Old Frisian In the early
Middle Ages, the Frisian lands stretched from the area around
Bruges, in what is now
Belgium, to the river
Weser, in northern
Germany. At that time, the Frisian language was spoken along the entire southern
North Sea coast. Today this region is sometimes referred to as "Greater
Frisia" or , 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 bore a striking similarity to
Old English. This similarity was reinforced in the late
Middle Ages by the
Ingvaeonic sound shift, which affected Frisian and English, but the other
West Germanic varieties hardly at all. Both English and Frisian are marked by the suppression of the Germanic nasal in a word like
us (),
soft () or
goose (): see
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law. Also, when followed by some vowels, the Germanic
k developed into a
ch sound. For example, the West Frisian for
cheese and
church is and , whereas in
Dutch they are and . Modern English and Frisian on the other hand have become very divergent, largely due to wholesale
Old Norse and
Anglo-Norman imports into English and similarly heavy Dutch and
Low German influences on Frisian. One major difference between Old Frisian and modern Frisian is that in the Old Frisian period ( – )
grammatical cases still occurred. Some of the texts that are preserved from this period are from the 12th or 13th, but most are from the 14th and 15th centuries. Generally, these texts are restricted to legal documents. Although the earliest definite written examples of Frisian are from approximately the 9th century, there are a few
runic 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 as such. The
Middle Frisian language period () is rooted in geopolitics and the consequent fairly abrupt halt in the use of Frisian as a written language.
Middle Frisian and New Frisian Until the 16th century, West Frisian was 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 (), in 1498, by
Albert III, Duke of Saxony, who replaced West Frisian as the language of government with Dutch. This practice was continued under the
Habsburg rulers of the Netherlands (
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and his son
Philip II, King of Spain). When
the Netherlands became independent in 1585, West Frisian did not regain its former status, because
Holland rose 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 Frisian poet
Gysbert Japiks (1603–1666), a schoolteacher and
cantor from the city of
Bolsward (), who largely fathered modern West Frisian literature and orthography, was an exception to the rule. His example was not followed until the 19th century. The
Brothers Halbertsma, most notably, further incentivized Frisian written literature through their literary and poetic work. The appearance of an entire generation of Frisian authors and poets 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 . Therefore, the New Frisian period is considered to have begun at this time, around 1820. == Speakers ==