Frisian language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European Indo-European, family of languages having more speakers than any other language family. It is estimated that approximately half the world's population speaks an Indo-European tongue as a first language.
..... Click the link for more information. family of languages (see Germanic languages Germanic languages, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by about 470 million people in many parts of the world, but chiefly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere.
..... Click the link for more information. ). It has a number of dialects and is spoken by more than 300,000 people, most of whom speak West Frisian and live in Friesland, a province of the Netherlands. North Frisian is spoken along the North Sea coast of Germany and on the Frisian Islands, and East Frisian is spoken farther inland in NW Germany. Speakers of various dialects are also found in the United States. Frisian is a subject of instruction in the schools of Friesland and also has a literature of its own. Of all foreign languages, it is most like English.

Bibliography

See K. Zondag, ed., Bilingual Education in Friesland (1982).

Frisian language

West Germanic language most closely related to English. Formerly spoken from the province of North Holland in The Netherlands to the province of Schleswig in northern Germany, Frisian is now spoken only in three small areas, each with its own dialect. West Frisian is spoken in the province of Friesland in The Netherlands, East Frisian in the Saterland west of Oldenburg, Ger., and North Frisian along the western coast of Schleswig on the Frisian Islands. Written records in Old Frisian date from the end of the 13th century. From the late 16th century to the late 19th century, written Frisian was seldom used. In modern times there has been a revival of West Frisian, and it is considered an official language by the Dutch government.