Föhr Frisian
Fering
Native to	Germany
Region	Föhr,Nordfriesland
Native speakers	1,500 (2004 estimate)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic North Sea Germanic Anglo-Frisian Frisian North Frisian Insular Föhr–Amrum Föhr Frisian
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	ferr1240
Linguasphere	2-ACA-dbb to 2-ACA-dbd[2]
North Frisian dialects
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Föhr Frisian, orFering, is thedialect ofNorth Frisian spoken on the island ofFöhr in theGerman region ofNorth Frisia.Fering refers to theFering Frisian name of Föhr,Feer. Together with theÖömrang,Söl'ring, andHeligolandic dialects, it forms part of the insular group of North Frisian dialects and it is very similar to Öömrang.

Around 3,000 of Föhr's 8,700 people speakFering (1,500 of them being native speakers^[1]), constituting a third of all North Frisian speakers. Fering differs from other North Frisian dialects in that it is also used publicly on Föhr, not only at home. The municipalities ofOldsum andSüderende (Fering: Olersem, Söleraanj) in the western part of Föhr are strongholds of the dialect.^[1]

Personal names on Föhr are still today greatly influenced by a Frisian element. Notablyhypocorisms and names with two elements are common. Early borrowings were made from the Danish language and the Christianisation of the North Frisians around 1000 A.D. brought a modest influence of Christian and biblical names. In theAge of Sail, Dutch andWest Frisian forms became popular.^[3]

Family names were usuallypatronymic, i. e. they were individually created asgenitives from the father's given name. Contrary to the ScandinavianPetersen orPetersson, meaning "Peter's son", a Fering name likePeters means "of Peter". This practice was prohibited by the Danish Crown in 1771 for theDuchy of Schleswig and was therefore abandoned in the eastern part of Föhr. As western Föhr was a direct part of the Danish kingdom until 1864, patronyms were in use there until 1828 when they were forbidden in Denmark proper as well.^[3]

Apart from Dutch names, the seafarers in Dutch service also introduced manyloanwords in Dutch language to Fering which are still in use today. It has been observed that apart fromAfrikaans, no other language outside the Netherlands proper has been influenced as much by the Dutch language as the North Frisian insular dialects. Examples for Fering include:^[4]

Other loanwords were derived from American English when many people emigrated from Föhr to the United States but kept contact with their relatives on the island. Examples include:^[5]

Ther is always pronounced asalveolar trill. Initials is always voiceless.^[5]

Thediphthongsia,ua andui as well as thetriphthonguai arefalling diphthongs, i.e. the stress is always on the first vowel.^[5]

The current orthographic rules for Fering and Öömrang were defined in 1971. Previously, linguists like L. C. Peters, Otto Bremer and Reinhard Arfsten had each created their own Fering orthography. Long vowels including those withumlauts are always written as double letters while consonants are short by default. Capital letters are only used in the beginning of a sentence and for proper names.^[5]

Although there is a standard orthography, there is still spelling variation. This could partly be because many Fering speakers only learned how to spell standard German in school. For example, the North Frisian nationalist slogan"lewer duad üs Slaw!" (better dead than a slave) often appears along with the flag or crest of Föhr and has spelling variants including:leewer duad üüs Slaaw,lewer duaad üs Slaaw, andlewer duad üs Slav.

Fering originally had 3 genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. However during the course of the twentieth century the feminine and neuter genders have combined.

Fering nouns have twonumbers –singular andplural. There are two major suffixes used to form the plural:"-er" and"-en". Nouns with a masculine gender often use the"-er" plural (although there are a few feminine/neuter nouns in this group) and nouns with a feminine/neuter gender often use the"-en" plural (there are a few masculine nouns in this group). Plurals can also be formed using"-in","-n" and"-s". There are also plurals formed by changing a consonant at the end of the word, by changing a vowel within the word or by retaining the same form as the singular. Occasionally the plural form is formed by using a different word.

• An example of a masculine noun using the"-er" plural suffix:hünj (dog) –hünjer (dogs). Nouns can also lose an unstressed vowel, as is the case withkurew (basket) –kurwer (baskets). Some nouns undergo a vowel change, such assmas (blacksmith) –smeser (blacksmiths).

There are exceptions in this suffix group, includingwöning (window; a feminine/neuter noun) which forms the plural by removing a syllable –wönger' (windows), andinsel (island; also a feminine/neuter noun, and a German loanword) which form forms the plural by removing an unstressed vowel –insler (islands).

• An example of a feminine/neuter noun using the"-en" plural suffix:buk (book) –buken (books). Nouns can also lose an unstressed vowel, as is the case withfoomen (woman) –foomnen (women) andtaarep (village) –taarpen (villages).
• An example of a (feminine/neuter) noun using the"-en" plural suffix:baantje (office – i.e., a type of position) –baantjin (offices).
• An example of a (masculine) noun using the"-n" plural suffix:mooler (painter) –moolern (painters).
• An example of a (masculine) noun using the"-s" plural suffix:koptein (captain) –kopteins (captains).
• Examples of masculine nouns which retain the same form as the singular include:stian (stone(s)),karmen (man, men),lüs (louse, lice),steewel (boot(s)) andtwanling (twin(s)).
• Examples of feminine/neuter nouns which retain the same form as the singular include:bian (bone(s), leg(s),gris (piglet(s)),schep (sheep, singular and plural) andswin (pig(s)).

In Fering, there are three groups of verbs: weak, strong and irregular verbs.

Fering pronouns can be singular or plural. There used to be a dual form but it is no longer used. The formal is rarely used.^[6]

There are various Fering authors. One of the first publicly noticed writers was Arfst Jens Arfsten (1812–1899) who began writinganecdotes in Fering around 1855.^[7] Others includeStine Andresen (1849–1927) who was a poet and writer from Wyk whose literature often refers to her native island. She published her poetry in German but also in Fering. In 1991, Ellin Nickelsen'snoveletteJonk Bradlep (Dark Wedding) was published. With it, she won the first ever held North Frisian literature competition.^[8]

There are 3 dialects of Fering:Weesdring in Western Föhr,Aasdring in Eastern Föhr,^[6] andBoowentaareps in Southern Föhr.

• Leew Eilun Feer
• Low German

• Ocke-Schwen Bohn's home page Speech samples and a phonetic description of Fering
• Ferring Stiftung has a North Frisian version of its site and an archive of materials and recordings in Fering

• Föhr
• North Frisian language

• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• CS1 foreign language sources (ISO 639-2)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Language articles with Linguasphere code
• Dialects of languages with ISO 639-3 code
• Languages without ISO 639-3 code but with Glottolog code
• Languages without ISO 639-3 code but with Linguasphere code
• Pages with plain IPA
• Articles containing North Frisian-language text