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Frisian is a Germanic group of closely related languages, spoken by about half a million members of Frisian ethnic groups living on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.
Frisian is the language most closely related to English apart from Scots, but after at least five hundred years of being subjected to the influence of Dutch, modern Frisian in some aspects bears a greater similarity to Dutch than to English; one must also take into account the centuries-long drift of English away from Frisian.
Although the earliest definite written examples of Frisian are from approximately the 9th century, there are a few examples of runic inscriptions from the region which are probably older and possibly in the Frisianlanguage.
West Frisian is spoken in the province of Friesland in The Netherlands, East Frisian in the Saterland west of Oldenburg, Ger., and North Frisian along the western coast of Schleswig on the Frisian Islands.
North Frisian is spoken along the North Sea coast of Germany and on the Frisian Islands, and East Frisian is spoken farther inland in NW Germany.
Frisian is the language most closely related to English, but after at least five hundred years of being subjected to the influence of Dutch, modern Frisian in some aspects bears a greater similarity to Dutch than to English; one must also take into account the centuries-long drift of English away from Frisian.
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