North Frisian language

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
North Frisian language

Spoken in

Germany
speaker 8,000-10,000
Linguistic
classification
Official status
Recognized minority /
regional language in 		District of North Friesland and the municipality of Helgoland in Schleswig-Holstein
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

-

ISO 639 -2

frr

ISO 639-3

frr

The North Frisian language or North Frisian for short are the dialects of Frisian spoken on the mainland coast of the Schleswig-Holstein district of North Frisia , on the offshore islands of Föhr , Amrum , Sylt and the Halligen as well as on Heligoland . They represent the northern branch of the Frisian language group. There are ten North Frisian dialects and about ten thousand speakers.

classification

The closest relatives of North Frisian are the other two Frisian languages: Sater Frisian as the only remaining remnant of East Frisian in northwest Lower Saxony and West Frisian , which is spoken in the north of the Netherlands . Together, the three languages ​​make up the Frisian language group .

English is closely related to Frisian . In the past, Frisian and English were often combined in one Anglo-Frisian language group. Today, English and Frisian are usually classified together with Low German as North Sea Germanic languages . Low German, which is also closely related to the Frisian languages, has already developed differently since Old Saxon times and has lost many North Sea Germanic features.

The list of Frisian words offers a comparison of different word forms from Frisian dialects and the neighboring languages ​​Dutch, Low German, High German and Danish .

Dialects

overview

The North Frisian dialects: Danish was spoken in Listland on Sylt, Frisian was spoken in Eiderstedt and Nordstrand until the 17th century

The North Frisian dialects can be divided into two groups: Island North Frisian and Mainland North Frisian; the dialect spoken on the Halligen belongs to mainland North Frisian. A distinction is usually made between the following ten main dialects, which have been spoken since the beginning of scientific discussion of North Frisian in the 19th century:

The dialects of the mainland and the islands differ significantly, as they were shaped by Frisian immigrants in different centuries. Around 800 the islands of Sylt, Amrum, Föhr and Helgoland were settled, in a second wave of immigration from around 1100 the mainland and the Halligen.

In addition, there are different influences of the neighboring languages ​​on the individual dialects. On Sylt, Föhr and Amrum as well as in the northern part of the North Frisian mainland a stronger Jutian influence on the dialects can be determined, on the rest of the mainland and on Heligoland the influence of Low German is stronger. Furthermore, the individual dialect areas had little contact with one another, so that hardly any compensatory dialects could arise. In addition, there was no cultural center in North Friesland whose dialect could have developed into a central dialect.

Language examples

The following table allows an insight into differences and similarities.

dialect father mother sister Brothers
Sölring Faaðer Mooter Sester Bröðer
Fering aatj mam saster bruler
Öömrang brothers
Hallig Frisian baabe mam so broor
Halunder Foor Mem Söster Bruur
Wiedinghard Frisian would do määm broor
Karrhard Frisian mam brother
Bökinghard Frisian taatje mam brouder
Middle Goeshard Frisian ate mam broor
South Goeshard Frisian fåår, fååðer brööðer
Nordergoesharder Frisian fååje so brår

Extinct dialects

The Eiderstedter Frisian , which used to be widespread on the Eiderstedt peninsula , was abandoned in favor of the Low German language by the 18th century . In contrast to the northern Harden, Eiderstedt was economically strong and prosperous and in many respects had oriented itself towards the areas bordering on the south, which were characterized by Low German. In the 16th century there was also a strong Dutch immigration.

A similar development took place on the island of Strand , but it was destroyed by the Burchardi flood in 1634 . On the eastern fragment of the island, today's north beach , the surviving population did not succeed in damming their land again on their own. Many Frisian-speaking residents left the island or were unable to assert themselves linguistically against the new settlers who mostly came from the Netherlands. On Pellworm , the western fragment of the beach, a new dike was quickly made. The Frisian language was preserved on Pellworm until the 18th century, when it fell victim to changes in the population structure. The old Strander Frisian was probably the closest related to Hallig Frisian.

Wyker Frisian was also similar to Hallig Frisian, which was spoken in Wyk auf Föhr until the city had completely converted to Low German. The Wyker dialect probably developed from the dialects of the immigrants from the island of Strand and the Halligen.

Of the more recently known dialects, with the death of the last speaker on October 10, 1981, the South Goeshard Frisian became extinct, other dialects are acutely threatened with extinction. North Frisian was also spoken north of today's German-Danish border in some Koog farms and settlements located directly on the border.

Self-labeling

Due to the numerous dialects, there was originally no uniform self-name for the North Frisian language. So the Wiedingharder and the Halligfriesen call their language freesk, the Bökingharder frasch, the Karrharder fräisch and the Goesharder also fräisch or freesch . While all of these expressions mean "Frisian" in German, the self-designation in the island dialects is related to the corresponding island and therefore partially corresponds to the dialect names Sölring, fering, öömrang and Halunder . Since the islands have different names in the different dialects, the names also differ here. For example, Sylt means Fering Sal, so from a local point of view, Sylt is called salring instead of Sölring . Föhr means Föör in Sölring , accordingly the Föhr Frisian is called Fööring instead of fering on Sylt . For this reason, too, the standardization of the designation made sense. "Frisian" means fresk on Föhr and Amrum , and Friisk on Sylt and Helgoland . There are also differences in the designation of the north direction. The arch spans here from Nuurđ via Nuurd , Noor and nord to noord .

