Wursten Frisian was a dialect of the
East Frisian language
East Frisian is one of the Frisian languages. Its last surviving dialect is spoken in Saterland in Germany.
There were once two main dialects, ''Ems'' and ''Weser''. Weser, including the Wursten and Wangerooge dialects, held out until the 20t ...
that is thought to have been spoken until the early 18th century in the
landscape of Wursten between
Bremerhaven and
Cuxhaven
Cuxhaven (; ) is an independent town and seat of the Cuxhaven district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town includes the northernmost point of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the shore of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River. Cuxhaven has ...
, Germany. Together with
Harlingen Frisian and
Wangerooge Frisian
Wangerooge Frisian is an extinct dialect of the East Frisian language, formerly spoken on the East Frisian island of Wangerooge. Wangerooge Frisian was a part of the Weser group of dialects which included the Wangerooge and the equally extinct ...
it belonged to the Weser Frisian group of dialects. The last East Frisian dialect still spoken today is
Saterland Frisian, an Ems-group dialect.
History
The Wursten landscape was not part of the original settling area of the
Frisians
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal regions of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, ...
but was eventually colonised by them in the 8th century A.D. and became an independent municipality. When the East Frisian language began to fade in the 15th century it was successively replaced by
West Low German
Low Saxon, also known as West Low German ( nds, Nedersassisch, Nedersaksies; nl, Nedersaksisch) are a group of Low German dialects spoken in parts of the Netherlands, northwestern Germany and southern Denmark (in North Schleswig by parts of th ...
dialects in the area between the rivers
Lauwers
The Lauwers () is a river in the Netherlands. It forms part of the border between the provinces of Friesland and Groningen. From the 730s to Widukind's defeat in 785, it was part of the border of the Frankish Empire.
The former Lauwerszee and ...
and
Weser
The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports of Bre ...
. In Wursten however, the East Frisian language was upheld slightly longer than in
East Frisia
East Frisia or East Friesland (german: Ostfriesland; ; stq, Aastfräislound) is a historic region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is primarily located on the western half of the East Frisian peninsula, to the east of West Frisia ...
proper and in
Ommelanden
The Ommelanden (; ) are the parts of Groningen province that surround Groningen city. Usually mentioned as synonym for the province in the expression ("city and surrounding lands").
The area was Frisian-speaking, but under the influence of th ...
which is now a part of the Netherlands.
At the end of the 17th century the Wursten dialect was described in two lists of words but at the time it had strongly come under pressure. It is believed that in the first half of the 18th century, the Wursten dialect had as well become extinct.
Linguistic properties
The Weser dialects of the East Frisian language were unique among the
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
as they kept full vowels in secondary syllables. This phenomenon was especially distinctive in the Wursten Frisian, the easternmost of the East Frisian dialects. In
Old Frisian
Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Friesl ...
words with a short stem vowel the accentuation shifted from the first to the second syllable. Thus it could happen that not only the full vowel was preserved in what was now a stressed secondary syllable but the old stem vowel was partially reduced to a total loss. This transition process created words like ''snuh'' (son, from Old Frisian ''sunu'') or ''kma'' (to come, from Old Fr. ''koma'').
The only preserved full sentence in Wursten Frisian reads: ''"Kma wit hart ick will di wit tell"''
ome here, I want to tell you something
Ome may refer to:
Places
* Ome (Bora Bora), a public island in the lagoon of Bora Bora
* Ome, Lombardy, Italy, a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Brescia
* Ōme, Tokyo, a city in the Prefecture of Tokyo
* Ome (crater), a crater on Mars
Tran ...
[
]
Substratum effects
Today, there are still some substratum
In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
words of Wursten Frisian in the Low German dialect of the Wursten landscape. Århammar lists ''Maon'' ( socage), ''Bau(d)n'' (horse-fly), ''Schuur/Schuulschotten'' (dragonfly) and ''jill'n'' (to shriek) as examples. Nothing remains however of the phonological characteristics of Wursten Frisian.
References
General references
*
*
{{Frisian languages
East Frisian language
Extinct languages of Europe
Extinct languages
Extinct Germanic languages
Languages extinct in the 18th century