages are a closely related group of Germanic languages, spoken by about 500,000 members of Frisian ethnic groups, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany. The Frisian languages are the most closely related living European languages to English, although Scots is sometimes of Saterland Frisian Saterland Frisian, also known as Sater Frisian or Saterlandic , is the last living dialect of the East Frisian language. It is closely related to the other Frisian languages—North Frisian, which, like Saterland Frisian, is spoken in Germany and West Frisian, which is spoken in the Netherlands and North Frisian North Frisian is a minority language of Germany, spoken by about 10,000 people in North Frisia. There are two main dialectal divisions: those of the mainland and the insular dialects. There is no standard variety, although some have suggested the mainland Mooring dialect. The language is part of the larger group of the West Germanic Frisian, which are spoken in Germany A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, has been known and documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern Germany became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. As a modern nation-state,. Within the Netherlands however, the West Frisian language is the language of the province of Fryslân and is virtually always just called Frisian: Fries in Dutch Dutch ( Nederlands ) is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language and over 5 million people as a second language. Most native speakers live in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, with smaller groups of speakers in parts of France, Germany and several former Dutch colonies. It is closely related to other, and Frysk in Frisian; Westfries (literary West Frisian) is the Dutch name of the West Frisian dialect spoken in Westfriesland, a region in the province of North Holland North Holland (Dutch: Noord-Holland, pronunciation , West Frisian: Noard-Holland) is a province situated on the North Sea in the northwest part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is Haarlem and its largest city is Amsterdam.

The 'official' name used by linguists in the Netherlands to indicate the West Frisian language is Westerlauwers Fries (West Lauwers Frisian), the Lauwers The Lauwers is a river in the Netherlands. It forms part of the border between the provinces of Friesland and Groningen. From the 730's to Widukind's defeat in 785 it was part of the border of the Frankish Empire being a border stream which separates the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen Groningen pronunciation is the northeasternmost province of the Netherlands. In the east it borders the German state of Niedersachsen (districts of Leer and Emsland), in the south Drenthe, in the west Friesland and in the north the Wadden Sea. The capital of the province is the city of Groningen.

Speakers

Most speakers of West Frisian live in the province of Friesland Fryslân ( pronunciation , West Frisian, official: Fryslân, Dutch: Friesland) is a province in the north of the Netherlands in the north of the Netherlands The Netherlands (pronounced /ˈnɛðɚləndz/ ; Dutch: Nederland, pronounced [ˈneːdərlɑnt] ( listen)) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in North-West Europe. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany. This province was formerly officially called Friesland, but officially changed its name to Fryslân in 1997. The province has 643,000 inhabitants (2005); of these 94% can understand spoken Frisian, 74% can speak Frisian, 75% can read Frisian, and 26% can write it.^[1]

For over half of the inhabitants of the province of Friesland, 55% (c. 354,000 people), Frisian is the native language. In the central east, Frisian speakers spill over the province border, with some 4–6,000 of them actually living in the province of Groningen Groningen pronunciation is the northeasternmost province of the Netherlands. In the east it borders the German state of Niedersachsen (districts of Leer and Emsland), in the south Drenthe, in the west Friesland and in the north the Wadden Sea. The capital of the province is the city of Groningen, in the triangular area of the villages Marum (Frisian: Mearum), De Wilp (De Wylp), and Opende (De Grinzer Pein).^[2]

Also, many Frisians have left their province in the last sixty years for more prosperous parts of the Netherlands. Therefore, possibly as many as 150,000 Frisian speakers live in other Dutch provinces now, particularly in the urban agglomeration in the West, and in neighbouring Groningen and newly reclaimed Flevoland Flevoland pronunciation is a province of the Netherlands. Located in the centre of the country, at the location of the former Zuiderzee, the province was established on January 1, 1986; the twelfth province of the country, with Lelystad as its capital. The province has approximately 370,000 inhabitants (2005[update]) and consists of 6.

