hello everyone welcome to the Laing
focused Channel and my name is Paul one
question that I'm frequently asked is
what language is most closely related to
English well some people would say Scots
but that's debated because other people
would say that Scots is a variety of
English leaving that debate aside if we
think of English and Scots together then
what language is most closely related to
them the answer is the frisian language
or maybe I should say the Frisian
languages in the plural Anglo frisian is
a sub branch of the West Germanic
languages it consists of the unlik
languages English and Scots or you can
think of this as just English if you
want and the Frisian languages a group
of closely related languages that
developed from old Frisian old Frisian
and Old English were very close to each
other but that doesn't mean that Frisian
and English are mutually intelligible
today English has changed dramatically
due to contact with other languages like
Norman French and the various varieties
of Frisian have been influenced by
Germanic languages in their respective
regions the most widely spoken frisian
language by far is west frisian which is
spoken by over 450,000 people mainly in
the free slum province of the
netherlands where it's co official with
dutch at the provincial level then
there's north frisian spoken in parts of
the state of schleswig-holstein in
northern germany it's spoken by fewer
than 10,000 people and is considered
endangered then there's saterland
frisian which is only spoken by a couple
of thousand people in one municipality
softer lumped in the lower saxony state
in germany saterland frisian is
seriously endangered as most of its
speakers are older
all three Frisian languages consist of a
number of dialects even saterland
frisian with three villages having their
own dialect frisian used to be spoken
over a much wider area of the north sea
coast
old frisian was spoken and written
throughout the fifteenth century but
lost its status as a written language
when rulers of Friesland made Dutch the
dominant language first under duke
albert the third of saxony then under
haps
rule then under an independent
Netherlands in which Holland was
dominant a quick sidenote
what's the difference between Holland
and Netherlands I thought they were the
same nope just like England is only one
part of the United Kingdom Holland is
only one part of the Netherlands
actually two parts the provinces of
North Holland and South Holland the
other provinces including Friesland are
part of the Netherlands but not part of
Holland so Holland became the most
influential part of the Netherlands and
Dutch remains the dominant language
frisian became mainly a spoken language
for a long time in this period coincides
with the middle frisian period over a
century later in the 17th century
Frisian poet gisbert
epics wrote poems and Frisian to revive
it as a literary language then Johannes
Hill artists began trying to standardize
written frisians orthography and
pronunciation while the optics wrote in
a more traditional literary style heal
artists tried to make the standard
language more similar to how people
actually spoke another Frisian yah-hey
Hulbert smih translated many plays and
books including the Bible into modern
West Frisian and this is what really
started the movement to preserve modern
West Frisian that movement picked up in
the early 20th century and continues
till this day so what is modern Frisian
like well that depends on which of the
three main varieties we're talking about
because they are distinct languages in
this video we'll focus on West Frisian
the most widely spoken frisian language
first some basic phrases in West Frisian
hello hi good morning gleamin
please Oishi blaze I'd like some coffee
please it should have a coffee Ola
thank you Tonka Ville thank you very
much Divac tongue note that unlike
English Frisian doesn't have dental
fricative sound like thumb as in English
thank you or the as in English that
excuse me never mean that they are
where's the restroom there is just hush
can I understand agree but I don't
understand a big Ibanez
I love Friesland Eckhart Humphries lon
holy Blake's gender
now let's examine some sentences in
Frisian the sentence means those are her
books don't mean a heartbroken as you
can see the syntax here is the same in
both languages and most of the words are
all cognate this one dinna may look
different but it resembles the word
being in English doesn't it this is a
form of the verb meaning to be which is
cognate with the English word but in
West Frisian the infinitive is that
which makes more sense if you look at
the past tense forms
Buchan is the plural form frisian has
two ways of forming the plural N or en
for nouns that have a stressed final
syllable and s for nouns that end in
unstressed syllables and also after
diminutive endings this sentence has a
possessive adjective but how was
possession shown if we specify who the
possessor is with a name for example
those are feni's books does being a
Finnish Buchan possession can be
expressed with a genitive ending on the
nail similar to English apostrophe s old
Frisian had a system of numerous
grammatical cases for nouns but just
like in English those case forms have
been lost except for the genitive but
the genitive case form has become much
less common - and now it's much more
common to use the word fond to express
possession dog banana bookends from
Fenna word for word it's those are the
books of Fenna notice that the definite
article the comes before the noun and
then faun comes after it another way
that might be even more common is this
Dodman Afeni had Buchan word for word
those are Fenna her books the possessive
adjective is used in place of the
genitive ending it's interesting that
these periphrastic ways of expressing
