East Frisian is one of the

Frisian languages The Frisian languages ( or ) are a closely related group of West Germanic languages, spoken by about 400,000 Frisian people, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. The Frisian languages are the closes ...

. Its last surviving dialect is Saterland Frisian spoken in Saterland in Germany. There once were two main dialects, ' and ''Weser''. Weser, including the Wursten, Harlingerland and

Wangerooge Wangerooge (; ; Wangerooge Frisian: ) is one of the 32 Frisian Islands in the North Sea off the northwestern coast of Germany. It is a municipality in the district of Friesland (district), Friesland in Lower Saxony in Germany. The island is also l ...

dialects, held out until the 20th century. Ems continues with a couple thousand adult speakers of the Saterland dialect. The other member of the Ems dialect, Upgant Frisian, is extinct.

Phonology

The phonology of Eastern Frisian is linguistically conservative with regards to

Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the late 13th century and the end of 16th century. It is the common ancestor of all the modern Frisian languages except for the North Frisian language#Insular North Frisian, Insular North ...

.Versloot, Arjen: "Grundzüge Ostfriesischer Sprachgeschichte", in Munske (2001).

Old East Frisian and its decline

Old East Frisian used to be spoken in

East Frisia East Frisia () or East Friesland (; ; ; ) is a historic region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is primarily located on the western half of the East Frisia (peninsula), East Frisian peninsula, to the east of West Frisia and to the ...

(''Ostfriesland''), the region between the Dutch river Lauwers and the German river

Weser The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports o ...

. The area also included two small districts on the east bank of the Weser, the lands of Wursten and Würden. The Old East Frisian language could be divided into two dialect groups: Weser Frisian to the east, and Ems Frisian to the west. From 1500 onwards, Old East Frisian slowly had to give way in the face of the severe pressure put on it by the surrounding

Low German Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...

dialects, and nowadays it is all but extinct. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Ems Frisian had almost completely died out. Weser Frisian, for the most part, did not last much longer, and held on only until 1700, although there are records of it still being spoken in the land of Wursten, to the east of the river Weser, in 1723. It held out the longest on the island of

, where the last Weser Frisian speaker died in 1953. Today, the Old East Frisian language is no longer spoken within the historical borders of East Frisia; however, a large number of the inhabitants of that region are still Frisians, referring to their dialect of

as ''Freesk''. In this dialect, referred to in

Standard German Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German (, , or, in Switzerland, ), is the umbrella term for the standard language, standardized varieties of the German language, which are used in formal contexts and for commun ...

as ''Ostfriesisch'', the Frisian

substratum Substrata, plural of substratum, may refer to: *Earth's substrata, the geologic layering of the Earth *''Hypokeimenon'', sometimes translated as ''substratum'', a concept in metaphysics *Substrata (album), a 1997 ambient music album by Biosphere * ...

is still evident, despite heavy Germanisation.

Sater Frisian

The last remaining living remnant of Old East Frisian is an Ems Frisian dialect called Sater Frisian or Saterlandic (its native name being '), which is spoken in the Saterland area in the former State of Oldenburg, to the south of East Frisia proper. Saterland (''Seelterlound'' in the local language), which is believed to have been colonised by Frisians from East Frisia in the eleventh century, was for a long time surrounded by impassable moors. This, together with the fact that Sater Frisian always had a status superior to Low German among the inhabitants of the area, accounts for the preservation of the language throughout the centuries. Another important factor was that after the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

, Saterland became part of the bishopric of

Münster Münster (; ) is an independent city#Germany, independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a ...

. As a consequence, it was brought back under control of the Catholic Church, resulting in social separation from Protestant East Frisia since about 1630. Catholic religious law demanded a confirmation of the non-Catholic partner and this condition prevented contact, so marriages of Saterlanders were seldom contracted with East Frisians for some ages.

References

{{Authority control Endangered Germanic languages