In addition, there is a surprisingly large Frisian diaspora abroad, with Friesland having had in relative terms the highest percentage of emigrants of all Dutch provinces between the Second World War Albania · Australia · Austria · Azerbaijan · Belarus · Belgium · Brazil · Bulgaria · Burma · Cambodia · Canada · Ceylon (Sri Lanka) · Channel Islands · China · Czechoslovakia · Denmark · Dutch East Indies · Egypt · Estonia · Finland · France · Germany · Gibraltar · Greece · Greenland · Hong Kong · Hungary · Iceland · and the 1970s. It is estimated that there may be as many as 80–100,000 Frisian speakers scattered around the world, with the largest concentrations located in Canada The land occupied by Canada was inhabited for millennia by various groups of Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored, and later settled, along the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three, the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language, Australia For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of the roughly 250 language groups. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the immediate north and discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by the British, and New Zealand New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori language name for New Zealand is Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud. The Realm of New Zealand also. Therefore, the total number of Frisian speakers in the world today may be as high as 600,000. The West Frisian surname perhaps most familiar to Americans is Dykstra.^{[citation needed]}

Apart from the use of Frisian as a first language, it is also spoken as a second language by about 120,000 people in the province of Friesland. ^[3]

Dialects

The West Frisian language consists of eight mutually intelligible dialects, of which four are widely spoken and the other four are confined to small communities of less than a hundred to several hundreds of speakers.

The least-used dialect of West Frisian is Skiermûntseagersk, the island dialect of Schiermonnikoog Schiermonnikoog ( pronunciation ; West Frisian: Skiermûntseach) is an island, a municipality, and a national park in the northern Netherlands. Schiermonnikoog is one of the West Frisian Islands, and is part of the province of Friesland (Frisian: Skiermûntseach), which is actually on the verge of extinction, spoken as it is by no more than 50-100 people (out of an island population of 900 people).

Hylpersk (in Dutch known as Hindeloopers), the archaic Frisian dialect of the peninsular harbour town of Hindeloopen (Hylpen), on the west coast, is still spoken by some 300 people at the most.

Skylgersk (also known as Westersk) and Aastersk are the dialects of the western and eastern parts of the island of Terschelling Terschelling ( pronunciation ; West Frisian: Skylge; Terschelling dialect: Schylge) is a municipality and an island in the northern Netherlands, one of the West Frisian Islands (Skylge) and have about 800 and 400 speakers respectively. They are separated from each other by the Dutch dialect of Midslands, which is spoken in the central part of Terschelling.

Because of their insular nature these four less-used dialects are also those that have deviated the most from mainstream Frisian. In fact, three of the four widely used mainland dialects are so much alike that a non-Frisian could probably not make out any differences.

The fourth mainland dialect, that of Súdwesthoeksk ("South Western"), which is spoken in an area called de Súdwesthoeke ("the South West Corner"), deviates from mainstream Frisian in that it does not adhere to the so-called newer breaking system, a prominent grammatical feature in the three other main dialects.

The Noardhoeksk ("Northern") dialect is spoken in the north eastern corner of the province. It actually differs from Wâldfrysk so little that it is quite often not acknowledged to be a dialect within its own right, but merely the northern variety of Wâldfrysk.

By far the two most widely spoken West Frisian dialects are Klaaifrysk and Wâldfrysk. Both these names are derived from the Frisian landscape. In the western and north-western parts of the province, the region where Klaaifrysk is spoken, the soil is made up of thick marine clay, hence the name Klaaifrysk, which literally means "Clay Frisian". While in the Klaaifrysk speaking area ditches are used to separate the pastures, in the eastern part of the province, where the soil is sandy, and water sinks away much faster, rows of trees are used to that purpose. Therefore, the dialect spoken in the eastern area is called Wâldfrysk, meaning "Wood Frisian" or "Forest Frisian".

Although Klaaifrysk and Wâldfrysk are mutually very easily intelligible, there are, at least to native Frisian speakers, a few very conspicuous differences. These include the pronunciation of the words my ("me"), dy ("you"), hy ("he"), sy ("she" or "they"), wy ("we") and by ("by"), and the diphthongs ei and aai. ^[4]

Of the two, Wâldfrysk probably has the greater number of speakers, but because the western clay area was originally the more prosperous part of the mostly agricultural province, Klaaifrysk has had the larger influence on the West Frisian standardised language.

History

Old Frisian

In the early Middle Ages The Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) was coined in the Frisian lands stretched from the area around Bruges The historic city centre is a prominent World Heritage Site of UNESCO. It is egg-shaped and about 430 hectares in size. The area of the whole city amounts to more than 13,840 hectares, including 1,075 hectares off the coast, at Zeebrugge . The city's total population is 117,073 (1 January 2008), of which around 20,000 live in the historic centre, in what is now Belgium Belgium (pronounced /ˈbɛldʒəm/ , BEL-jəm), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO. Belgium covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi), and it has a, to the river Weser The Weser is a river in north-western Germany. Formed at Hann. Münden by (the confluence of) the Fulda and Werra, it flows through Lower Saxony, then reaching the historic (Hanseatic League) port city of Bremen before emptying into the North Sea 50 km further north at Bremerhaven, which is also a seaport. On the opposite (west) bank is the town, in northern Germany A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, has been known and documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern Germany became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. As a modern nation-state,. At that time, the Frisian language was spoken along the entire southern North Sea The North Sea is a marginal, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf. The Dover Strait and the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north connect it to the Atlantic Ocean. It is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres (360 mi) wide, with an area of around 750,000 square kilometres (290,000 sq mi). A large part coast. Today this region is sometimes referred to as Greater Frisia or Frisia Magna, and many of the areas within it still treasure their Frisian heritage, even though in most places the Frisian language has been lost.

