Anglo-Frisian languages

Anglo-Frisian
Geographic; distribution	Originally England, Scottish Lowlands and the North Sea coast from Friesland to Jutland; today worldwide
Linguistic classification	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic North Sea Germanic Anglo-Frisian; ; ; ;
Subdivisions	Anglic; Frisian;
Glottolog	angl1264[1]
	Approximate present day distribution of the Anglo-Frisian languages in Europe. Anglic: English Scots Frisian: West Frisian North Frisian Saterland Frisian Hatched areas indicate where multilingualism is common.

The Anglo-Frisian languages are the West Germanic languages which include Anglic (English and Scots) and Frisian varieties.

The Anglo-Frisian languages are distinct from other West Germanic languages due to several sound changes: the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, Anglo-Frisian brightening, and palatalization of /k/:

English cheese and West Frisian tsiis, but Dutch kaas, Low German Kees, and German Käse
English church and West Frisian tsjerke, but Dutch kerk, Low German Kerk, Kark, and German Kirche

The early Anglo-Frisian and Old Saxon were spoken by intercommunicating populations, which led to shared linguistic traits through assimilation. English and Frisian have a proximal ancestral form in common before their divergence. Geography isolated the settlers of Great Britain from Continental Europe, except from contact with communities capable of open water navigation. This resulted in Old Norse and Norman language influences on Modern English, whereas Modern Frisian was subject to contact with the southernly Germanic populations, restricted to the continent.

Classification

The Anglo-Frisian family tree is:

Anglo-Frisian
- Anglic
  - English
  - Scots
  - Yola (extinct)
  - Fingalian (extinct)
- Frisian
  - West Frisian
  - East Frisian
    - Saterland Frisian (last remaining dialect of East Frisian)
  - North Frisian

Anglic languages

Anglic,[2][3] Insular Germanic, or English languages[4][5] encompass Old English and all the linguistic varieties descended from it. These include Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English; Early Scots, Middle Scots, and Modern Scots; and the now extinct Yola and Fingallian in Ireland.

English-based creole languages are not generally included, as mainly only their lexicon and not necessarily their grammar, phonology, etc. comes from Modern and Early Modern English.

Proto-Old English
Northumbrian		Mercian and Kentish		West Saxon
Early Northern Middle English		Early Midland and Southeastern Middle English		Early Southern and Southwestern Middle English
Early Scots	Northern Middle English	Midland Middle English	Southeastern Middle English	Southern Middle English	Southwestern Middle English
Middle Scots	Northern Early Modern English	Midland Early Modern English	Metropolitan Early Modern English	Southern Early Modern English	Southwestern Early Modern English, Yola, Fingallian
Modern Scots	Northern Modern English	East and West Midlands Modern English	Standard Modern English	Southern Modern English	West Country Modern English

Frisian languages

The Frisian languages are a group of languages spoken by about 500,000 Frisian people on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. West Frisian, by far the most spoken of the three, is an official language in the Dutch province of Friesland and on two of the West Frisian Islands. North Frisian is spoken in the northernmost German district of Nordfriesland, in North Frisia, and on some North Frisian Islands. The East Frisian language is spoken in Saterland in Germany.

Anglo-Frisian developments

The following is a summary of the major sound changes affecting vowels in chronological order.[6] For additional detail, see Phonological history of Old English.

Backing and nasalization of West Germanic a and ā before a nasal consonant
Loss of n before a spirant, resulting in lengthening and nasalization of preceding vowel
Single form for present and preterite plurals
A-fronting: West Germanic a, ā → æ, ǣ, even in the diphthongs ai and au (see Anglo-Frisian brightening)
palatalization of Proto-Germanic *k and *g before front vowels (but not phonemicization of palatals)
A-restoration: æ, ǣ → a, ā under the influence of neighboring consonants
Second fronting: OE dialects (except West Saxon) and Frisian ǣ → ē
A-restoration: a restored before a back vowel in the following syllable (later in the Southumbrian dialects); Frisian æu → au → Old Frisian ā/a
OE breaking; in West Saxon palatal diphthongization follows
i-mutation followed by syncope; Old Frisian breaking follows
Phonemicization of palatals and assibilation, followed by second fronting in parts of West Mercia
Smoothing and back mutation

Comparisons

Numbers in Anglo-Frisian languages

These are the words for the numbers one to 12 in the Anglo-Frisian languages, with Dutch and German included for comparison:

Language	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
English	one	two	three	four	five	six	seven	eight	nine	ten	eleven	twelve
Scots[note 1]	ane ae* yin	twa	three	fower	five	sax	seiven	aicht	nine	ten	eleiven	twal
Yola	oan	twye	dhree	vour	veeve	zeese	zeven	ayght	neen	dhen
West Frisian	ien	twa	trije	fjouwer	fiif	seis	sân	acht	njoggen	tsien	alve	tolve
Saterland Frisian	aan	twäi twäin twoo	träi	fjauwer	fieuw	säks	soogen	oachte	njugen	tjoon	alwen	tweelich
North Frisian (Mooring dialect)	iinj ån	tou tuu	trii tra	fjouer	fiiw	seeks	soowen	oocht	nüügen	tiin	alwen	tweelwen
Dutch	een	twee	drie	vier	vijf	zes	zeven	acht	negen	tien	elf	twaalf
German	eins	zwei	drei	vier	fünf	sechs	sieben	acht	neun	zehn	elf	zwölf

