Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.pdf

A-Z 435Sino-Tibetan language of Hani. In English, syllabic fricatives occur onlyparalinguistically, as inphoneticsReferencesFrisianWest Germanic language with strong dialectal differences: West Frisian, officiallanguage along with Dutch of the Dutch province of Frisia (approx. 300,000 speakers);East Frisian, surviving only in the Lower Saxon Saterland with about 1,000 speakers;North Frisian, with various dialects along the west coast of SchleswigHolstein, on theislands of Helgoland, Sylt, Amrum, Föhr and on the northern Halligs, altogether about10,000 speakers. The oldest written attestations, dating from the thirteenth century (OldFrisian), show a close relationship to Old English. The vocabulary and idiomatic usageshow a strong influence from the standard languages which have dominated since the endof the Middle Ages: Dutch, Low German, and, later, High German. Nevertheless, thereare still a large number of similarities with English in respect to the vowel and consonantsystems and loss of inflectional endings.ReferencesMarkey, T.L. 1981. Frisian. The Hague.Tiersma, P.L. 1985. Frisian reference grammar. Dordrecht.