Old Frisian Old Frisian is a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries in the area between the Rhine and Elbe on the European North Sea coast. Whether the speakers of Frisian are the immediate descendants of the Frisians of Roman times or immigrants from North Germany and Denmark is unknown. The language of the earlier inhabitants of, however, did bear a striking similarity to Old English Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary register of Anglo-Saxon. This similarity was reinforced in the late Middle Ages The Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) was coined in by the Ingaevonic sound shift, which affected Frisian and English, but hardly the other West Germanic The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as English, Dutch and Afrikaans, German, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish. The other two of these three traditional branches of the Germanic languages are the North and East Germanic languages varieties at all. Historically, both English and Frisian are marked by the suppression of the Germanic nasal in a word like us (ús), soft (sêft) or goose (goes): see Anglo-Frisian nasal spirant law. Also, when followed by some vowels the Germanic k softened to a ch sound. For example, the Frisian for cheese and church is tsiis and tsjerke, whereas in Dutch Dutch ( Nederlands ) is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language and over 5 million people as a second language. Most native speakers live in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, with smaller groups of speakers in parts of France, Germany and several former Dutch colonies. It is closely related to other it is kaas and kerk.

One major difference between Old Frisian and modern Frisian is that in the Old Frisian period (c.1150-c.1550) grammatical cases still occurred. Some of the texts that are preserved from this period are from the twelfth or thirteenth, but most are from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Generally, all these texts are restricted to legalistic writings. Although the earliest definite written examples of Frisian are from approximately the 9th century, there are a few examples of runic The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages prior to the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter. The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark ; the Anglo-Saxon variant is futhorc (due to sound changes undergone in Old English by the same inscriptions from the region which are probably older and possibly in the Frisian language. These runic writings however usually do not amount to more than single- or few-word inscriptions, and cannot be said to constitute literature Literature,, is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means acquaintance with letters (as in the Arts and Letters"). In Western culture the most basic written literary types include fiction and nonfiction as such. The transition from the Old Frisian to the Middle Frisian Middle Frisian evolved from Old Frisian from the 16th century and was spoken until ca. 1820, considered the beginning of the Modern period of the Frisian languages period (c.1550-c.1820) in the sixteenth century, is based on the fairly abrupt halt in the use of Frisian as a written language.

Middle Frisian and New Frisian

Up until the fifteenth century Frisian was a language widely spoken and written, but from 1500 onwards it became an almost exclusively oral language, mainly used in rural areas. This was in part due to the occupation of its stronghold, the Dutch province of Friesland Fryslân ( pronunciation , West Frisian, official: Fryslân, Dutch: Friesland) is a province in the north of the Netherlands (Fryslân), in 1498, by Duke Albert of Saxony, who replaced Frisian as the language of government with Dutch.

Afterwards this practice was continued under the Habsburg The House of Habsburg, often Anglicised as Hapsburg and sometimes referred to as the House of Austria, was one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian and Spanish Empires and several other countries rulers of the Netherlands (the German Emperor Charles V Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I of Spain, of the Spanish realms from 1506 until his abdication in 1556. At that time his realm, which has been described as "the empire on which the sun never sets", spanned nearly 4 million square kilometers across Europe, the Far East, and the Americas and his son, the Spanish King Philip II Philip II (21 May 1527 – 13 September 1598) was King of Spain (kingdoms of Castile, Aragon and Navarra, this one disputed by the French) and Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories, such), and even when the Netherlands became independent, in 1585, Frisian did not regain its former status. The reason for this was the rise of Holland Holland is a name in common usage given to a region in the western part of the Netherlands.The term Holland is frequently used to refer to the whole of the Netherlands. This usage is unofficial and while generally accepted, it has caused a number of people from the Netherlands to complain. From the 10th century to the 16th century Holland proper as the dominant part of the Netherlands and its language, Dutch, as the dominant language in judicial, administrative and religious affairs.

