West Frisian Language - Dialects

Dialects

The West Frisian language consists of eight mutually intelligible dialects, of which four are widely spoken and the other four are confined to small communities of less than a hundred to several hundreds of speakers.

The least-used dialect of West Frisian is Skiermûntseagersk, the island dialect of Schiermonnikoog (Frisian: Skiermûntseach), which is actually on the verge of extinction, spoken as it is by no more than 50-100 people (out of an island population of 900 people).

Hylpersk (in Dutch known as Hindeloopers), the archaic Frisian dialect of the peninsular harbour town of Hindeloopen (Hylpen), on the west coast, is still spoken by some 300 people at the most.

Skylgersk (also known as Westersk) and Aastersk are the dialects of the western and eastern parts of the island of Terschelling (Skylge) and have about 800 and 400 speakers respectively. They are separated from each other by the Dutch dialect of Midslands, which is spoken in the central part of Terschelling.

Because of their insular nature these four less-used dialects are also those that have deviated the most from mainstream Frisian. In fact, three of the four widely used mainland dialects are so much alike that a non-Frisian could probably not make out any differences.

The fourth mainland dialect, that of Súdwesthoeksk ("South Western"), which is spoken in an area called de Súdwesthoeke ("the South West Corner"), deviates from mainstream Frisian in that it does not adhere to the so-called newer breaking system, a prominent grammatical feature in the three other main dialects.

The Noardhoeksk ("Northern") dialect is spoken in the north eastern corner of the province but does not differ much from Wâldfrysk.

By far the two most widely spoken West Frisian dialects are Klaaifrysk and Wâldfrysk. Both these names are derived from the Frisian landscape. In the western and north-western parts of the province, the region where Klaaifrysk is spoken, the soil is made up of thick marine clay, hence the name Klaaifrysk, which literally means "Clay Frisian". While in the Klaaifrysk speaking area ditches are used to separate the pastures, in the eastern part of the province, where the soil is sandy, and water sinks away much faster, rows of trees are used to that purpose. Therefore, the dialect spoken in the eastern area is called Wâldfrysk, meaning "Wood Frisian" or "Forest Frisian".

Although Klaaifrysk and Wâldfrysk are mutually very easily intelligible, there are, at least to native Frisian speakers, a few very conspicuous differences. These include the pronunciation of the words my ("me"), dy ("thee"), hy ("he"), sy ("she" or "they"), wy ("we") and by ("by"), and the diphthongs ei and aai.

Of the two, Wâldfrysk probably has the greater number of speakers, but because the western clay area was originally the more prosperous part of the mostly agricultural province, Klaaifrysk has had the larger influence on the West Frisian standardised language.