Old Frisian
In 1276, a scribe in the region of Brokmerland copied the first full manuscript known as the First Brokmer Codex. This document marks the beginning of the Old Frisian period that lasted until around 1550. Before this date, only about two dozen runic inscriptions from the 5th through 10th centuries survive to the modern day. These early carvings appear on small objects rather than large books. The earliest complete text found in 2015 is an interlinear gloss of the Psalms dated to approximately 1100. It sits inside a Latin manuscript and shows how Frisian was used alongside Latin for religious purposes. Most existing documents are legal codices compiled into seventeen separate collections. One incunable contains Middle Low German and Latin supplements alongside the main text. Another document called the Municipal Law of the Frisians ends with a Middle Dutch legal text. The vast majority of these works have not survived to the modern day. Much of what had been preserved was destroyed during the Reformation when monastic orders dissolved across the Netherlands.
The main division between dialects followed the Lauwers river which separated West from East. This divide existed before the Old Frisian period began as evidence suggests it split on this basis by the 8th century. Old West Frisian covered areas within the Diocese of Utrecht while Old East Frisian spread across the Diocese of Bremen and Münster. Old Weser Frisian developed into Wangerooge, Wursten, and Harlingerland Frisian all now extinct. Old Ems Frisian became the ancestor of Saterland Frisian its only living descendant today. Insular North Frisian languages diverged around the late 7th or early 8th centuries sharing a common ancestor in Pre, Old Frisian instead. Improvements in dyking technology in Denmark led to the reclaiming of islands like Amrum Föhr Sylt and Heligoland between the 11th and 13th centuries. These improvements were probably brought by Mainland Frisians upon invitation by the king of Denmark due to their renowned water engineering skill. The political situation east of the river remains largely obscure during this period though they faced regular assault from Saxon forces. A loose confederation called the Upstalsboom League united the Seven Sealands of Frisia and produced legal documents from around 1300.
German linguist Theodor Siebs popularized the idea that English and Frisian shared a closer relationship than any other Germanic language. He coined the term Anglo-Frisian languages in his 1889 dissertation titled On the History of the Anglo-Frisian Languages. Henry Sweet is considered the father of the hypothesis articulating the concept as early as 1876. Observations about the close relationship are much older than the 19th century with Anglo-Saxon missionaries seeing two languages as closely related during the 7th and 8th centuries. Most researchers now argue there cannot have been an original Anglo-Frisian entity. It is not possible to construct the exclusive common relative chronology necessary to establish a node on a family tree. Shared linguistic changes do overlap but these changes do not match in terms of their relative chronology. Examples include Old Frisian's vowel breaking and vowel backing processes which developed independently from similar changes in Old English. Some linguists argue the Ingvaeonic precursor was likely a broad dialect continuum which saw dialects develop similarly but not as one language. This continuum was spoken across the continental coast of the North Sea prior to the Migration Period evolving into distinct languages around turn of the 5th century.
Legal texts dominate the surviving corpus of Old Frisian documents with all but one document east of the Lauwers being legal records. Western documents include over a thousand charters and administrative documents alongside poetry and historiographies. Documentation for Old Frisian also appears in chronicles and apocrypha most of which are politically charged and considered inaccurate. The political situation led to ideological influences on the body of literature. For example the incunable began with an ideologically-driven introduction promoting self-governing non-feudal order. Later works emphasize the Frisian legal tradition especially its sources and purported unbroken line from generations past. The First Riustring Codex written around 1300 is one of the oldest surviving texts. It contains several legal texts though many codices are not fully in Old Frisian. The Parisian Codex contains Middle Low German and Latin supplements while the Municipal Law ends with a Middle Dutch text. Taken together these documents formed an early standard language for Frisians remarkably uniform across time and space. Most existing Old Frisian corpora were compiled into seventeen legal codices one being an incunable containing several legal texts.
Old Frisian scribes used a largely phonemic orthography where each letter signifies a distinct phoneme. Stress fell on the stem in Old Frisian with limited exceptions. No distinction was made orthographically in early forms to provide for vowel length though later forms placed an e or i after the vowel to indicate long vowels. Gemination was possible for most consonants in word-medial position though semivowels voiced allophones of voiceless fricatives typically found between vowels and alveolar affricates are exceptions. Dirk Boutkan argues that certain sounds are exceptions as well but Bremmer includes them. In earlier orthographies geminate consonants were consistently written with duplicated consonants unless they were found in word-final position. Later duplication only signified that the previous vowel was short. Dental fricatives were written as th irrespective of voicing though the phoneme th was sometimes written as t. The cluster ch is sometimes written as k but it was still likely pronounced as k. Though g was often pronounced j it could represent either j or g though g is vastly less common except in loans from Medieval Latin.
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Common questions
When did the Old Frisian period begin and end?
The Old Frisian period began in 1276 with the copying of the First Brokmer Codex and lasted until around 1550. Before this date, only about two dozen runic inscriptions from the 5th through 10th centuries survive to the modern day.
What is the earliest complete text found for Old Frisian?
The earliest complete text found in 2015 is an interlinear gloss of the Psalms dated to approximately 1100. It sits inside a Latin manuscript and shows how Frisian was used alongside Latin for religious purposes.
How many legal codices contain most existing Old Frisian documents?
Most existing documents are legal codices compiled into seventeen separate collections. One incunable contains Middle Low German and Latin supplements alongside the main text.
Which dialects of Old Frisian have survived to the present day?
Old Ems Frisian became the ancestor of Saterland Frisian its only living descendant today. Other dialects like Old Weser Frisian developed into Wangerooge, Wursten, and Harlingerland Frisian all now extinct.
Who coined the term Anglo-Frisian languages and when?
German linguist Theodor Siebs popularized the idea that English and Frisian shared a closer relationship than any other Germanic language. He coined the term Anglo-Frisian languages in his 1889 dissertation titled On the History of the Anglo-Frisian Languages.