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From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: Frisian and Old English
Message-ID: <CxHHqp.Bnq@inter.NL.net>
Organization: NLnet
References: <3779e7$14d@apakabar.cc.columbia.edu> <37cbh0INNjf8@uwm.edu>
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 01:06:24 GMT
Lines: 32

In article <37cbh0INNjf8@uwm.edu>,
Alan D Corre <corre@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu> wrote:
>In article <3779e7$14d@apakabar.cc.columbia.edu> rms22@bonjour.cc.columbia.edu (Rickie Markus Sonpal) writes:
>>I was recently told that the language of the Frisian Islands is remarkably
>>similar to Old English
>
>I understand that Frisian, which is distinct from Dutch is very close to
>English. There is a statement that "Good cheese is good English and good
>Fries" -- as compared to Dutch goede kaas.
>

Cheese is `tsiis' in Frisian (The only Frisian phrase I know is:
"butter, brea en griene tsiis, wa't dat net sizze kin is gjin
oprjochte Fries" -- "butter, bread and green cheese, who cannot
say that is not an honest Frisian").  I don't know if this
particular word proves very much (palatalization/affrication of
k before a(e) is common enough, cf. French, and it might be an
independent phenomenon), but there seem to be many other things
that link English and Frisian.  Enough to justify an Anglo-Frisian
subgroup of West-Germanic (which might also have included the
Jute language and the languages spoken along the Dutch and Flemish
coasts, the so-called "ingvaeonian dialects", later absorbed by
West-Frankish).  Modern Frisian has been influenced by Dutch
to such a degree (and English by Norman French) that one cannot 
speak of "Anglo-Frisian" anymore.  Modern Frisian must be
classified with Dutch and Plattdeutsch as "Continental Low Germanic"
or some such term.

--
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 
