From a diachronical perspective, Saterland Frisian is anEmsfrisian dialect of theEast Frisian language. Emsfrisian used to be spoken in the western half of the East Frisian peninsula and in theOmmelanden. The other East Frisian dialect group was theWeserfrisian, formerly spoken from the eastern half of the East Frisian peninsula to beyond theWeser.
Together withWest Frisian andNorth Frisian it belongs to theFrisian branch of the Germanic languages. The three Frisian languages evolved fromOld Frisian. Among the living Frisian dialects, the one spoken inHeligoland (calledHalunder) is the closest to Saterland Frisian.[3]: 418 The closest language other than Frisian dialects isEnglish.
Frisian and English are often grouped together asAnglo-Frisian languages. Today, English, Frisian andLower German, sometimes alsoDutch, are grouped together under the labelNorth Sea Germanic. Low German, which is closely related to Saterland Frisian, lacks many North Sea Germanic features already from theOld Saxon period onward.[4] In turn, Saterland Frisian has had prolonged close contact with Low German.[5]: 32 [6]
Settlers fromEast Frisia, who left their homelands around 1100 A.D. due to natural disasters, established the Frisian language in theSaterland. Since the sparse population at the time of their arrival spoke Old Saxon, the Frisian language of the settlers came into close contact with Low German.[5]: 30-32
In East Frisia, the assimilation of Frisian speakers into the Low German speaking population was well under way in the early 16th century. The dialect of the Saterland persisted mostly due to geography. As the Saterland is surrounded by bogland, its inhabitants had few contacts with adjacent regions. The villages built on sandy hills were basically like islands. Until the 19th century, the settlement area was almost exclusively reachable by boat via the riverSagter Ems (Seelter Äi), the exception being walking on frozen or dried out bogland during times of extreme weather.[7][6]
Politically, the land did not belong to theCounty of East Frisia, which came into existence in the 15th century, but changed hands frequently until it became part of theCounty of Oldenburg. The resulting border was not merely political, but also denominational, as the Saterland was recatholicized.[6] The Saterland was also linguistically and culturally different from Oldenburg. This led to further isolation.
Colonialization of the bogland, with construction of roads and railways, led to the Saterland being less isolated. Nevertheless, Saterfrisian survived, because most of the community living in the Saterland continued to use the language. This common linguistic area was disturbed following World War II. German repatriates from Eastern Europe were settled in the Saterland, leading to Standard German gradually replacing Saterfrisian. While the predicted language death in the late 20th century did not happen, and the number of speakers remained stable, the Saterfrisian speaking community nowadays make up only a minority of the Saterland population.[8]: 46 [9]
Abilingual sign, with the second line showing the place name in Saterland Frisian
Today, estimates of the number of speakers vary slightly. Saterland Frisian is spoken by about 2,250 people, out of a total population in Saterland of some 10,000; an estimated 2,000 people speak the language well, slightly fewer than half of those being native speakers.[nb 1] The great majority of native speakers belong to the older generation; Saterland Frisian is thus a seriouslyendangered language. It might, however, no longer bemoribund, as several reports suggest that the number of speakers is rising among the younger generation, some of whom raise their children in Saterlandic.
Since about 1800, Sater Frisian has attracted the interest of a growing number of linguists. Media coverage sometimes argues that this linguistic interest, particularly the work ofMarron Curtis Fort, helped preserve the language and revive interest among speakers in transmitting it to the next generation.[11] During the last century, a small literature developed in it. Also, the New Testament of theBible was translated into Sater Frisian by Fort, who was himself a Christian.[12]
Children's books in Saterlandic are few, compared to those in German. Margaretha (Gretchen) Grosser, a retired member of the community of Saterland, has translated many children's books from German into Saterlandic.[6] A full list of the books and the time of their publication can be seen on the German Wikipedia page ofMargaretha Grosser.
Recent efforts to revitalize Saterlandic include the creation of an app called "Kleine Saterfriesen" (Little Sater Frisians) onGoogle Play. According to the app's description, it aims at making the language fun for children to learn, as it teaches them Saterlandic vocabulary in many different domains (the supermarket, the farm, the church). There have been more than 500 downloads of the app since its release in December 2016, according to statistics on Google Play Store.[13]
The language remains capable of producingneologisms as evidenced by a competition during theCovid-19 pandemic to create a Saterfrisian word foranti-Covid face masks held in late 2020 / early 2021[14] which resulted in the term "Sküüldouk" being adopted with face masks having the Saterfrisian sentence "Bäte dusse Sküüldouk wädt Seeltersk boald!" ("Under this face mask, Saterfrisian is spoken") written on them gaining some local popularity.[15]
The German government has not committed significant resources to the preservation of Sater Frisian. Most of the work to secure the endurance of this language is therefore done by theSeelter Buund ("Saterlandic Alliance"). Along withNorth Frisian and five other languages, Sater Frisian was included in Part III of theEuropean Charter for Regional or Minority Languages by Germany in 1998.[16]
There are three fully mutually intelligible dialects, corresponding to the three main villages of the municipality of Saterland: Ramsloh (Saterlandic:Roomelse), Scharrel (Schäddel), and Strücklingen (Strukelje).[3]: 419 The Ramsloh dialect now somewhat enjoys a status as a standard language, since a grammar and a word list were based on it.