The North Frisians finally agreed on the word friisk as a cross-dialect term . This is based on the West Frisian self-name Frysk , but also corresponds to the Sylter Frisian and Helgoland word for "Frisian". This designation is found today mainly in official names when referring to the entirety of the North Frisians or the North Frisian dialects, for example at the Nordfriisk Instituut , the Friisk Foriining , the Friisk Gesäts or the radio station Friisk Funk . The northern section of the Frisian Council has retained its traditional name Frasche Rädj in the Mooringer dialect.

Phonology

Despite the great differences between the North Frisian dialects, there are also some features in phonology that are more or less pronounced in all dialect areas. This includes the lowering of i to a , which is almost completely carried out in the central dialects, but only reached e or ä in the peripheral dialects . An example is the word for fish : Mooring fasch , Fering-Öömrang FASK but Sölring FESK (see Ndt.. Fish / Fisk , Engl. Fish , Denmark. Fisk , needles. Vis ).

The situation is similar with the lenization of the voiceless plosives p , t and k , which in the position between two vowels become voiced plosives and eventually develop into voiced fricatives . The Lenition is mainly present as the example of the verb in the central dialects to know is to see: Mooring Waase , Fering-Öömrang wed , Sölring weet , Halunder wet (see Westfrs.. Witte , Ndt. Beting ).

The North Frisian dialects differ from High German by a more extensive vowel and consonant system. The consonants of all dialects have an additional palatal sequence in common, which is unusual for a Germanic language. In the Westföhr dialect, an additional series of dental consonants that have different meanings has been documented until recently. Overall, it can be said that the island mouth types have a relatively complicated consonant system, whereas the mainland mouth types have a distinctive vowel system.

The phonological system of the North Frisian dialects has recently been under very strong High German influence and is slowly adjusting to the system of the standard German language.

Current situation

Bilingual signs at the police station in Husum

In official linguistic usage today, 8,000 to 10,000 speakers of the North Frisian language in North Frisia and on Heligoland are usually used. Linguists assume, however, that the number of speakers is significantly lower, in 2007 Nils Århammar estimated a number of 5,000 speakers within and 1,500 to 2,000 speakers outside of North Frisia. Exact surveys of the number of speakers are not available. In the UNESCO “Red Book of Threatened Languages”, North Frisian is classified as “seriously endangered”.

Today the Fering, the Öömrang and the Mooring still have a significant number of speakers, especially in the Föhrer Westerland the language community is still considered relatively intact. The other North Frisian dialects are partly threatened with extinction, especially Karrharder Frisian, Middle Goesharder Frisian and Hallig Frisian.

On Föhr and Amrum, a substantial part of the islanders still speak North Frisian. The number of speakers on both islands is estimated at around 3,500 (out of around 11,000 inhabitants). In the western villages of Föhrs and on Amrum - except in Wittdün - North Frisian is still widespread as a family language. In the east of Föhr, until recently it was pushed back by Low German , today it is generally more by Standard German .

The Amrum school (elementary, secondary and secondary school) is called Öömrang Skuul and focuses on teaching the Amrum dialect. On the mainland in Risum, there is a Danish-Frisian elementary school called Risum Skole / Risem Schölj . At the Eilun Feer Skuul on Föhr, two high school graduates passed an examination in Frisian for the first time in 2012.

The North Frisian language is protected as a minority language in Schleswig-Holstein by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. At the end of 2004, the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament also passed the “Law for the Promotion of Frisian in Public Spaces”, which regulates the use of the language in official use in the district of North Frisia and on Heligoland.

See also

literature

Web links

Wikipedia in North Frisian

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b cf. information on the website of the Schleswig-Holstein state government ( memento of October 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Nils Århammar: Lecture on the North Frisian language. (PDF; 2.7 MB) accessed on February 27, 2010
  3. ^ Hans Frede Nielsen: Frisian and the Grouping of the Older Germanic Languages . In: Horst H. Munske (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Frisian . Niemeyer, Tübingen 2001
  4. ↑ Table based on a template from: Horst H. Munske u. a. (Ed.): Handbook of Frisian . Niemeyer, Tübingen 2001, ISBN 3-484-73048-X , 29. The North Frisian dialects, p. 286 (authors Alastair GH Walker, Ommo Wilts).
  5. ↑ See Dietrich Hoffmann: Zum Eiderstedter Frisian. In: Niederdeutsche Mitteilungen , 14. pp. 59–68
  6. ^ The Netherlands and the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein . ( Memento from January 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Society for Schleswig-Holstein History
  7. ↑ Otto S. Knottnerus: De vergeten Friezen - Mislukt pamflet van Benny Siewertsen over a boeiend topic. In: De Vrije Fries , 88, 2008, pp. 213-238, in response to Benny Siewertsen: De vergeten Friezen in Denemarken
  8. ↑ Ommo Wilts, Alastair Walker: The North Frisian dialects . In: Horst H. Munske (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Frisian . Niemeyer, Tübingen 2001
  9. ↑ a b Nils Århammar: North Frisian, an endangered minority language in ten dialects: an inventory. (PDF; 2.7 MB) In: Horst Haider Munske (Ed.): Are the dialects dying out? ( Memento from April 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Lectures at the Interdisciplinary Center for Dialect Research at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, October 22 to December 10, 2007
  10. ↑ helsinki.fi
  11. ↑ Law for the Promotion of Frisian in Public Spaces