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 Bremerhaven (, , Low German: ''Bremerhoben'') is a city at the seaport of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms a semi-enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the Riv ...

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 ...

, 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 o ...

dialects in the area between the rivers Lauwers 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 o ...

. 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 the ...

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, ...

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 Fries ...

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

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 Socage () was one of the feudal duties and land tenure forms in the English feudal system. It eventually evolved into the freehold tenure called "free and common socage", which did not involve feudal duties. Farmers held land in exchange for cle ...

), ''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