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Frisian (I guess West Frisian)
Here is an old poem in both English and Frisian. See how similar they look.
Lyk az Gods sinne weiet uus wrâld oerschijnt;
Like as God's sun sweetly our world o'ershines;
Her warmtme in ljeacht in groed in libben schinkt;
Her warmth and light and growth and life sends;
Lijk az de mijlde rein elke eker fijnt:
Like as the mild rain each acre finds:
So dogt eak dat, wat ijn uus, minksen, tinkt.
So does eke that, what in us, men, thinks.
Dij sprankel fen Gods fjoer, ijn uus lein, jouwt
That sparkle of God's fire, in us laid, gives
Oeral eak ljeacht in FREUGDE oon Adams team.
O'erall eke light and JOY on Adam's team.
Wer dij wenn't, hulken, of paleisen, bouwt
Where they dwelt, hulk, or palaces build,
In fen wat folk hij iz, ho hij him neam
And of what folk he is, how he him names.
The one word that seems really different is the words for 'Joy'. Most of the other words are very similar.
At least to me, West Frisian is completely unintelligible when actually heard (as opposed to read), and seems much closer overall to Dutch and Low Saxon than English despite being genetically Anglo-Frisian.
"On a basic level" is the key. Yes, there is more etymologic similarity between Frisian and English than English and any other language (other than Scottish, which is still debatable if it even is a language). You are correct about those above examples. But any conversation that extends beyond asking the most basic information rapidly progresses from difficult to unintelligible. When I hear spoken Frisian it is almost completely unintelligible to me, and I am a native English speaker. I can make out a few words here and there. Due to the massive influence of French via the Norman rule over England in the middle ages, then, the cultural influences French has had over English, it is even hard to classify English as a purely West Germanic language (even though I know it IS, based on historical linguistics) the way Frisian and Dutch are for example. Modern English borders on being half Germanic and half Romance, since a large percentage of words in daily use come directly from Romance (French). The core vocabulary of prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions in English will always remain Germanic, since these types of words are rarely if ever borrowed or substrated. Nouns and verbs..completely another story. My guess would be 30-50% of nouns and verbs in English come from Romance, where in Frisian..like Dutch and German..close to 0%.
An analogy within languages might be say, French and Portuguese. I have heard there is 'mutual intelligibility" between the two based on some similar phonology and of course, the fact they are both Romance/neo-Latin. Of course, that is hogwash. The extensive influence of Arabic on Portuguese which does not happen in French, plus French's very different vocalic rules make mutual intelligibility about 0%. They have both had Celtic influence as far as sound inventory, but French MUCH more so. But hey, I am sure based on the fact that they share a few words makes them 'mutual intelligible' to a few poor souls out there.
While English and Scots have a lot of Romance and Latinate loans, yes, what really makes English and Scots unlike the other West Germanic languages is not such but rather that English and Scots have undergone a lot of independent language change separate from the other Germanic languages since the Middle English period. (Mind you that West Frisian is actually much closer to Middle English than it is to Late New English.) Take the tense and aspect system of English, which significantly differs from all non-Anglic West Germanic languages; such is not at all due to outside influence but rather is due to internal change during the Early New English period. And it is not true that the rest of West Germanic has not undergone influence from Romance and Latin; Dutch has acquired a lot of loans from French and German has acquired a lot of loans from Latin, actually.
As a native American English speaker, those Frisian speakers sound closest to American English it seems. You can hear certain "German" sounds come in, like the way they pronounced what sounds like "sh" and "r." But there were a lot of instances where it sounded so much like American English, I was just _waiting for it to become intelligible_. (Due to Asperger's syndrome, sometimes words in my native language sound unintelligible to me, even when spoken by native speakers, particularly if I'm not concentrating. In this case, I first heard it and was doing my thing where I naturally try to concentrate more as it was unintelligible, but sounded like American English, to start being able to understand them. Of course, I did not understand what the Frisian speakers were saying and the "German" sounds that came in made me see it as more a foreign language.)
There was a point where the man said "and," which sounded just like how a native American speaker would say, cadence, tone, and everything.
<<And it is not true that the rest of West Germanic has not undergone influence from Romance and Latin; Dutch has acquired a lot of loans from French and German has acquired a lot of loans from Latin, actually. >>
Actually yes you are right. What I meant was that other Germanic languages have had much less direct influence from Romance, when compared to English. Even a standard Swadesh list will reveal substantially less core Germanic vocabulary in everyday English words than in Frisian, Dutch, German, Afrikaans, etc. But as you state correctly, even German has borrowed quite a few words and constructions from Latin. Swedish even has many romance borrowings.
Old English and especially Middle English, probably come closer to mutual intelligibility to West Frisian than any English spoken since about 1700. We have to remember, under Norman/French rule, Anglo-Norman was the language 'oficially' spoken even in London during this time. Many words related to law in English are much more cognate with modern French than any of the Germanic languages, including Frisian.
To the previous poster, Beneficii. You are right there is something to it about "wanting it to become intelligible". I will say, Frisian does have probably a phonology most similar to American English compared with any other foreign language. Many of the words are quite intelligible, especially, like I keep coming back to, the gremmatical auxiliary words like conjunctions. You mention 'and', as a good example. "You" is another. All those words were never abosorbed by anlgo-norman, since those types of words are rarely borrowed. When I hear spoken Frisian, the contrast reminds me of Romanian, compared to my Spanish. It 'almost' becomes intelligible, but so many differences keep any intelligibility in check.
