Anglo-Frisian languages


The Anglo-Frisian languages are a proposed sub-branch of the West Germanic languages encompassing the Anglic languages as well as the Frisian languages. While this relationship had considerable support historically, many modern scholars have criticized it as a valid phylogenetic grouping. 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. 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. 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.
The Anglo-Frisian languages have been distinguished from other West Germanic languages due to several sound changes: besides the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, which is present in Low German as well, Anglo-Frisian brightening and palatalization of are for the most part unique to the modern Anglo-Frisian languages:
  • English cheese, Scots cheese and Frisian language|West Frisian] tsiis, but Dutch kaas, Low German Kees, and German Käse
  • 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, Low German Schaap, German Schaf
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, 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. 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.
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.

Classification

The proposed Anglo-Frisian family tree is:

Anglic languages

Anglic, Insular Germanic, or English languages 'and dialects' encompass Old English and all the linguistic varieties descended from it. These include Middle English, Early Modern English, and Late Modern English; Early Scots, Middle Scots, and Modern Scots; and the extinct Fingallian and Yola languages in Ireland.
English-based creole languages are not generally included, as mainly only their lexicon and not necessarily their grammar, phonology, etc. comes from Early Modern English and Late Modern English.

Frisian languages

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, constitutes an official language in the Dutch province of Friesland. North Frisian is spoken on some North Frisian Islands and parts of mainland North Frisia in the northernmost German district of Nordfriesland, and also in Heligoland in the German Bight, both part of Schleswig-Holstein state. North Frisian has approximately 8,000 speakers. The East Frisian language is spoken by only about 2,000 people; 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.

Anglo-Frisian developments

The following is a summary of the major sound changes affecting vowels in chronological order. 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.
  1. Backing and nasalization of West Germanic a and ā before a nasal consonant
  2. Loss of n before a spirant, resulting in lengthening and nasalization of preceding vowel
  3. Single form for present and preterite plurals
  4. A-fronting: West Germanic a, ā > æ, ǣ, even in the diphthongs ai and au
  5. palatalization of Proto-Germanic *k and *g before front vowels
  6. A-restoration: æ, ǣ > a, ā under the influence of neighboring consonants
  7. Second fronting: OE dialects and Frisian ǣ > ē
  8. A-restoration: a restored before a back vowel in the following syllable ; Frisian æu > au > Old Frisian ā/''a
  9. OE breaking; in West Saxon palatal diphthongization follows
  10. i''-mutation followed by syncope; Old Frisian breaking follows
  11. Phonemicization of palatals and assibilation, followed by second fronting in parts of West Mercia
  12. Smoothing and back mutation

Comparisons

Numbers in Anglo-Frisian languages

These are the words for the numbers one to 12 in the Anglo-Frisian languages, with Dutch, Afrikaans, West-Flemish, and German included for comparison:
Language123456789101112
Englishonetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineteneleventwelve
West Riding Yorkshireonetwothreefowerfivesixseveneightninetenleventwelve
Scotsane
ae*
een
yin		twathreefowerfivesaxseivenaichtnineteneleiventwal
Yolaoantwyedhreevourveevezeesezevenayghtneendhenellventwalve
West Frisianientwatrijefjouwerfiifseissânachtnjoggentsienalvetolve
Saterland Frisianaan
een 		twäin
two 		träi
trjo 		fjauerfieuwsäkssogenoachtenjúgentjoonalventwelig
North Frisian iinj
ån		tou
tuu		trii
tra		fjouerfiiwseekssoowenoochtnüügentiinalwentweelwen
Dutcheentweedrieviervijfzeszevenachtnegentienelftwaalf
West-Flemishjintwidriejevierevuvvezessezeevneachteneegntieneelvetwolve
Afrikaanseentweedrieviervyfsesseweagtnegetienelftwaalf
High Germaneinszweidreivierfünfsechssiebenachtneunzehnelfzwölf

* Ae, is an adjectival form used before nouns.

Alternative grouping

North Sea Germanic, also known as Ingvaeonic, is a proposed grouping of the West Germanic languages that encompasses Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Saxon. The North Sea Germanic grouping may be regarded as an alternative to Anglo-Frisian, or as ancestral to it.
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, 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.
The extinction of two little-attested and presumably North Sea Germanic languages, Old Anglian and Old Jutish, in their homelands, 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.
North Sea Germanic, as a hypothetical grouping, was first proposed in Nordgermanen und Alemannen by the German linguist and philologist Friedrich Maurer, 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.