Hi,
I’m not sure if the Frisians who joined the Angels, Saxons, Jutes, Belgae etc were the real Frisii or just a mixed group since according to some sources the Angela and Saxons had already settles in various parts of Frisia/Friesland. I assume they weren’t just Frisii.
I look forward to ylur feedbck
davidmich
Allegedly Old English is mutually intelligible with modern West Frisian.
Frisia was largely depopulated due to saltwater intrusion between the 4th and 5th centuries and the term ‘Frisii’ disappeared. However since the Frisii seem to be functionally identical in terms of archaeological culture to neighboring Saxons and Angles it probably makes no particular difference who repopulated the region to become the more modern ‘Frisians’.
Frankly the same issue arises with the Angles, Saxons and Jutes themselves. There is very little in extant records or recovered archaeology to distinguish them from each other - any divisions between these named peoples seem to have been purely political and probably not very profound or long-lasting. Best guess was that they were all more or less from the same stock, with the same institutions, speaking the same language.
I don’t know who alleges that, but there is NO language spoken over a thousand years ago that is mutually intelligible with a modern language, even assuming you had some way to test this.
I’m willing to believe that West Frisian speakers have a slightly easier time reading Old English than Modern English speakers do, because their language wasn’t affected by the Norman Conquest, but that’s it.
As far as the invasion itself, very little is known for certain, but I see to reason to believe that the Frisians weren’t just as Frisian as any other Frisians. The Saxons who invaded weren’t the whole group: some invaded, some stayed on the Continent.
Yes Dr. Drake, the more I read about the Saxons, Angels, Jutes and Frisians the more I’ve come to see them as very closely linked. Thanks.
davidmich
I’d think that the fact that there weren’t/aren’t any lasting differences in the invaded parts of England between Frisians, Saxons, Angles and Jutes except for political subdivisions even at the time of Alfred would point to the Germanic invaders being pretty much the same culturally and linguistically.
Kind of like the “Danes” several hundred years later; even with much better record keeping, there was never any real distinction between the Swedes, Norwegians or Danes in the Danish invasions, even though there’s no doubt that invaders came from all over Scandinavia.
And yes, Dutch and other West Germanic languages are fairly close to English. It’s kind of freaky just how much you can puzzle out on signs and in magazines, menus, etc… if you go to the Netherlands. My biggest mistake was not reading things phonetically - for example, “koken” = cooking, and pronounced surprisingly like “cookin”, but I was thinking “ko-ken” and didn’t recognize it.
A Canadian friend of mine has claimed that English is more closely related to the language of the Saxons than that of the Angles, so Anglophones should really be called Saxophones.
<<TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!>> (Throws flag) Groaner Foul! 2 minutes with a paper bag over your head!
[sub]nicely played[/sub]