Frisian (I guess West Frisian)

Skippy   Wed May 28, 2008 3:18 am GMT
I saw a video on youtube that was an interview conducted in Frisian. The way the woman is speaking it sounds to me like Scots pronunciation with Dutch vocab. Now, I can kinda read Dutch because I'm OK at German, and Dutch doesn't seem all that daunting having studied German as much as I have. My question is, how difficult is it for an English speaker to learn Frisian? How much easier is it if you know German? And how much easier is it if you know Dutch?
guest   Wed May 28, 2008 2:14 pm GMT
I also grew up speaking German (I was raised part of my childhood in Karlsruhe), and I learned Old English and Dutch later through interest in both languages.

I am a native English speaker.

I have not extensively studied Frisian, because it is difficult to find good resources, but I have some exposure to it from online sources like Frisian Wikipedia, etc.

For me, neither German nor Dutch seem to help with Frisian, as Frisian is in a class all its own (well, actually, with English and Scots). Old English really doesn't help either, because Frisian has modernized like English. In fact, if you speak English, or better, Scots, then that is probably the best first step in approaching Frisian.

To me, Frisian resembles English in it's shortness of words (not a lot of additional syllables resulting from inflections like -en, etc) and meter; but it's like Dutch in its use of "it" (i.e. "it") for "that" (the neuter form of "the"). It's definitely more reminiscent of ancient Scandinavian or North Sea Germanic than German.

It would be hard for me to imagine anyone familiar with Frisian to associate it with Deutsch at all.
guest   Wed May 28, 2008 2:33 pm GMT
Skippy, do you have the link to that interview?
I would be interested to hear it :)
Skippy   Wed May 28, 2008 4:16 pm GMT
Guest   Wed May 28, 2008 7:28 pm GMT
I was desperately searching for something recognizable in that interview, and was disapointed to not understand a word.

Frisian is suposed to be our closest relative - our sister language - and yet none of it seems to be intelligible; no obvious similarities.

We are so far removed from our family. Its just sad.
guest   Wed May 28, 2008 7:49 pm GMT
<<Frisian is suposed to be our closest relative - our sister language - and yet none of it seems to be intelligible; no obvious similarities.
>>

I've heard tell that it is intelligible to speakers of certain English dialects, and in fact, sounds no further away from GenAmer English than some English English dialects sound.

Just think of how many times we (Amer) have to subtitle English English speakers who are speaking ENGLISH.
Guest   Wed May 28, 2008 8:18 pm GMT
<<We are so far removed from our family. Its just sad. >>

Perhaps we should break up "English" into multiple languages, rather than just dialects:

"English"
"American" ("United Statesian")
"Canadian"
"Australian"
etc.

Then, we'd have some very closely related languages (especially American and Canadian).
Guest   Wed May 28, 2008 8:32 pm GMT
<<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRfodZPL57A >>
A mi me suena a una mezcla de ingles,aleman y ruso. La entonacion es entre alemán y ruso ya que es mucho más suave que el alemán. ¿Puede ser?
don Galvanes sin Tierra   Wed May 28, 2008 9:27 pm GMT
<<La entonacion es entre alemán y ruso...>

Northern Germanic seems to have a "slavic" sound in it:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3WypmGwzisE

Also, if you remove some vocals from Romance you will obtain a "slavic" sound - see Portuguese.

I think that this is the underlaying sound of Indo-European languages, inherent (at least) in the European ones.
Colette   Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:49 am GMT
Thanks for sharing that, Skippy. I also noticed an uncanny Scottish-like cadence. English spoken with a Scottish accent and even Scots itself sounds very sing-songy like Swedish and, to a lesser extent, German. This is one of the things I love the best about the Germanic languages.

I agree with guest that it's really sad that we can barely understand our closest relative. I can understand Dutch much better than Frisian, but that may be because I studied German quite a bit. When I watched Dutch TV while in Germany, it wasn't very difficult to understand: it was like a cross between German and English.
zatsu   Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:17 am GMT
<<Also, if you remove some vocals from Romance you will obtain a "slavic" sound - see Portuguese.>>

Oh, is that how Northern Germanic sounds like? It seems indeed easy to pronounce, hmmm...


The first video seemed to me like something between English, German and Swedish, and the girl was easier to understand.
P.D.   Sat Jun 07, 2008 5:21 am GMT
Frisian would be simple for English speakers to learn, if it weren't for that Norman invasion thingy that happened centures ago. Core Frisian vocabulary probably is about what, 40-50% lexical similarity with English, mostly being words like articles, prepositions, conjunctions, etc..words which don't usually lend between languages. Now Frisian is much closer to Dutch and somewhat more to German dialects. But occasionally we can form basic intelligible sentences which Frisian and English speakers can understand (Green cheese..I am sure we have all heard it). As a native English speaker, Frisian is about as close to modern English as old English is. Some words are familiar, most are not.
Guest   Mon Jun 09, 2008 6:25 pm GMT
<<Frisian would be simple for English speakers to learn, if it weren't for that Norman invasion thingy that happened centures ago.>>

Frisian is still easy for English speakers to learn. Probably the easiest of all languages for English speakers.


<<Now Frisian is much closer to Dutch and somewhat more to German dialects.>>

It does have a Dutch sound to it--not to the language, but to the speakers--but that may be because of most Frisian speakers today were once Dutch speakers in the past and their accent is filtering through.


<<occasionally we can form basic intelligible sentences which Frisian and English speakers can understand>>

On a basic level, English and Frisian are mutually intelligible. Even more so when it's written.
Guest   Tue Jun 10, 2008 5:40 am GMT
<<
On a basic level, English and Frisian are mutually intelligible. Even more so when it's written.>>

Please demonstrate this with examples....i've never seen anything in frisian or dutch that even remotely resembles english.
David   Tue Jun 10, 2008 3:07 pm GMT
A few examples of basic mutual intelligibility:
===

West Frisian/English

Wat is dit?/ What is this?
Wat kostet dit?/ How much is this?
Wat is jo namme?/What's your name?
Wêr komme jo wei?/Where are you from?
Ik hear dy/I hear you