The Anglo-Frisian languages are a proposed sub-branch of the West Germanic languages encompassing the Anglic languages (English, Scots, extinct Fingallian, and extinct Yola) as well as the Frisian languages (North Frisian, East Frisian, and West Frisian). While this relationship had considerable support historically, many modern scholars have criticized it as a valid phylogenetic grouping.[a][b] Instead, they believe that the Ingvaeonic languages comprised a dialect continuum which stretched along the North Sea, finally diverging into distinct languages – Old English, Pre–Old Frisian, and Old Saxon – during the Migration Period in the 5th century.[3] There are still proponents of an Anglo-Frisian node in the West Germanic tree, citing strong archeological and genetic evidence for the comingling of these groups.[4] In the 1950s, Hans Kuhn argued that the two languages diverged at the Ingvaeonic level, but later "converged". He argued that this convergence explained the striking similarity of the two languages while also explaining the issues in chronology. This view has been dismissed as improbable given the geographic divide.[5]
English cheese, Scots cheese and West Frisiantsiis, but Dutchkaas, Low German Kees, and GermanKäse
English church, and West Frisian tsjerke, but Dutch kerk, Low German Kerk, Kark, and German Kirche, though Scots kirk
English sheep, Scots sheep and West Frisian skiep, but Dutch schaap (pl. schapen), Low German Schaap, German Schaf (pl. Schafe)
The grouping is usually implied as a separate branch in regards to the tree model. According to this reading, English and Frisian would have had a proximal ancestral form in common that no other attested group shares. The early Anglo-Frisian varieties, like Old English and Old Frisian, and the third Ingvaeonic group at the time, the ancestor of Low German Old Saxon, were spoken by intercommunicating populations. While this has been cited as a reason for a few traits exclusively shared by Old Saxon and either Old English or Old Frisian,[6] a genetic unity of the Anglo-Frisian languages beyond that of an Ingvaeonic subfamily cannot be considered a majority opinion. In fact, the groupings of Ingvaeonic and West Germanic languages are highly debated, even though they rely on much more innovations and evidence. Some scholars consider a Proto-Anglo-Frisian language as disproven, as far as such postulates are falsifiable.[6] Nevertheless, the close ties and strong similarities between the Anglic and the Frisian grouping are part of the scientific consensus. Therefore, the concept of Anglo-Frisian languages can be useful and is today employed without these implications.[6][7]
Geography isolated the settlers of Great Britain from Continental Europe, except from contact with communities capable of open water navigation. This resulted in more Old Norse and Norman language influences during the development of Late Modern English, whereas the modern Frisian languages developed under contact with the southern Germanic populations, restricted to the continent.
The Frisian languages are a group of languages spoken by about 500,000 Frisian people on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. West Frisian, by far the most spoken of the three main branches with 875,840 total speakers,[17][full citation needed] constitutes an official language in the Dutchprovince of Friesland. North Frisian is spoken on some North Frisian Islands and parts of mainland North Frisia in the northernmost Germandistrict of Nordfriesland, and also in Heligoland in the German Bight, both part of Schleswig-Holstein state (Heligoland is part of its mainland district of Pinneberg). North Frisian has approximately 8,000 speakers.[18][full citation needed] The East Frisian language is spoken by only about 2,000 people;[19][full citation needed] speakers are located in Saterland in Germany.
Until the 20th century, multiple dialects of East Frisian were spoken, but today only the Saterland Frisian variety of the Ems dialect survives. In contrast, West Frisian comprises three main dialects, while North Frisian includes ten distinct varieties.
Southern Goesharde Frisian (extinct since early 1980s)
Halligen Frisian (Halifreesk)
Anglo-Frisian developments
The following is a summary of the major sound changes affecting vowels in chronological order.[20] For additional detail, see Phonological history of Old English. That these were simultaneous and in that order for all Anglo-Frisian languages is considered disproved by some scholars.[6]
Backing and nasalization of West Germanic a and ā before a nasal consonant
Since Anglo-Frisian features occur in Low German – especially in its older stages such as Old Saxon – some scholars regard the North Sea Germanic classification as more meaningful than a sharp division into Anglo-Frisian and Low German. In other words, because Old Saxon came under strong Old High German and Old Low Franconian influence at an early stage, it lost some North Sea Germanic features,[23] that it had previously shared with Old English and Old Frisian.
North Sea Germanic is not thought of as a monolithic proto-language, but rather as a group of closely related dialects that underwent several areal changes in relative unison.[h]
The extinction of two little-attested and presumably North Sea Germanic languages, Old Anglian and Old Jutish, in their homelands (modern southern Schleswig and Jutland respectively), may have led to a form of "survivorship bias" in classification. Since Old Anglian and Jutish were, like Old Saxon, direct ancestors of Old English, it might follow that Old Saxon, Old Anglian and/or Jutish were more closely related to English than any of them was to Frisian (or vice versa).
North Sea Germanic, as a hypothetical grouping, was first proposed in Nordgermanen und Alemannen (1942) by the German linguist and philologist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984), as an alternative to the strict tree diagrams that had become popular following the work of the 19th-century linguist August Schleicher and which assumed the existence of an Anglo-Frisian group.[25]
^"According to most researchers, this means that there cannot have been an 'original' Anglo-Frisian entity [...]."[1]
^"It is not possible to construct the exclusive common relative chronology that is necessary in order to be able to establish a node on a family tree. The term and concept of 'Anglo-Frisian' should be banished to the historiography of the subject."[2]
^Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Anglic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
^Woolf, Alex (2007). From Pictland to Alba, 789–1070. The New Edinburgh History of Scotland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN978-0-7486-1234-5., p. 336
^J. Derrick McClure Scots its range of Uses in A. J. Aitken, Tom McArthur, Languages of Scotland, W. and R. Chambers, 1979. p.27
^Thomas Burns McArthur, The English Languages, Cambridge University Press, 1998. p.203
^Velupillai, Viveka (2015). Pidgins, Creoles and Mixed Languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 519. ISBN978-90-272-5272-2.
^Fulk, Robert D. (1998). "The Chronology of Anglo-Frisian Sound Changes". In Bremmer Jr., Rolf H.; Johnston, Thomas S.B.; Vries, Oebele (eds.). Approaches to Old Frisian Philology. Amsterdam: Rodopoi. p. 185.
^Grant, William; Dixon, James Main (1921). Manual of Modern Scots. Cambridge: University Press. p. 105. Retrieved 30 December 2024.
Euler, Wolfram (2013). Das Westgermanische [West Germanic: from its Emergence in the 3rd up until its Dissolution in the 7th Century CE: Analyses and Reconstruction] (in German). London/Berlin: Verlag Inspiration Un Ltd. p. 244. ISBN978-3-9812110-7-8.
Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014). The Development of Old English - A Linguistic History of English. Vol. 2. Oxford: University Press. ISBN978-0199207848.
