Frisian, Western
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Fact corner
- Language: Frisian, Western
- Alternate names: FRYSK, FRIES
- SIL-code: Ethnologue:fri
- Language family: Indo-European, Germanic, West, Frisian
- Number of speakers: 730,000
- Script: -
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Introduction
Linguistically between Dutch and English. Not intelligible with Eastern and Northern Frisian of Germany (E. Matteson SIL 1978). 71% lexical similarity with Standard German, 61% with English, 74% with Eastern Frisian.
Most speakers are bilingual in Dutch. Over 70% of those in Friesland still speak Western Frisian. Town Frisian is a mixed language. National language. Literacy rate in first language: Speakers not generally literate in Frisian. Bilingual education is compulsory in Friesland but speakers are not generally literate in Frisian. Has an official orthography in the Netherlands. Bible 1943-1978.
The content of this page is machine-generated from a Verbix language extension file (germanic.xml). Language extension files add new languages in Verbix for Windows.
The verb
References
- Tiersma, Peter Meijes. Frisian Reference Grammar. Foris Publications. edition. Holland. 1985.