# Talk:Old Frisian

In the article is mentioned "After Fryslân (now the Dutch province Friesland) lost its independence and became part of the Dutch Republic, Old Frisian lost its status as official language. The period 1550 - 1800 is designated Middle Frisian, when the language was rarely recorded in writing." 
I always thougt that the historic Frisia or Fryslân was a much larger area than the present day Friesland or Fryslân. This is only the area between roughly Groningen en the IJsselmeer, the former Zuiderzee. I thought the original area where Old frision was spoken was the entire region between Alkmaar and Hamburg. Does anybody know how this area is defined precisely? Migdejong 08:13, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

That's true. But the other parts of Frisia had lost their independence earlier (West Frisia to Holland, East Frisia to the Danish kings and German bishops). Frisia's incorporation into the Republic was the last chapter in a long history of decline. Anyway, Frisia's independence didn't mean much in the 15th and 16th century. Modern Frisia has little to do with the historical Frisia (as much as Brabant has to do with Lotharingen). It's just a territory that once was part of a larger country that has dissapeared. Chardon 09:15, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Short history of Frisia: First mention of Frisia is by the Romans. These Frisians disappeard in the 3th 4th century. The country was settled by Danes and Germans (same people who settled in England) who called themselves Frisians (probably intermarried the remaining original Frisians). They had kings that were qonquered by the Franks. After th Frankish kingdom imploded the Frisia from Zeeland to Denmrk emerged. However this was a very weak state (lot's of independent cities, few nobles etcetc) and when other countries got stronger (Holland for example) Frisia was not strong enough to defend it self. The country disappeared. Modern province Frisia is just a name and has little to do with the country Frisia. Chardon 10:02, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

This article says,

Their ancient homes were originally North Germany and Denmark.  The  language of the earlier inhabitants of the region (the Frisians famously mentioned by Tacitus) is not attested.
But [[Frisians]] says,

Tacitus wrote a treatise about the Germanic peoples in 69, describing the habits of the Germanic people, as well as listing numerous tribes by name. [8]   Of the many tribes he mentioned, the name 'Frisii' is the only one still in use to refer unequivocally to the same ethnic group. [9] 
This should be sorted out.
—RuakhTALK 14:50, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Well it has long been sorted out. In 1906 Peter Boeles first postulated that there is no direct link between the people Tacitus wrote about and the Frissians from the early Middle Ages. I can't find anything in English but if you can read Dutch try http://www.nrc.nl/W2/Nieuws/2000/03/03/Vp/cs.html Chardon (talk) 18:08, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
If you read the original work on which the above-mentioned rather tendentious newspaper article is based, you may come to an altogether different conclusion: DE LATE PREHISTORIE EN PROTOHISTORIE VAN HOLOCEEN NOORD-NEDERLAND (in Dutch). There is no wholesale depopulation of Friesland in the 4-5th c., but the cultural continuity, as seen in pottery and such, is disputed. That's something entirely different.--Joostik (talk) 21:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Let me quote a paragraph from that original work
In het laatste komt echter in de loop van de derde eeuw verandering: de Friese aardewerktraditie gaat geheel verloren en wordt vervangen door aardewerk van de Driesum-stijl. Een sterke achteruitgang in het aantal kustbewoners – volgens Taayke komt het tot een ‘homeopatische verdunning’ van de Friezen - loopt parallel met genoemde ontwikkeling.

So even in the article you link to the conclusion is drawn that there is no direct link between the Frisians in Tacitus and the Frisians of King Redbad. Unless ofcourse you think there is something in homeopathy. Chardon (talk) 18:19, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The Driessum pottery seems to be the last fase of development in style in the North-netherlands region. It disappears and at various terps it seems that scientists/archeologist can only conclude that Pieter Boeles was right. There is a gap between approx 325 and 425 on the Frissian terps. The Driessum pottery is re-appearing in Vlaanderen village Zele at the time it disappears in the North. Some claim this is evidence that at least some of the Frisians went to the south and became part of the Franks. All of this are rather new findings and I wish new investigations in Vlaanderen depots would occur to search for overlooked Driessum pottery as only Zele is a bit too little to be evidence..  Lz89z1 (talk) 16:23, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I've moved the following from the lead to here:

Whether the speakers of Frisian are the immediate descendants of the Frisians of Roman times or immigrants from North Germany and Denmark is a moot point.

This reads nothing like an encyclopedia article and more like a response to something someone else has said in conversation. If the point is moot, it shouldn't be mentioned. That said, if there's any verifiable information behind whether or not the speakers are Roman-age Frisians, immigrants or both, the sentence should be re-added. 60.241.179.28 (talk) 06:04, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

If you have a problem with style please edit the sentence. If you don't know anything about the subject please don't remove content. Always document your changes and don't ask others to do it for you. Chardon (talk) 19:52, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
There is absolutely no reason to doubt they are their descendants, and much to support they are. For those who read Dutch, see the talk page nl:wiki/Overleg:Frisii and Bazelmans. --Joostik (talk) 16:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

