Language Information

Frisian is spoken in northern Holland, mainly in the Netherlands, in the northermost province of Friesland (capital: Leeuwarden), which includes the outlying West Frisian Islands. There are about 300,000 speakers here, who are generally referred to as West Frisians. There are also about 10,000 speakers, known as North Frisians, in Germany, in the northermost province of Schleswig-Holstein, which borders Denmark, and on the adjacent North Frisian Islands to the west.

Frisian is a Germanic language, closer to English than Dutch in some respects. Courses in Frisian are offered at a number of Dutch universities.

Germany, Netherlands (Holland).

Family: Indo-European
Subgroup: Germanic
Branch: Western

Writing Sample

Translation

It stands to reason that the Frisian contribution to American literature is a very modest one. There are really only three or four Frisian names that have come to the fore in the American literary world. They are names of Frisian immigrants who are still living, a proof of the fact that literary art among the Frisian immigrants did not come to early fruition. Perhaps, however, it is not without significance or promise that the name which in point of time comes last is also the most noted.