FRISIAN - Sister Language(s) of English!

This video is all about FRISIAN, a close relative of the English language.

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Music:
“Actually Like” by Twin Musicom.

The following images were used under Creative Commons Sharealike license:

Still images incorporating the above files are available for use under the same Creative Commons Sharealike license.

00:00 The relationship between English and Frisian
01:06 Varieties of Frisian
01:55 A brief history of the Frisian language
03:45 Everyday phrases
04:26 Breaking down Frisian sentences
11:21 Final comments
11:44 The Question of the Day

[Mylksix]

I love how "Holy shit!" is considered an essential basic phrase

[pizzachu]

Frisian is like if English decided to hang out with the Dutch instead of the French

[Nikodokles]

Hey, I'm a native speaker of West-Frisian, so I thought I'd give you some of my personal experiences.
I grew up learning Frisian alongside Dutch, as one of my parents is a Frisian native and the other isn't. This makes for the pretty interesting situation where my father usually speaks Frisian while my mother replies in Dutch, so they kind of talk two languages at the same time, which they don't even notice. When I'm at my parents' place/in Friesland, I always speak Frisian with my father, siblings and most people on the street. I speak Dutch with my mother. I almost never speak Frisian outside of the province though and that's sadly most of the time since I don't live in Friesland anymore.
Just as many minority languages, Frisian seems to be on its last legs, it's 'fiif foar tolve' for the language. Proficiency in reading and writing the language is low, many people don't teach the language to their kids anymore and the influence of Dutch in vocabulary and grammar has only been increasing.
Thank you for making this video Paul, I think its really cool that you took the time to give 'my' language some exposure!

[sorenstruckman]

Speaking both English and German, this language is pretty intelligible. It is like English grammar using German vocabulary. Cool!

[jipjulianwerner]

As a native Dutch/Frisian speaker:
I don’t really use Frisian in everyday life. (School, work) But as soon as we go out drinking, everyone suddenly switches to full Frisian

[anneke]

When I’m out of the Province with my friend and we’re talking Frisian, other Dutch people start talking English to us 😂

[Burt]

Me: It's getting pretty late, I should probably go to sleep so I can get up at 7 am.
Also me: I must learn about this obscure language I will probably never encounter in my life, ever.

[thomast]

As german, finally English makes sense to me now after seeing this video.
This language is like a time machine, to the common origin of German and English!

[chaosunleashed]

Frisian is like a sister of English that was raised by a Dutch grandma around 400 years ago, while English herself was raised by a French grandma, so she can't talk about complex subjects without mixing in a little French.

[cerjmedia]

*Common Phrases*
_"Holy Sh*t"_
Now that's a community of culture

[andrewaway]

Born in Canada I learned Frisian and English simultaneously. My mother spoke Frisian to us children and we spoke English to her. Later, when I lived in the Netherlands briefly, folks in Amsterdam said I spoke Dutch with a Frisian accent. I don't hear the language much now except when I visit Friesland.

[paulmorris]

I laughed a few times because of how similar Frisian is to the Black Country dialect in the Midlands of England. The old dialects are dying out but you still hear words like: 'bin; bist; folken; hark/harken; thole' etc...

So literally your first sentence:
'Dat binne har boeken'

In the Black Country dialect would be:
'Them's bin her booken'.

Which I thought was astounding! Especially if one used the more modern 'That' rather than 'Them'.

Anyway, those were my brief thoughts about the video. Excellent as ever.

[grantbmilburn]

Dat is Fenna's boek.
Me: Hey, I can understand Frisian!
Paul: This form is not used so much.
Me: :(

[StJohnsMount]

I too am a native West-Frisian speaker. Frisian being my first language, Dutch my second language. I rarely spoke Dutch before I went to kindergarten since Frisian is the predominant language within our family. I speak Frisian daily. Working in health, care it's easier to connect to people using their first language. It instantly creates a slight feeling of belonging and recognition, so I'm glad I speak the language and am able to connect with other native Frisian speakers more easily.
Outside of work and family situations (e.g. in stores or public places) I interchange between the two, but usually opt to start in Dutch as to avoid awkward situations when it turns out the other person might not understand. Most native Frisians have learned to shift between languages effordlessly, but once you have grown used to speaking Frisian with someone it's super hard to speak Dutch to them, even if there is a non-Frisian speaker in your company. Most Frisians really do try.

[monsieurdewahaha]

As a native english speaker, this language looks like someone took modern English pronunciations and spelled it with old English spellings and sprinkled dutch and german on top.

[barttemolder]

My grandfather was Frisian, born and raised in De Lemmer in the south of Friesland. He had a Frisian dictionary where each new first letter started on a new page. It ended with one giant Z with nothing thereafter. There are no Frisian words that start with a Z...
We gave him a Frisian copy of the cartoon album 'Astérix and Cleopatra'. He was happily surprised when he noticed that when the characters moved up the river Nile the dialect changed from North Frisian to South Frisian, the region where he was born.

[TheBrowncoatcat]

I remember a friend telling me that his grandfather, who spoke English with a really thick Norfolk accent. He was perfectly understood in Friesland. The people there thought he was speaking Frisian.

[chitchatcharlie]

I'm half Frisian... Will show this video to my mom, she always likes it when people are interested in her mother tongue.

[williamdrijver]

In the 1970s my late grandmother living in Friesland (who didn't speak a word of English) was able have a conversation with a woman (tourist) from England! At the time we though it to be funny and odd, but now I finally understand why and how, thanks!

[MyFiddlePlayer]

I once spent a day in Northern Germany with a host who spoke only North Frisian. It is similar enough to English that we were able to carry on normal conversation all day, with just some occasional repeats or rephrasing to clarify sometimes. It was helpful that I had previously spent some time in Scotland and that I knew just a little bit of German, because a lot of the differences of Frisian from English resemble the way it would be said in Scots or German.