In this period the great Frisian poet Gysbert Japiks (1603–1666), a schoolteacher and cantor from the city of Bolsward Bolsward ( pronunciation , West Frisian: Boalsert) is a municipality and a city in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands. Bolsward is just short of a population of 10,000. The town is the only official settlement within the borders of the municipality (Boalsert), who largely fathered modern Frisian literature and orthography, was really an exception to the rule.

His example was not followed until the nineteenth century, when entire generations of Frisian authors and poets appeared. This coincided with the introduction of the so-called newer breaking system, a prominent grammatical feature in almost all West Frisian dialects, with the notable exception of Súdwesthoeksk. Therefore, the New Frisian period is considered to have begun at this point in time, around 1820. Current-day Frisian is moving towards standard Dutch rapidly in most aspects, and differs less from Dutch than most dialects spoken in the Netherlands^[5].

Alphabet

West Frisian uses the Latin alphabet.

Sounds

Vowels

On average Frisians use a high number of long vowels. To reduce the length of speech there are two systems to reduce consonant length. The first is the new Frisian breaking. New Frisian breaking reduces the length of a long vowel by replacing it with a consonant and a vowel or semi vowel. Breaking pairs are ie-ji/i, ue-uo, oa-ua and dei-je/dje.

The second system is article and suffix reduction to glottal stops The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English the feature is represented for example by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or ʻokina in Hawaiʻi among those attempting an authentic pronunciation of that name. Both definite articles An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the, a, and an (de (/də/) and it (/ət/)) and the indefinite article An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the, a, and an. (Some can in certain circumstances function as a plural of a/an.) (in (/ən/)) may undergo article reduction. Popular suffixes In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Particularly in the study of Semitic languages, a suffix is called an afformative, as they can alter the form of the for reduction include -en (/ən/) and -t (/ət/). "it tinken" (the act of thinking) for example may be reduced from /ət tɪŋ͡kən/ to /ʔtɪŋ͡kʔ/. This however is an extreme reduction and does not occur in most dialects. More common is removing the schwa The word schwa is from the Hebrew word shva , which designates the Hebrew niqqud vowel sign shva "ְ" that in modern Hebrew indicates either the phoneme /e/ or the complete absence of a vowel. Also the Hebrew shva is sometimes represented by the upside-down e symbol for Schwa, a misleading transliteration, since the Schwa vowel is not (/ə/) and in case of a reduced article following a reduced dental suffix one of the /t/'s is dropped. In Standard Frisian writing this phenomenon can be represented by replacing the character representing the schwa by an apostrophe The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets. In English, it serves two main purposes—the omission of one or more letters (as in doesn’t for does not) and the marking of possessives (as in the cat’s whiskers), though usage in forming certain plurals.

The use of both systems vary from dialect to dialect and in the standard language there are irregularities whether to write broken vowels in their broken or unbroken form.

Consonants

• /eː/, /oː/ and /øː/ are commonly realized as the diphthongs [eɪ], [oʊ] and [øʏ].
• /ɛː/ and /ɔː/ are commonly realized as [ɛ.ə] and [ɔ.ə].
• a is pronounced [ɔ] before d, t, l, n, s
• er is pronounced [ɛː] in bern, gers and ferzen
• eau is pronounced [øə] in past participles and [joː] in preterites and other words
• ei is pronounced [i] in Moandei and other compounds with -dei
• eur is pronounced [øə]
• the word ôf is pronounced [ɔu] or [ɔː]
• oa becomes [a] in moatte and Moandei, and [ãː] in Woansdei
• oe is pronounced [u] before ch, g, k
• y is pronounced [ɛi] in my, dy, hy, wy, by, but [i] in dy as demonstrative pronoun
• any vowel or diphthong before n + s, z, f, v, w, j, l, r, is nasalised
• any nasalised vowel is lengthened before ns, nz
• d is silent before l. often pronounced [r] in intervocalic position
• h is silent before [j], [w] and in thús
• j is often silent before [i]
• in âl, l is silent before d, t
• when assimilated, n becomes [m] before p, [ŋ] before k, or is dropped while nasalising the preceding vowel
• r is silent before t, d, n, l, s, z
• w is pronounced [v] at the beginning of a word, [f] in final, [w] elsewhere. It is silent before [w]. ww is pronounced [v]

Status

In 1951 Frisian language activists, protesting the exclusive use of Dutch in the courts, caused a riot in Leeuwarden^[6]. The resulting inquiry led to the establishment of a committee of inquiry. This committee recommended that the Frisian language would receive a legal basis as minority language.

