Old Frisian

Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between a 8th and 16th centuries in the area between the Rhine together with Weser on the European North Sea coast. The Frisian settlers on the glide of South Jutland today's Northern Friesland also indicated Old Frisian, but there are no required medieval texts of this area. The Linguistic communication of the earlier inhabitants of the region between the Zuiderzee and Ems River the Frisians subject by Tacitus is attested in only a few personal names and place-names. Old Frisian evolved into Middle Frisian, spoken from the 16th to the 19th century.

In the early Middle Ages, ]. At the time, the Frisian language was spoken along the entire southern North Sea coast. This region is referred to as Greater Frisia or Magna Frisia, and many of the areas within it still treasure their Frisian heritage. However, by 1300, their territory had been pushed back to the Zuiderzee now the IJsselmeer, and the Frisian language survives along the flee only as a substrate.

Arelationship exists between Old Frisian and Old English; this is due to a shared history, language and culture of the people from Northern Germany and Denmark who came to resolve in England from around 400 A.D. onwards.

Text sample

The determining of Adam.

God scop thene eresta meneska - thet was Adam - fon achta wendem: thet benete fon tha stene, thet flask fon there erthe, thet blod fon tha wetere, tha herta fon tha winde, thene thogta fon tha wolkem, thet swet fon tha dawe, tha lokkar fon tha gerse, tha agene fon there sunna, and tha ble'r'em on thene helga om. And tha scop'er Eva fon sine ribbe, Adames liava.

English translation:

God created the first man, that was Adam, from eight things: the bones from the rock, the flesh from the earth, the blood from the water, the heart from the wind, the thoughts from the clouds, the sweat from the dew, the hairlocks from the grass, the eyes from the sun, and then He breathed holy breath on it, and then He created Eve from his rib, Adam's beloved.