LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.03.23 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 23.MAR.2005 (02) * 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: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.03.22 (03) [E]

Dear Ingmar and Ron,

thanks for Your answers on:

> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.03.21 (01) [E]
> QUOTE:
> ...all these Saxons and Frisians
> running about the northern world prior to the year 775 could understand
> each
> other very well.
> END QUOTE

Greutens/sincerely

Johannes "Jonny" Meibohm

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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.03.22 (07) [E]

>>From childhood onward - does that mean that in Britain it's "common
knowledge" that English and Frisian are supposedly closely related?
Is it taught at school as a fact, for instance? Is anything taught about
the other Germanic languages? Here in the Netherlands we don't learn
anything about the history or relationships of our languages, but it's
obvious enough to everyone that German and English are related languages.
At secondary school, everyone has to learn a few years of English and
German (and French) as foreign languages, besides Dutch of course and
Frisian in the province of Friesland. At History class we are taught about
our ancestors the Frisians (in the North & West)), the Saxons (East &
North East) and the Franks (South), so there is some common knowledge
about this kind of things anyway. Although the facts would tell us e.g.
that in the Eastern Netherlands, where Low Saxon dialects are spoken
nowadays, no Saxons but Chamavian (Hamaland) Franks dwelled in the old
days... The Homeland of the Salii (Salian Franks) that conquered and
founded France was Salland, in the province of Overijssel, which in
present days is completely Low Saxon territory.

I can imagen your disappointment about modern Frisian. Old Frisian texts
are still pretty close to Old English ones. But Modern Frisian was proven
to be even closer to Standard (Holland) Dutch than the Low Saxon dialects
in the North and Eastern Netherlands are. Many Frisians don't believe that
and dislike this facts, because their language was recognized way earlier
as a seperate language than Low Saxon, and still has more juridical
rights.
Ingmar

>Cristior wrote:
>After taking the Frisian-English connections at face value from childhood
>onward, I was both surprised and disappointed to find how close Frisian
>has become to Dutch when I encountered my first lengthy Frisian written
>text and my first Frisian speaker. The relationship between the two
>languages, in my opinion, is much like that between standard English and
>Scots. Certainly an English speaker has to look harder or listen more
>closely to Frisian to find>the ancestral linkages with English than he or
>she does to see or hear linkages with Modern Dutch.
>Go raibh ma ith agat

>Ingmar wrote:
>Btw, Frisian is often claimed (by Frisians) to be the most closely related
>cognate of English. Through one of your links I came to a study that
>pointed out that this isn't true at all, anymore.
>Friesland Frisian's closest cognate is Dutch, then Afrikaans, then Low
>Saxon, then German, then the Continental Scandinavian languages, only then
>English and finally Faroese and Icelandic.

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