The phonology of Saterland Frisian is regarded as very conservative linguistically, as the entire East Frisian language group was conservative with regards toOld Frisian.[17] The following tables are based on studies byMarron C. Fort.[3]: 411–412 [8]: 64–65
Voiced velar fricative, unvoiced in the syllable coda and before an unvoiced consonant. Younger speakers show a tendency towards using the plosive[ɡ] instead of[ɣ], as in German, but that development has not yet been reported in most scientific studies.
f
/f,v/
Fjúur (fire)
Realised voicedly by a suffix: ljoof - ljowe (dear -love)
w
/v/
Woater (water)
Normally a voiced labio-dental fricative like in German, afteru it is however realised as bilabial semi-vowel[w] (see below).
v
/v,f/
iek skräive (I scream)
Realised voicelessly before voiceless consonants: du skräifst (you scream)
s
/s,z/
säike (to seek),zuuzje (to sough)
Voiced[z] in the syllable onset is unusual for Frisian dialects and also rare in Saterlandic. There is no knownminimal pairs - z so /z/ is probably not a phoneme. Younger speakers tend to use[ʃ] more, for the combination of /s/ + another consonant: infräisk (Frisian) not[frɛɪsk] but[fʀɛɪʃk]. That development, however, has not yet been reported in most scientific studies.
Traditionally, a rolled or simplealveolar[r] in onsets and between vowels. After vowels or in codas, it becomes[ɐ]. Younger speakers tend to use auvular[ʀ] instead. That development, however, has not yet been reported in most scientific studies.
w
/v/,[w]
Kiuwe (chin)
As in English, it is realised as a bilabial semivowel only afteru.
The subject pronouns of Saterland Frisian are as follows:[19]
singular
plural
first person
iek
wie
second person
du
jie
third person
masculine
hie,er
jo,ze (unstr.)
feminine
ju,ze (unstr.)
neuter
dät,et,t
The numbers 1–10 in Saterland Frisian are as follows:[3]: 417
Saterland Frisian
English
aan (m.)
een (f., n.)
one
twäin (m.)
two (f., n.)
two
träi (m.)
trjo (f., n.)
three
fjauer
four
fieuw
five
säks
six
sogen
seven
oachte
eight
njúgen
nine
tjoon
ten
Numbers one through three in Saterland Frisian vary in form based on the gender of the noun they occur with.[3]: 417 In the table, "m." stands for masculine, "f." for feminine, and "n." for neuter.
For the purposes of comparison, here is a table with numbers 1–10 in 4 West Germanic languages:
The Saterlfrisian language preserved some lexical peculiarities of East Frisian, such as the verbreke replacing the equivalent ofGerman:geben in all contexts (e.g.Daach rakt et Ljude, doo deer baale …,[20] German: Doch gibt es Leute, die da sprechen; 'Yet there are people, who speak') orkwede ('to say') compare English 'quoth'. In Old Frisian,quetha andsedza existed (Augustinus seith ande queth …,[21] 'Augustinus said and said'). Another word, common in earlier forms of Western Germanic, but survived only in East Frisian isSoaks meaning 'knife' (comp.Seax).
Saterland Frisian became awritten language relatively recently. German orthography cannot adequately represent the vowel-rich Frisian language. Until the mid-20th century, scholars researching it developed their own orthography. The poet Gesina Lechte-Siemer, who published poems in Saterfrisian since the 1930s, adopted a proposal by the cultural historian Julius Bröring.[22]
In the 1950s Jelle Brouwer, professor in Groningen, an orthography based on the Dutch one, which failed to gain widespread acceptance. The West Frisian Pyt Kramer, who did research in Saterfrisian, developed aphonemic orthography.[23] The American linguistMarron Curtis Fort used Brouwer's Dutch-based orthography as a basis for his own proposal.[24] The most notable difference between the two orthographies is the way long vowels are represented. Kramer proposes that long vowels always be spelled with a double vowels (baale 'to speak'), while Fort maintains, that long vowels in open syllables be spelled with a single vowels, as Frisian vowels in open syllables are always long (bale 'to speak'). Both proposals use almost no diacritics, apart from Fort's use ofacutes to differentiate long vowels from semi-long ones.
So far, no standard has evolved. Those projects tutored by Kramer use his orthography while Fort published his works in his orthography, which is also recognized by the German authorities. Others use a compromise.[25] This lack of standards leads to the villageScharrel being spelledSchäddel on its town sign instead of the currently usedSkäddel.
Nordwest-Zeitung [de], a German-language regional daily newspaper based inOldenburg, Germany, publishes occasional articles in Saterland Frisian. The articles are also made available on the newspaper's Internet page, under the headlineSeeltersk.