* Ae [eː], [jeː] is an adjectival form used before nouns.[7]

Words in English, Scots, West Frisian, Dutch, and German

English	Scots	West Frisian	Dutch	German
day	day	dei	dag	Tag
rain	rain	rein	regen	Regen
alone	alane	allinne	alleen	allein
stone	stane	stien	steen	Stein
snow	snaw	snie	sneeuw	Schnee
summer	simmer	simmer	zomer	Sommer
way	wey	wei	weg	Weg
almighty	awmichtie	almachtich	almachtig	allmächtig
ship	ship	skip	schip	Schiff
nail	nail	neil	nagel	Nagel
old	auld	âld	oud	alt
butter	butter	bûter	boter	Butter
cheese	cheese	tsiis	kaas	Käse
apple	aiple	apel	appel	Apfel
church	kirk	tsjerke	kerk	Kirche
son	son	soan	zoon	Sohn
door	door	doar	deur	Tür
good	guid	goed	goed	gut
fork	fork	foarke	vork	Gabel Forke (dated)
sibling[note 2]	sib	sibbe	sibbe (dated)	Sippe
together	thegither	tegearre	samen tezamen	zusammen
morn(ing)	morn(in)	moarn	morgen	Morgen
until, till	until, till	oant	tot	bis
where	whaur	wêr	waar	wo
key	key[note 3]	kaai	sleutel	Schlüssel
have been (was)	wis	ha west	ben geweest	bin gewesen
two sheep	twa sheep	twa skiep	twee schapen	zwei Schafe
have	hae	hawwe	hebben	haben
us	us	ús	ons	uns
horse	horse	hynder hoars (rare)	paard ros (dated)	Pferd Ross (dated)
bread	breid	brea	brood	Brot
hair	hair	hier	haar	Haar
heart	hert	hert	hart	Herz
beard	beard	burd	baard	Bart
ear	ear, lug (colloquial)	ear	oor	Ohr
green	green	grien	groen	grün
red	reid	read	rood	rot
sweet	sweet	swiet	zoet	süß
through	throu[note 4]	troch	door	durch
wet	weet	wiet	nat	nass
eye	ee	each	oog	Auge
dream	dream	dream	droom	Traum
mouse	moose	mûs	muis	Maus
house	hoose	hûs	huis	Haus
it goes on	it gaes/gangs on	it giet oan	het gaat door	es geht weiter/los
good day	guid day	goeie (dei)	goedendag	guten Tag

Alternative grouping

Ingvaeonic, also known as North Sea Germanic, is a postulated grouping of the West Germanic languages that encompasses Old Frisian, Old English,[note 5] and Old Saxon.[8]

It is not thought of as a monolithic proto-language, but rather as a group of closely related dialects that underwent several areal changes in relative unison.[9]

The grouping was first proposed in Nordgermanen und Alemannen (1942) by the German linguist and philologist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984), as an alternative to the strict tree diagrams which had become popular following the work of the 19th-century linguist August Schleicher and which assumed the existence of an Anglo-Frisian group.[10]

gollark: Besides, with indentation and stuff it's effectively a sideways tree diagram with bits pulled out.

gollark: Because it's convenient?

gollark: I'd find dragging stuff around and drawing lines far, far more annoying than just writing code.

gollark: *bleh*

gollark: I think you can generate nice dependency diagrams and stuff.

Notes

Depending on dialect 1. [en], [jɪn], [in], [wan], [*eː], [jeː] 2. [twɑː], [twɔː], [tweː], [twaː] 3. [θrəi], [θriː], [triː] 4. [ˈfʌu(ə)r], [fuwr] 5. [faiːv], [fɛv] 6. [saks] 7. [ˈsiːvən], [ˈseːvən], [ˈsəivən] 8. [ext], [ɛçt] 9. [nəin], [nin] 10. [tɛn].
Original meaning was "relative" which has become "brother or sister" in English.
Depending on dialect [kiː] or [kəi].
Depending on dialect [θruː] or [θrʌu].
Also known as Anglo-Saxon.

References

Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Anglo-Frisian". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Anglic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Woolf, Alex (2007). "From Pictland to Alba, 789–1070". The New Edinburgh History of Scotland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-1234-5. Cite journal requires |journal= (help), p. 336
J. Derrick McClure Scots its range of Uses in A. J. Aitken, Tom McArthur, Languages of Scotland, W. and R. Chambers, 1979. p.27
Thomas Burns McArthur, The English Languages, Cambridge University Press, 1998. p.203
Fulk, Robert D. (1998). "The Chronology of Anglo-Frisian Sound Changes". In Bremmer Jr., Rolf H.; Johnston, Thomas S.B.; Vries, Oebele (eds.). Approaches to Old Frisian Philology. Amsterdam: Rodopoi. p. 185.
Grant, William; Dixon, James Main (1921). Manual of Modern Scots. Cambridge: University Press. p. 105.
Some include West Flemish. Cf. Bremmer (2009:22).
For a full discussion of the areal changes involved and their relative chronologies, see Voyles (1992).
"Friedrich Maurer (Lehrstuhl für Germanische Philologie - Linguistik)". Germanistik.uni-freiburg.de. Retrieved 2013-06-24.