LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.13 (10) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 13.SEP.2004 (10) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Ruth & Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2004.09.13 (02) [E]

Dear Henry, Glenn & All,

Subject: LL-L "Language varieties"

> At some point in history, say 5th century, the Frisian homeland was more
> or less vacated, the original Frisians (about whom the Romans wrote)
> having left God knows where. After a number of decades, or as I believe,
> more than a century, the area got settled again by (mainly) Saxons,
> Jutes, and most probably also Angles (after all, to get to England, you
> have to go along the Dutch North Sea coast first, don't you?). The area
> may have still been known as Frisia, or there may have been a small
> number of original Frisians left, so the new mixture of people took up
> that name and started calling themselves Frisians.

I know what you mean. This is what happened with Pruizen, didn't it?

But before we push the subject much further in this direction, let me note
that I have no interest in whom the Romans called Friesian, or whether any
subsequent people adopted the name with the locale.

My interest is in the Peoples from there, & the language they spoke, which
has so much in common with Insular English (or had) on the one hand, & with
Wesnederfrankies on the other, as well as how much it differed from either.
The People in question had an ancestral dialect in common with the Teutonic
settlers of Britain, on the strength of surviving language features.

I am piqued that the name 'Fries' seems to be, like Saxon, ethnolinguistic
(though you aver it was geographic), whereas English & Angel are geographic.
If they had a practice of adopting the name of their new homeland for
themselves, why then didn't they drop the name English when they left
Angeln? (I'm not objecting to your thesis: I'm curious about their
motivation.)

> This during the same
> period that people went over to England, and started calling themselves
> (after a while of course) English. Of course after enough time has
> passed, the name Frisian will have been fixed, and it's nothing less
> than highly probable that some of those "new" Frisians also went over to
> England.

Rregards,
Mark

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