the genitive have become more common
than the genitive ending it seems to
show the continued erosion of the
frisian case system going back to this
sentence for a second dog banana bogans
from fauna note the definite article
there is one more definite article it
frisian has two grammatical genders
common gender and the neuter gender the
is used with singular common gender
nouns and with all plural nouns it is
used with singular neuter nouns book is
new
but it's in the plural form so it's
definite article is let's try making
that sentence singular that is feni's
book Bukovina notice that the definite
article is it because book is singular
neuter also as we saw before with the
plural sentence possession can be
expressed in those other ways to the
espheni's group this is possible but not
common anymore
daughters fan aha book is the most
common you may have noticed that the
demonstrative pronoun dot like that in
English is used for both singular and
plural in other words for both that and
those in west frisian there's a
distinction between demonstrative
pronouns and demonstrative adjectives
that the monster of pronouns are dipped
meaning this or these mister for both
genders and dot meaning that or those
also used for both genders demonstrative
pronouns are used as equivalents or
substitutes of the noun the monster of
adjectives are used to modify nouns and
come directly before them for common
gender singular and for all plural nouns
Deezer meaning this or these and d
meaning that or those and for neuter
singular nouns did meaning this and dot
meaning that here's a pair of sentences
to show you the distinction between
demonstrative pronouns and demonstrative
adjectives dot beanahab Oken de
Bougainville ofin ha
another sentence she has read 15 books
this year she hunted a year 15 book
imagine word for word its she has this
year 15 books read this sentence begins
with the personal pronoun she' which is
a cognate of English she basically all
the personal pronouns in West Frisian
are cognate equivalents of the ones in
English next we see the third-person
singular present tense conjugation of
the verb hava the present tense forms
correspond quite closely with the
english present tense forms but look at
the past tense forms in english the past
tense conjugations collapsed into a
single past tense form based on the
first and third person singular forms
but frisian still maintains distinct
past tense conjugations next we see did
year meaning this year year is a neuter
singular noun so the demonstrative
adjective is did rather than disa next
we see the number 15 obviously a cognate
with English 15 let's hear a few more
numbers ian tois TRAI fee our fee if
traitor all of these numbers are cognate
with English numbers but there's a
difference in numbers like 34 Fiona and
treati
literally four and thirty lazon is the
past participle form of the verb lazar
meaning to read Lazar has cognates in
numerous Germanic languages including
Dutch lazin and German lazin another
sentence this one means we usually stay
at home in the evening be blue an
emollient dish word-for-word 'it's we
stay normally in the evening at home the
verb Blio WA is a cognate of the English
word believe' which means stay or remain
but is obsolete in the standard language
normal is like normal or normally of
course of course you could say normally
in English as well making these two
sentences more similar units is the
genitive form of UHN which means evening
the genitive form of nouns is sometimes
used as a temporal adverb marker to form
adverbs of time finally the word 2 was
originally a contraction of two words
tah plus push this is the equivalent of
the Dutch
taos one final sentence almost everyone
went home early because of the storm
hasta el gouna engi Bettina was fun
ravenous to Adam word-for-word it's
almost everyone went early to home
because of the storm
this word el Canyon can be broken down
into two parts meaning precisely every
plus-one this word Ghia is the third
person singular past tense conjugation
of gayen the verb meaning to go in Old
English and an old Frisian it was gone
but heed one part of this word teed
means time the first part but is related
to a preposition B meaning by or at but
this is now an inseparable word fun way
this word means because of but can be
broken down into the parts meaning of
plus way though because of the spelling
of way I think this might be a loanword
from Dutch van witha finally stole
autumn is a singular common gender now
so what's definite article is the rather
than it hopefully you can see that West
Frisian is a language that shares much
in common with English but that also
shares a lot in common with other
Germanic languages sometimes seemingly
more so than with English but don't make
the mistake of thinking that West
Frisian is a dialect of Dutch or that
the other varieties of Frisian are
dialects of German they are distinct
languages that are worthy of recognition
and preservation the question of the day
for native speakers of any of the
Frisian languages how much do you use
Frisian in your day-to-day life and how
much do you use a different language
specifically Dutch or German and for
other people does West Frisian seem
similar to English to you what stood out
to you as being similar a special thanks
goes out to my patreon supporters
especially these wonderful people right
here on the screen
they are my top tier patreon supporters
so many extra special thanks to them as
always if you're interested in learning
Frisian one place you can start is learn
Frisian calm the guy who runs the site
actually provided the Frisian samples
for this video it's a free language
course something like duolingo for
Frisian so give it a try and to everyone
thank you for watching and have a nice
day
[Music]