Since 1956, West Frisian has an official status along with and equal to Dutch Dutch ( Nederlands ) is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language and over 5 million people as a second language. Most native speakers live in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, with smaller groups of speakers in parts of France, Germany and several former Dutch colonies. It is closely related to other, in the province of Fryslân. It is used in many domains of Frisian society, among which are education, legislation, and administration.

Although in the courts of law the Dutch language is still mainly used, in the province of Fryslân, Frisians have the right to give evidence in their own language. Also, they can take the oath in Frisian in courts anywhere in the Netherlands.

Primary education in Fryslân was made bilingual in 1956, which means Frisian can be used as a teaching medium. In the same year, Frisian became an official school subject, having been introduced to primary education as an optional extra in 1937. It was not until 1980, however, that Frisian got the status of a fully-fledged, i.e., required, subject in primary schools, and not until 1993 that it got the same position in secondary education.

In 1997, the province of Fryslân officially changed its name from the Dutch form Friesland to the Frisian Fryslân. So far 4 out of 31 municipalities (Tytsjerksteradiel, Boarnsterhim, Littenseradiel, and Ferwerderadiel) have changed their official geographical names from Dutch to Frisian.

Within ISO 639 West Frisian falls under the codes 'fy' and 'fry', which were assigned to the collective Frisian languages.

Folklore about relation to English and Dutch

A saying, "As milk is to cheese, are English and Fries," describes the observed similarity between Frisian and English. One rhyme that is sometimes used to demonstrate the palpable similarity between Frisian and English is "Rye bread, butter and green cheese is good English and good Frisian," which sounds not tremendously different from "Brea, bûter en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk." ^[7]

Another rhyme on this theme, "Bûter, brea en griene tsiis; wa't dat net sizze kin is gjin oprjochte Fries" ( example (help·info)) (in English, "Butter, rye bread and green cheese, whoever can't say that is no genuine Frisian") was used, according to legend, by the 16th century Frisian freedom fighter Pier Gerlofs Donia as a shibboleth that he forced his captives to repeat to distinguish Frisians from Dutch and Low Germans).

Westerlauwers Frisian

West Frisian can be confused with an area (or its local language) in the Dutch province Noord-Holland (NL: area = West-Friesland or local language = West-Fries), that is why the term Westlauwersk Frysk or Westerlauwersk Frisian has been introduced, The River Lauwers is the part of the border between the Dutch provinces Friesland and Groningen.

In the Netherlands West Frisian can refer to the local language spoken in the region Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Medemblik.

Sample Text

The Lord's prayer, from the Frisian Bible, third edition, published in 1995.

Us Heit yn 'e himel, lit jo namme hillige wurde, lit jo keninkryk komme, lit jo wil dien wurde op ierde likegoed as yn 'e himel. Jou ús hjoed ús deistich brea en ferjou ús ús skulden sa't wy ús skuldners ek ferjûn hawwe; en lit ús net yn fersiking komme, mar ferlos ús fan 'e kweade; want jowes is it keninkryk en de krêft en de hearlikheid oant yn ivichheid. Amen.

See also

• Frisian alphabet
• Frisia
• Frisian languages
• Frisian Islands
• Frisians
• Frisian literature
• Languages of the Netherlands
• Swadesh list with English and Frisian words

External links

• Frisian - English Dictionary: from Webster's Online Dictionary - the Rosetta Edition.
• West Frisian language at Ethnologue
• ISO 639 code set entry for "fry" and for "fri" (active and retired language codes, respectively)
• A short English - West Frisian - Japanese pharasebook incl. sound soft
• A series of ten short Frisian lessons in English

References

1. ^ Provinsje Fryslân (2007), Fluchhifking Fryske Taal.
2. ^ Gorter, D. L.G. Jansma en G.H. Jelsma (1990), Taal yn it Grinsgebiet. Undersyk nei de taalferhâldings en de taalgrins yn it Westerkertier yn Grinslân. Sosjaal-wittenskiplike rige nummer 10. Akademy-nummer 715. Ljouwert: Fryske Akademy.
3. ^ Gorter, D. & R.J. Jonkman (1994), Taal yn Fryslân op 'e nij besjoen. Ljouwert: Fryske Akademy.
4. ^ Popkema, J. (2006), Grammatica Fries. De regels van het Fries. Utrecht: Het Spectrum.
5. ^ http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/Jo2_7024/
6. ^ Geschiedenis van Friesland, 1750-1995, Johan Frieswijk, page 327.
7. ^ The History of English: A Linguistic Introduction, Scott Shay. Wardja Press, 2008, ISBN 0-615-16817-5, 9780615168173

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