Saterland Frisian language

Saterland Frisian
	Seeltersk
Native to	Germany
Region	Saterland
Ethnicity	Saterland Frisians
Native speakers	2,000 (2015)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic North Sea Germanic Anglo-Frisian Frisian East Frisian Saterland Frisian; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Official status
Recognised minority; language in	Germany
Regulated by	Seelter Buund in Saterland/Seelterlound (unofficial)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	stq
Glottolog	sate1242[2]
Linguasphere	52-ACA-ca[3]
	Present-day distribution of the Frisian languages in Europe: West Frisian North Frisian Saterland Frisian

Saterland Frisian, also known as Sater Frisian or Saterlandic (Seeltersk), is the last living dialect of the East Frisian language. It is closely related to the other Frisian languages: North Frisian, spoken in Germany as well, and West Frisian, spoken in the Dutch province of Friesland.

Speakers

A bilingual sign, with the second line showing the place name in Saterland Frisian

Today, estimates of the number of speakers vary slightly. Saterland Frisian is spoken by about 2,250 people, out of a total population in Saterland of some 10,000; an estimated 2,000 people (of whom, slightly fewer than half are native speakers) speak the language well.[4] The great majority of native speakers belong to the older generation; Saterland Frisian is thus a seriously endangered language. It might, however, no longer be moribund, as several reports suggest that the number of speakers is rising among the younger generation, some of whom raise their children in Saterlandic.

Dialects

There are three fully mutually intelligible dialects, corresponding to the three main villages of the municipality of Saterland: Ramsloh (Saterlandic: Roomelse), Scharrel (Schäddel), and Strücklingen (Strukelje). The Ramsloh dialect now somewhat enjoys a status as a standard language, since a grammar and a word list were based on it.

Status

The German government has not committed significant resources to the preservation of Sater Frisian. Most of the work to secure the endurance of this language is therefore done by the Seelter Buund ("Saterlandic Alliance"). Along with North Frisian and five other languages, Sater Frisian was included in Part III of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages by Germany in 1998. Since about 1800, Sater Frisian has attracted the interest of a growing number of linguists. During the last century, a small literature developed in it. Also the New Testament of the Bible has been translated into Sater Frisian.

Phonology

The phonology of Saterland Frisian is regarded as very conservative linguistically, as the entire East Frisian language group was conservative with regards to Old Frisian.[5] The following tables are based on studies by Marron C. Fort.[6]

Vowels

Chart of Saterland Frisian monophthongs, from Peters (2017:?)

Chart of Saterland Frisian diphthongs, from Peters (2017:?)

Monophthongs

The consonant /r/ is often realised as a vowel [ɐ̯ ~ ɐ] in the syllable coda.

Short vowels:

Grapheme	Phoneme	Example
a	/a/	fat (fat)
ä	/ɛ/	Sät (a while)
e	/ə/	ze (they)
i	/ɪ/	Lid (limb)
o	/ɔ/	Dot (toddler)
ö	/œ/	bölkje (to shout)
u	/ʊ/	Buk (book)
ü	/ʏ/	Djüpte (depth)

Semi-long vowels:

Grapheme	Phoneme	Example
ie	/iˑ/	Piene (pain)
uu	/uˑ/	kuut (short)

Long vowels:

Grapheme	Phoneme	Example
aa	/aː/	Paad (path)
ää	/ɛː/	tään (thin)
ee	/eː/	Dee (dough)
íe	/iː/	Wíek (week)
oa	/ɔː/	doalje (to calm)
oo	/oː/	Roop (rope)
öö	/øː/	röögje (rain)
öä	/œː/	Göäte (gutter)
üü	/yː/	Düwel (devil)
úu	/uː/	Múus (mouse)

Diphthongs

Grapheme	Phoneme	Example
ai	/aːi/	Bail (bail)
au	/aːu/	Dau (dew)
ääu	/ɛːu/	sääuwen (self)
äi	/ɛɪ/	wäit (wet)
äu	/ɛu/	häuw (hit, thrust)
eeu	/eːu/	skeeuw (skew)
ieu	/iˑu/	Grieuw (advantage)
íeu	/iːu/	íeuwen (even, plain)
iu	/ɪu/	Kiuwe (chin)
oai	/ɔːɪ/	toai (tough)
oi	/ɔy/	floitje (to pipe)
ooi	/oːɪ/	swooije (to swing)
ou	/oːu/	Bloud (blood)
öi	/œːi/	Böije (gust of wind)
uui	/uːɪ/	truuije (to threaten)
üüi	/yːi/	Sküüi (gravy)