As of 2004, the regional radio stationEms-Vechte-Welle broadcasts a 2-hour program in Saterland Frisian andLow German entitledMiddeeges.[6] The program is aired every other Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The first hour of the program is usually reserved for Saterland Frisian. The program usually consists of interviews about local issues between music. The station can be streamed live though the station's Internet page.
Uus Foar in dän Hemel, din Nome wäide heliged, läit dien Riek boalde kume, läit din Wille geskjo so in dän Hemel as ap ju Äide. Dou uus dälig dät Brood, dät wie bruke. Un ferreke uus uus Skeelden, so as wie ze uus Skeeldlju-dene ferroat häbe. Un lede uus nit in Fersäikenge, man rädde uus fóar dät Kwode. Dan dienen is dät Riek un ju Krääft un ju Heerdelkaid bit in alle Eeuwigaid. Amen.
Translation:
A preview of the first stanza of theSaterlied [de] (Seelter Läid), which is considered to be the regional anthem of Saterland:[5]
Ljude rakt et fuul un Lounde, Do ap Goddes Wareld stounde. Man wät gungt deer wäil uur Seelter, Un uur’t litje Seelterlound?
Translation:
There are many people and countries who stand on God's earth, But what goes well over Sater, About the small Saterland?
^A number of 6,370 speakers is cited by Fort,[3]: 410 a 1995 poll counted 2,225 speakers;[9]Ethnologue refers to a monolingual population of 5,000, but this number originally was not of speakers but of persons who counted themselves ethnically Saterland Frisian.[10]
^"r-s"(PDF).The Linguasphere Register. p. 252. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 27 August 2014. Retrieved1 March 2013.
^abcdefFort, Marron Curtis (2001). "Das Saterfriesische" [The Saterland Frisian language]. In Munske, Horst (ed.).Handbuch des Friesischen [Handbook of the Frisian language] (in German). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.ISBN3-484-73048-X.
^Nielsen, Hans Frede (2001). "Frisian and the Grouping of the Older Germanic Languages". In Munske, Horst (ed.).Handbuch des Friesischen [Handbook of the Frisian language]. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.ISBN3-484-73048-X.
^abcKlöver, Hanne (1998).Spurensuche im Saterland: Ein Lesebuch zur Geschichte einer Gemeinde friesischen Ursprungs im Oldenburger Münsterland (in German). Norden: Soltau-Kurier.ISBN3-928327-31-3.OCLC246014591.
^abcdePeters, Jörg (2020)."Saterfriesisch" [Saterland Frisian language]. In Beyer, Rahel; Plewnia, Albrecht (eds.).Handbuch der Sprachminderheiten in Deutschland [Handbook of linguistic minorities in Germany] (in German) (1 ed.). Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. pp. 139–171.ISBN978-3-8233-8261-4. Retrieved28 November 2022.
^Hoche, Johann Gottfried (1977) [1800].Reise durch Osnabrück und Niedermünster in das Saterland, Ostfriesland und Groeningen [Voyage through Osnabrück and Neumünster into the Saterland, East Frisia and Groeningen] (in German) (reprint ed.). Leer: Theodor Schuster. p. 130.ISBN3-7963-0137-1.
^abFort, Marron Curtis (1980).Saterfriesisches Wörterbuch [Dictionary of the Saterland Frisian language] (in German). Hamburg: Buske.
^abStellmacher, Dieter (1998).Das Saterland und das Saterländische [The Saterland and Saterlandic] (in German). Oldenburg: Oldenburgische Landschaft Verlag.ISBN978-3-89598-567-6.
^Versloot, Arjen (2001). "Grundzüge Ostfriesischer Sprachgeschichte" [Outlines of East Frisian linguistic history]. In Munske, Horst (ed.).Handbuch des Friesischen [Handbook of the Frisian language] (in German). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.ISBN3-484-73048-X..
^Bröring, Julius (1897).Das Saterland: Eine Darstellung von Land, Leben, Leuten in Wort und Bild [The Saterland: A depiction of the land, customes and people]. Vol. 1. Oldenburg: Stalling. Bröring, Julius (1901).Das Saterland: Eine Darstellung von Land, Leben, Leuten in Wort und Bild. Vol. 2. Oldenburg: Stalling.
^Kramer, Pyt (1982).Kute Seelter Sproakleere = Kurze Grammatik des Saterfriesischen [A short Grammar of Saterfrisian] (in German). Rhauderfehn: Ostendorp Verlag. pp. 5–8.ISBN978-3-921516-35-5.
^abcFort, Marron Curtis (2000).Dät Näie Tästamänt un do Psoolme in ju aasterlauwersfräiske Uurtoal fon dät Seelterlound, Fräislound, Butjoarlound, Aastfräislound un do Groninger Umelounde [The New Testament and the Psalms in the East Low Franconian language of Saterland, Frisia, Butjadingen, East Frisia and Ommelande] (in Saterland Frisian). Oldenburg: Bis-Verlag.ISBN3-8142-0692-4.OCLC174542094.
