And, if you were born in Westfriesland, I assume you can understand at least a little bit of Frisian.
So.
West Frisian: "Wolkom by de Fryske ferzje fan 'Wikipedia'. Ynformaasje op Wikipedy is frij en fergees te brûken. Foar jo gemak stiet lofts in sykfunksje en hjirûnder kinne jo op ûnderwerp sykje."
East Frisian: "Ljude rakt et fuul un Lounde, do ap Goddes Waareld stounde, man wät gungt deer wäil uur Seelter, un uur t litje Seelterlound?"
North Frisian (peninsular): "„Jucht, üülje moune, jucht!" biiljked Hääwelmoon, ouers e moune wus nargne tu schüns än e stääre uk ai; ja wjarn ål åltumååle tu beed lim."
North Frisian (insular), Söl'ring: "Üüs Söl'ring Lön', dü best üüs helig; dü blefst üüs ain, dü best üüs Lek! Din Wiis tö hual'en, sen wü welig. Di Söl'ring Spraak auriit wü ek. Wü bliiv me di ark Tir forbün'en, sa lung üs wü üp Warel' sen. Uk diar jaar Uuning bütlön' fün'en, Ja leng dach altert tö di hen."
All of these except Westlauwer Frisian ("Western Frisian") are spoken in GERMANY, not the Netherlands.
I have seen these terms used extensively in books (for example "linguistic minorities of western europe"), websites (Ethnologue, Wikipedia, Lowlands-l, etc), and elsewhere both by Frisians and non-Frisians.
If you know much Frisian at all you should be able to tell from the samples what I am talking about. If you don't, you can show them to your uncle, and ask him what he makes of them.
Mark
On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 21:32:30 +0100, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Mark, I was born in Zwaag. Zwaag is a small place with city rights and is now part of Hoorn. Zwaag can be found in Westfriesland. I assume that I have heard more Westfries spoken than you have. Hoorn, Medemblik and Enkhuizen, all Westfrisian cities, were some of the most important cities during the Dutch golden age. Apparently you assume that you know everything there is to know about all the languages in the word. Oh, I forgot, I have an uncle whose name is Tijmstra, a respectable Frisian name. But then again, what do I know?
Thanks, GerardM
Mark Williamson wrote:
Apparently, you don't realise that there are basically 3 separate Frisian languages.
Saterlandic Frisian (East Frisian) speakers most definitely DO NOT use Westlauwer Frisian (West Frisian) as their standard language, nor do North Frisian speakers use Westlauwer Frisian (West Frisian) as their standard language.
I don't know if you realise it, but when you are speaking of "Frisian", you seem to be referring only to that "Frisian" spoken in the Netherlands (Westlauwer Frisian). There are related varieties spoken in Germany, in places called "Ostfriesland" and "Nordfriesland", which are not mutually intelligible with the Western Frisian of the Netherlands.
Mark
On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 15:06:30 +0100, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi,
The term "Westlauwers Fries" is something of an oddity. It is a term that is hardly used it is not commonly used. When it is used at all, it is by people who only talk to themselves. Westfries is not a dialect of Frisian. The term West Frisian may be used by some outside of the Netherlands, but in my opinion it only shows that they do not look further than their noses.
Frisian (ISO 639: fy - the language taught in Dutch schools) is a fairly recent standardized version of different types of Frisian. Fries is one of the hot topics in the nl:wikipedia. It is full of people who want to push their POV on this topic. I hope we will use more disambiguation pages because in my opinion it is the way forward.
Thanks, GerardM
Mark Williamson wrote:
I am discussing this, in English, and if I recall correctly, the English terms "West Frisian" and "East Frisian" correspond to the Dutch terms "Westlauwers Fries" and "Saterfries".
I am not talking about Dutch dialects or dialects of Westlauwer Frisian, but rather about the different varities of Frisian spoken variously in two nations, the Netherlands (West Frisian) and Germany (East Frisian, Peninsular North Frisian, Insular North Frisian; the latter is sometimes even divided into separate languages for each island).
I know what I am talking about, I have seen many books in English that refer to it this way, though I can't speak for Dutch since I haven't read much of anything in Dutch.
Mark
On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 11:05:27 +0100, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Mark, Westfries is not Frisian, it is not even spoken in Friesland. It is spoken in Noord Holland. Some consider this a language some consider it a dialect. However Fries is what goes by the code of fy. If you know Frisian as much as all these other languages, please use its proper name.
NB the differences between Oostfries and Westfries are massive indeed :)
Thanks, GerardM
Mark Williamson wrote:
The differences between West Frisian (spoken in the Netherlands) and East Frisian (spoken in Saterland) are massive.
It would be rediculous to use the same Wikipedia.
It might be different if fy: already had some content in Saterland Frisian, but to the best of my knowledge it is entirely in Western Frisian with the exception of one article which is bilingual in Western Frisian and North Frisian, and bilingual I mean it has two separate versions)
Mark
On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 15:22:58 -0500, Stephen Forrest stephen.forrest@gmail.com wrote:
>On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 20:42:52 +0100, Wouter Steenbeek >musiqolog@hotmail.com wrote: > > > > > > >>I would like to apply for a Wikipedia in Saterlandic (East) Frisian. Further >>details can be read at >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saterlandic_Frisian_language and soon at the >>requests page. >> >> >> >> >> >> >I believe you mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saterland_Frisian_language. > >For the purposes of ISO 639 codes, Saterland Frisian is regarded as a >dialect of Frisian. Can you provide a rationale for why working >within the Frisian Wikipedia is not tenable? > >I seem to recall reading that there were different spelling >conventions for the Frisian spoken in Germany and that spoken in the >Netherlands. I have no idea how significant these differences are. > >Steve >