Consonants

Plosives

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t	k
Stop	voiced	b	d	ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	x	h
Fricative	voiced	v	z	ɣ
Nasal		m	n	ŋ
Trill			r
Approximant		(w)	l	j

Today, voiced plosives in the syllable coda are usually terminally devoiced. Older speakers and a few others may use voiced codas.

Grapheme	Phoneme	Example	Notes
p	/p/	Pik (pitch)
t	/t/	Toom (bridle)
k	/k/	koold (cold)
b	/b/	Babe (father)	Occasionally voiced in syllable coda
d	/d/	Dai (day)	May be voiced in syllable coda by older speakers
g	/ɡ/	Gäize (goose)	A realization especially used by younger speakers instead of [ɣ].

Fricatives

Grapheme	Phoneme(s)	Example	Notes
g	/ɣ, x/	Gäize (goose), Ploug (plough)	Voiced velar fricative, unvoiced in the syllable coda and before an unvoiced consonant. Younger speakers show a tendency towards using the plosive [ɡ] instead of [ɣ], as in German, but that development has not yet been reported in most scientific studies.
f	/f, v/	Fjúur (fire)	Realised voicedly by a suffix: ljoof - ljowe (dear - love)
w	/v/	Woater (water)	Normally a voiced labio-dental fricative like in German, after u it is however realised as bilabial semi-vowel [w] (see below).
v	/v, f/	iek skräive (I scream)	Realised voicelessly before voiceless consonants: du skräifst (you scream)
s	/s, z/	säike (to seek), zuuzje (to sough)	Voiced [z] in the syllable onset is unusual for Frisian dialects and also rare in Saterlandic. There is no known minimal pair s - z so /z/ is probably not a phoneme. Younger speakers tend to use [ʃ] more, for the combination of /s/ + another consonant: in fräisk (Frisian) not [frɛɪsk] but [fʀɛɪʃk]. That development, however, has not yet been reported in most scientific studies.
ch	/x/	truch (through)	Only in syllable nucleus and coda.
h	/h/	hoopje (to hope)	Only in onset.

Other consonants

Grapheme	Phoneme	Example	Notes
m	/m/	Moud (courage)
n	/n/	näi (new)
ng	/ŋ/	sjunge (to sing)
j	/j/	Jader (udder)
l	/l/	Lound (land)
r	/r/, [r, ʀ, ɐ̯, ɐ]	Roage (rye)	Traditionally, a rolled or simple alveolar [r] in onsets and between vowels. After vowels or in codas, it becomes [ɐ]. Younger speakers tend to use a uvular [ʀ] instead. That development, however, has not yet been reported in most scientific studies.
w	/v/, [w]	Kiuwe (chin)	As in English, it is realised as a bilabial semivowel only after u.

Morphology

Personal pronouns

The subject pronouns of Saterland Frisian are as follows:[7]

		singular	plural
first person		iek	wie
second person		du	jie
third person	masculine	hie, er	jo, ze (unstr.)
	feminine	ju, ze (unstr.)
	neuter	dät, et, t

The numbers 1-10 in Saterland Frisian are as follows:[8]

Saterland Frisian	English
aan (m.) een (f., n.)	one
twäin (m.) two (f., n.)	two
träi (m.) trjo (f., n.)	three
fjauer	four
fieuw	five
säks	six
sogen	seven
oachte	eight
njúgen	nine
tjoon	ten

Numbers one through three in Saterland Frisian vary in form based on the gender of the noun they occur with.[8] In the table, "m." stands for masculine, "f." for feminine, and "n." for neuter.

