alt=Graet Hylper Wordebook, Cover of the 2019 Hindelooper Dictionary Hindeloopen Frisian (natively , , also referred to as ''Hindeloopers'' () in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

and

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

) is a West Frisian variety spoken in the

port town A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manche ...

Hindeloopen Hindeloopen (; ; Hindeloopen Frisian: ''Hielpen'' ) is an old city on the North of the Netherlands on the IJsselmeer. It lies within the municipality of Súdwest Fryslân. It is famous because of the Hindeloopen art and hindeloopen costume. H ...

and the village of

Molkwerum Molkwerum ( ) is a village in Súdwest-Fryslân municipality in the province of Friesland, the Netherlands. It had a population of around 390 in January 2017. Molkwerum used to be called Friese Doolhof (Frisian Maze), because it is built on numerou ...

on the west coast of

Friesland Friesland ( ; ; official ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia (), named after the Frisians, is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen (p ...

. It has preserved much of the

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 ...

phonology and lexicon, and has been attested to since the 17th Century. Hindelooper is spoken by some 500 people in Hindeloopen, almost all of them elderly, with the number of speakers decreasing.

Recognition

In 1981, the (Frisian Academy) published a dictionary of the language (then seen as a

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

) entitled ''Hylper Wurdboek''. In 2006, work began on a successor to the dictionary, which was published in 2019 under the name ''Graet Hylper Wordebook''. Authors of the new edition included and Sybrek Dyk. The new dictionary contains 1000 pages of words, grammar and synonyms and is considered the definitive version of the language. In 2019,

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars, articles, dictionaries) describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-d ...

assigned the language the code "hind1273", under the name "Hindeloopen-Molkwerum Frisian". Language activist , responsible for the Glottolog entries of both Hinderloopers and Terschelling Frisian stated that "these 3 languages have a complete language system, it's not just a few words which are different from Frisian, the languages have developed separately from Frisian. Hylpers and Frisian are more different from each other than Afrikaans and Dutch" in an interview with

Trouw ''Trouw'' (; ) is a Dutch daily newspaper appearing in compact size. It was founded in 1943 as an orthodox Protestant underground newspaper during World War II. Since 2009, it has been owned by DPG Media (known as De Persgroep until 2019). '' ...

regarding the dialect."Spreekt u al Aasters, Schiermonnikoogs of Hielpes? Dankzij Dyami Millarson (25) zijn het nu zelfstandige talen"
Dutch, Trouw, 2 juni 2019 The Hylper language is taught at the local elementary school.

Development

Due to its position on a peninsula, Hindeloopen was very isolated from the mainland until the 20th century and for centuries had more contact with the coastal cities in

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former provinces of the Netherlands, province on the western coast of the Netherland ...

on the other side of the South Sea. Because of this, Hindeloopen Frisian underwent greater influence from Hollandic speech than the other dialects of West Frisian. The location of Hindeloopen is, however, not a complete explanation for the dialect: until about 1800,

Koudum Koudum () is a village in the northern Netherlands. It is located in Súdwest-Fryslân, Friesland. Nearby villages include Molkwerum to the west, Workum to the north and Hemelum to the south. The population of Koudum was 2,700 in 2019. The nearest ...

had a dialect that was very similar to Hindeloopen.

Differences compared to Standard West Frisian

*In Hindeloopen Frisian, the ''l'' in the trigraphs ''âld'' and ''âlt'' is pronounced, as in Standard West Frisian, and is subject to vowel lengthening. *The Standard West Frisian ''tsj'' is reduced to ''tj'' or ''s''; for example, for the standard (against) and for the standard (church). *The digraph '' ae'' is still used instead of the modern '' aa''. *The standard ''ú'' is written ''uu''. *Non-standard letters used: ''ä'', ''ö'', ''è'' and ''ò''. There are also a few lexical differences, such as instead of (to sew), instead of (a child’s word for “horse”) and instead of (onion). The dialect’s vocabulary preserves many more words from Old Frisian that are no longer used elsewhere. The differences in pronunciation and vocabulary between Hindeloopen Frisian and Standard West Frisian are so big that mutual intelligibility is difficult. However, Hindeloopen Frisian has gradually become more like standard West Frisian due to increasing contact with speakers of other dialects.

Example

References

{{Frisian languages West Frisian languages Súdwest-Fryslân Languages attested from the 17th century Critically endangered languages Endangered Germanic languages