Friso-Saxon dialects

dim yellow: Low Saxon language; bright yellow: Friso-Saxon dialects; blue: Frisian language.

Friso-Saxon is a collective name for a certain group of dialects belonging to the West Germanic languages. Although they are a variant of the Low Saxon language as a whole, these dialects have undergone strong influences from the Frisian language. Most of the Friso-Saxon dialects were Frisian dialects themselves in the past, until Frisian was replaced with Low Saxon in the Late Middle Ages. However, Frisian has remained a substratum since then in the regions concerned. The only exception to this rule is Stellingwarfs, a Low Saxon dialect which has undergone influence especially from West Frisian. Most of the other Friso-Saxon dialects underwent most influence from East Frisian, for example East Frisian Low Saxon, while the dialect of Dithmarschen which underwent most influence from North Frisian.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, September 14, 2013. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.