For the purposes of comparison, here is a table with numbers 1-10 in 4 West Germanic languages:

Saterland Frisian	Low German	German	English
aan (m.) een (f., n.)	een	eins	one
twäin (m.) two (f., n.)	twee	zwei	two (and the old masculine 'twain')
träi (m.) trjo (f., n.)	dree	drei	three
fjauer	veer	vier	four
fieuw	fief	fünf	five
säks	söss	sechs	six
sogen	söben	sieben	seven
oachte	acht	acht	eight
njúgen	negen	neun	nine
tjoon	teihn	zehn	ten

Sample text

See Frisian languages#Comparative sentence.

In the media

Newspaper

Nordwest-Zeitung, a German-language regional daily newspaper based in Oldenburg, Germany, publishes occasional articles in Saterland Frisian. The articles are also made available on the newspaper's Internet page, under the headline Seeltersk.

Radio

As of 2004, the regional radio station Ems-Vechte-Welle broadcasts a 2-hour program in Saterland Frisian and Low German entitled Middeeges. The program is aired every other Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The first hour of the program is usually reserved for Saterland Frisian. The program usually consists of interviews about local issues between music. The station can be streamed live though the station's Internet page.

Current revitalization efforts

Children's books in Saterlandic are few, compared to those in German. Margaretha (Gretchen) Grosser, a retired member of the community of Saterland, has translated many children's books from German into Saterlandic. A full list of the books and the time of their publication can be seen on the German Wikipedia page of Margaretha Grosser.

Recent efforts to revitalize Saterlandic include the creation of an app called "Kleine Saterfriesen" (Little Sater Frisians) on Google Play. According to the app's description, it aims at making the language fun for children to learn teaches them Saterlandic vocabulary in many different domains (the supermarket, the farm, the church). There have been 100-500 downloads of the app since its release in December 2016, according to statistics on Google Play.

References

Saterland Frisian at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018)
Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Ems-Weser Frisian". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
"s" (PDF). The Linguasphere Register. p. 252. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
A number of 6,370 speakers is cited by Fort, Marron C., "Das Saterfriesische", in Munske (2001), p. 410. A 1995 poll counted 2,225 speakers: Stellmacher, Dieter (1995). Das Saterland und das Saterländische (in German). Florian Isensee GmbH. ISBN 978-3-89598-567-6. Ethnologue refers to a monolingual population of 5,000, but this number originally was not of speakers but of persons who counted themselves ethnically Saterland Frisian.
Versloot, Arjen: "Grundzüge Ostfriesischer Sprachgeschichte", in Munske (2001).
Fort, Marron C., "Das Saterfriesische", in Munske (2001), pp. 411–412. Fort, Marron C. (1980). Saterfriesisches Wörterbuch. Hamburg. pp. 64–65.
Howe, Stephen (1996). The Personal Pronouns in the Germanic Languages (1 ed.). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co. p. 192. ISBN 9783110819205. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
Munske, Horst (2001). Handbuch des Friesischen. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. p. 417. ISBN 3-484-73048-X.

External links

Saterfriesisches Wörterbuch (German)
Näie Seelter Siede

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[e21-1] Saterland Frisian at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018)

[Glottolog-2] Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Ems-Weser Frisian". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

[3] "s" (PDF). The Linguasphere Register. p. 252. Retrieved 1 March 2013.

[speakers-4] A number of 6,370 speakers is cited by Fort, Marron C., "Das Saterfriesische", in Munske (2001), p. 410. A 1995 poll counted 2,225 speakers: Stellmacher, Dieter (1995). Das Saterland und das Saterländische (in German). Florian Isensee GmbH. ISBN 978-3-89598-567-6. Ethnologue refers to a monolingual population of 5,000, but this number originally was not of speakers but of persons who counted themselves ethnically Saterland Frisian.

[5] Versloot, Arjen: "Grundzüge Ostfriesischer Sprachgeschichte", in Munske (2001).

[6] Fort, Marron C., "Das Saterfriesische", in Munske (2001), pp. 411–412. Fort, Marron C. (1980). Saterfriesisches Wörterbuch. Hamburg. pp. 64–65.

[7] Howe, Stephen (1996). The Personal Pronouns in the Germanic Languages (1 ed.). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co. p. 192. ISBN 9783110819205. Retrieved 29 May 2017.

[:0-8] Munske, Horst (2001). Handbuch des Friesischen. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. p. 417. ISBN 3-484-73048-X.