Just to add..If Romance had not had the influence on English that it has had over the centuries, even if it just had HALF the influence on English lexicon that it has had, I guarantee Frisian and English would come much closer to mutual intelligibility than they do. Basically, an English speaker 500-700 years ago probably could have a somewhat understandable conversation with a Frysk with a little work. We would also probably share much more in common with Dutch, vowel shifts notwithstanding!
<<The one word that seems really different is the words for 'Joy'. Most of the other words are very similar. >>
Def. of JOY: [edit] Etymology
Via Middle English and Old French, from Latin gaudium (-joie-)
FREUGDE: Frysk
Freude: Deutsch
It is differences like that which make Frisian basically unintelligible to English speakers.
The English word 'friend' is etymologically related to German "Freude" however.
If you look at that poem, though, for instance, you'll notice that that is probably the only case of words that differ where West Frisian uses a Germanic word and English uses a Romance word. Yet at the same time, the West Frisian still differs significantly from the English in writing, and is likely still largely unintelligible when actually spoken. Very many of the differences between English and other West Germanic languages are still present even when one makes a concerted effort to weed out all Romance and Latinate words found in English which do not also exist in its other non-Anglic West Germanic counterparts. The reason for this is that Romance and Latinate loans are but one thing out of many which separates English and Scots from the rest of West Germanic.
<<Yes, there is more etymologic similarity between Frisian and English than English and any other language (other than Scottish, which is still debatable if it even is a language).>>
English has more lexical similarity with french and the other romance languages, than it does with dutch or frisian.
<<
Lyk az Gods sinne weiet uus wrâld oerschijnt;
Like as God's sun sweetly our world o'ershines;
Her warmtme in ljeacht in groed in libben schinkt;
Her warmth and light and growth and life sends;
Lijk az de mijlde rein elke eker fijnt:
Like as the mild rain each acre finds:
So dogt eak dat, wat ijn uus, minksen, tinkt.
So does eke that, what in us, men, thinks.
Dij sprankel fen Gods fjoer, ijn uus lein, jouwt
That sparkle of God's fire, in us laid, gives
Oeral eak ljeacht in FREUGDE oon Adams team.
O'erall eke light and JOY on Adam's team.
Wer dij wenn't, hulken, of paleisen, bouwt
Where they dwelt, hulk, or palaces build,
In fen wat folk hij iz, ho hij him neam
And of what folk he is, how he him names.
>>
Interesting, but I wouldn't have recognized most of those cognates had it not been for the literal translation. Its certainly not mutually intelligible to any degree, written or spoken.
>>Interesting, but I wouldn't have recognized most of those cognates had it not been for the literal translation. Its certainly not mutually intelligible to any degree, written or spoken.<<
Exactly - it is only really recognizable in the first place even when written due to the extreme literalness of the translation; actual natural Late New English would greatly differ from the West Frisian text above.
>>Even a standard Swadesh list will reveal substantially less core Germanic vocabulary in everyday English words than in Frisian, Dutch, German, Afrikaans, etc. <<
As far as I can tell, only 14 out of 207 words in the English Swadesh list are definately not Germanic (person, animal, forest, fruit, flower, vomit, count, push, river, lake, mountain, round, because, turn).
for the hell of it once I took the French anthem and the West Frisian Anthem and highlighted words I could recognize omitting basic Indo-European structures... was fairly high on paper for both though higher with French. What you also see several false friends (French compagnes does not equal English campaign; Frisian see= English sea and not see)... It's very simple, English is a hybrid language with clear similarities to both Germanic and Romance branches.
This is by memory so excuse little mistakes
()=recognizable near cognate; *= etymological recognition
French Anthem
Allons (enfants) de la patri*
le jour de (glorie) est (arrive')
Contre* nous de la (tryannie)
L'etedndand sang*lant est leve*
Entendez*-vous dan las campagnes*
Mugir ces (feroces) (soldats)
Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras
Egorer nos fils*, nos (compagnes)!
Aux (armes), (citoyens)
(Formez) vos (bataillons)
(Marchons, Marchons)
qu'un sang* (impur)
Abreuve nos sillons!
West Frisian Anthem:
(Frysk) (bloed) tsjoch (op)!
Wol no ris bruze en siedes
en bunzje troch us ierenom!
Flean (op)! Wy sjonge it (beste) (lan) fan d'ierde
it (Fryske) (lan) fol* eare en ron
Klink dan en daverje fier* ya it ron
Dyn alde eare o (Fryske) (grun)!
Hoe ek fan oermacht needen (see)
betrutsen, oeralde leave* (Fryske) (Grun)
(Nea waard) dy feste, taaie ban ferbrutsen.
Dyt (Friezen), oan har lanterbun
chorus
Fan bugjen-frejmd blean by taud (folk) en eare
syn (namme) en taal* syn (frije) syn
syn (wurd) wie wet rjocht, sljocht en (trou) syn learde
en twand, fan wa ek, stieit tsijn
My educational background is in Romance and Slavic languages so I may be overlooking something in the Frisian if a Germanic expert wants to help. (I visited Germany/Austria 3 times for I caught that Haupt(head/main)banhof connection to English... and even then it was because in Czech/Polish they use hlavni/glowny (head) nadrazi/dworec (station).
Whatever, I like my English language, it is the most unique I've encountered.
"The English word 'friend' is etymologically related to German "Freude" however."
Well, really, "friend" is "freuNd" in German. It's similar to the "frech" - "frisch" merger in English. To us, it's "fresh," whether it's cheeky or newly-picked fruit. I've posted this before, but, back in the early '70s, I picked up a Frisian man who'd had a car breakdown east of Leeuwarden. He could not understand my English or my German, and I couldn't understand his Frisian. It's going from the specific to the general, but I'd guess that would be the usual case...
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