According to the phonological development section, there should be an affricate /ts/, but it is not present on the consonant IPA table. I would just make an edit, but I have neither the source used nor a different source.
Next is the masculine a-stem plural ending "-ar". I've seen this elsewhere as well, but I am uncertain of its validity in Old Frisian. Modern descendants tend to use an "-s" ending, which would be weird if the ancestral form is "-ar". Is this what's recorded in the Old Frisian corpus? Cynemund (talk) 21:47, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Old Frisian/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Nominator: ThaesOfereode (talk · contribs) 22:04, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
Reviewer: Tenpop421 (talk · contribs) 18:35, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi @ThaesOfereode: I'll give this a review. I should start within a week. Best, Tenpop421 (talk) 18:35, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Tenpop421! Looking forward to your comments! ThaesOfereode (talk) 18:39, 18 March 2025 (UTC)
@ThaesOfereode: This is a good piece of work, and meets the basic good article criteria. I'll be happy to pass after a few things are addressed (I've made a lot of suggestions, don't feel the need to follow all!). Best, Tenpop421 (talk) 15:55, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

@Tenpop421: Thanks for all the kind words (esp about detechnicalizing the writing). I think I've made all the appropriate changes as requested, but let me know if there's anything I missed or should reapproach. I appreciate the swift review and insightful comments you left. Thanks again for the kind words and taking on this big review! ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
@ThaesOfereode: looks good to me! I'll pass it. Tenpop421 (talk) 16:57, 20 March 2025 (UTC)


### Spotcheck
On this version, I used RNG to pick fns. 55 , 72, 31, 58, 17 to verify. 

55:  Stiles 2018, p. 893. Y
72:  Bremmer 2009, p. 61. Y
31: Stiles 2008, p. 176. Nitpick, but he doesn't argue this here, he just states it. I've changed this, but if there's somewhere he argues for this you can change it back.
That's fine. I used "argue" since I don't believe that's the prevailing view; it's the first time I've come across it. Stiles is a very reputable Germanicist, so it felt important to include in some way. No big deal either way. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
58: Bremmer 2009, pp. 114–115. Y
17: Buczek 2020, pp. 245, 270. Y


### Copyedits
complex syntactic functions could be expressed through periphrastic constructions Do you express a function? Maybe "achieve" would be a better word.
Rephrased. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
as closer to each other than any other Germanic language > as closer to each other than to any other Germanic language (unless I've got the hypothesis wrong)
Done. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
Estimations of a common ancestor of the Anglo-Frisian languages > Datings proposed for the common ancestor of the Anglo-Frisian languages
Went somewhere in the middle with this one. Let me know what you think. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
is no longer as widely accepted as it once was, however. > is no longer as widely accepted. (last clause is redundant)
Pretty obvious WP:POSA miss for me. Good catch. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
comprised a fairly significant portion of the Germanic invasions of Britain > comprised a fairly significant portion of the peoples involved with the Germanic invasions of Britain
Fixed with another POSA cut by changing "invasion" to "invaders". Again, let me know if this works. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
based on their respective position in relation > based on their position in relation
Done. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
like Tacitus, as in his Germania, and Ptolemy, described as living from north of the estuary of the Rhine to around the Ems river > like Tacitus, as in his Germania, and Ptolemy; they describe them as living from north of the estuary of the Rhine to around the Ems river


### Content
You've done an admirable job making this technical article understandable. Some technical portions are unavoidable. However, we can probably aid comprehension in a couple places:

I'm not sure what linguistic phylogeny is. Could you include an in-text gloss?
Sure. See if you like what I have just above the phylogenetic tree. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
onomastic data suggests > evidence from proper names suggests best to avoid the technical term "onomastics".
Done, though I've left the link for the interested. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
corpora best to gloss this word on its first usage
Removed from lede, defined elsewhere. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
univerbation to avoid the reader having to click away, can you reword or give this an in-text gloss?
Reworded, kept link. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
kennings in-text gloss would be helpful
Added. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
Miscellaneous

In general, Old West Frisian manuscripts, dated to around 1450 to 1525, are more recent attestations compared to Old East Frisian ones, dated to between 1300 and 1450. I couldn't see what this sentence was intending to say until I looked at Bremmer 2009, p. 114. More accurate would be something like Our primary manuscript sources for Old West Frisian are of a later date (between 1450 to 1525) than those that we have for Old East Frisian (between 1300 and 1450)
I reworded your example a little bit; let me know what you think. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
language experienced an influx of Latin and Greek loans Looking at Bremmer, he says that it had an influx of Latin loans, some of which were themselves Greek loans (e.g. Frisian biskop < Latin episcopus < Greek epískopos), which is slightly different. Maybe omit "Greek" or explain in more words.
Added "its" before "Greek". Does that work? ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
That's an elegant solution Tenpop421 (talk) 16:53, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
The first full manuscripts are the First Brokmer Codex, dated to sometime between 1276 and 1300, and the First Rüstring Codex, dated to around 1300. These documents are known to be copies, but the originals are not known to have survived.[46] Following up the citation, these dates are the dates of the manuscripts themselves (so maybe "written" rather than "dated" would be clearer). Bremmer mentions that the when, where, and who of the texts themselves are not known. This might be a good fact to include (rather than that "the originals are not known to have survived", as medieval holographs are very rare).
Fair enough; I've expanded on this a little bit. Let me know what you think. ThaesOfereode (talk) 16:50, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

'However, analysis of the existing corpora involving charter documents shows that dependent sentences with direct objects show about 60% have a subject–verb–object construction.'
One of the verbs is superfluous. Also, isn't the term dependent clause? I would have amended this to 'about 60% of dependent sentences with direct objects have a subject–verb–object construction', but I am not quite sure that this is what is meant, partly because of the use of the word 'sentence' instead of 'clause'. A sentence could contain several clauses and several finite verbs. 62.73.72.3 (talk) 07:33, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Good point, I changed it to your version. That can be further improved, of course. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:43, 6 April 2025 (UTC)