North Frisian vs English vs German | Can they understand it? | feat.

In this North Frisian vs English vs German language challenge, we're trying to find out if German and English speakers can understand the North Frisian language.
North Frisian (nordfriisk) is a minority language of Germany, spoken by about 10,000 people in North Frisia. The language is part of the larger group of the West Germanic Frisian languages. The language comprises 10 dialects which are themselves divided into an insular and a mainland group. [Thank you Wikipedia!]
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🤗 Big thanks to: @SimonRoper, Fernando (Instagram @captain.calendar), Moritz and Eric (Instagram: @eric.lambrecht) from Germany.
Some language resources recommendation from Moritz:
friisk.org/ - German-North Frisian dictionary with grammar lists
www.learnfrisian.com - Free online beginner courses for all Frisian languages in English
📝 Volunteer your language skills for future videos → forms.gle/aZeSFSsFexbmxE7UA
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My name is Norbert Wierzbicki and I am the creator of @Ecolinguist channel. You can support my work by volunteering to participate in the future videos or donating to the project.
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🎥Recommended videos:
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🕰 Time Stamps:
🤗 Big hug for everyone reading my video descriptions! You rock! 🤓💪🏻
#languagechallenge

[@Ecolinguist]

Can Germans understand Old English? → kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJaae39_jtOoepI

[@Joker5086]

I'd be quite interested in an episode hosted by Fernando in his Allgäu dialect, maybe with Eric, Moritz and Simon as the guessers.

[@manno_ut_nitherlanda]

You should do a video about West-Frisian, it's vastly different from North frisian.

[@edwardbanane9643]

Norbert, when are you going to compare Scots Gealic to Irish and Manx Speakers?

[@feldgeist2637]

I'm from Nordfriesland (southern part and mainland) and just yesterday I read the entries of the 7th century in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - never learned old english and was only relying on my frisian influenced low german skills but understood pretty much all of it ....although those entries are quite short and confronted with a longer text I might struggle a bit more ......but I read longer swedish texts yesterday as well and this quite worked...

[@_Shadbolt_]

Thank you Simon Roper for making us Brits look a bit more worldly with every appearance. Big fan!

[@indochinajames3372]

Agree 100%.

[@davidlericain]

I'm not British but as an anglophone you get a thumbs up from me too.

[@jessicapigg]

Me too

[@lhpl]

You Brits are family just like the rest of us, as a Dane I very much appreciate how you have made (a kind of) Danish become a dominant world language. :-)

[@Bjowolf2]

@@lhpl Yes, I think we should recognise the English as honorary Spare Danes and adopt them - half of their basic words and many parts of their grammar are similar to ours in DK anyway, even though they typically can't hear it on the fly 😉

[@gieweh1136]

Simon is a very dangerous man with the power of old english.

[@MoLauer]

Thank you Norbert for the opportunity to present my small endangered language on your channel :)

[@kebman]

*Moritz!* Ic wylle būgan se brūne cū! Hæfst þū ānne? Oh and Eddie says hello!

[@pierrefley5000]

Thank you for the challenge. I definitely had to use both the written and spoken clues, but in the end I managed to get all of words right (with some shaky guesswork on the first one). Very entertaining.

[@MoLauer]

The language spoken here is Söl'ring, an Insular dialect of the North Frisian language. It was heavily influencend by Southern Danish dialects and has a lot of North Germanic loan vocabulary. Söl'ring has around 80 native speakers and 400 L2 speakers and is thereby the fourth biggest of the 10 remaining dialects of NF. It is extremly endangered and although it is still taught in some schools on the island of Söl (Sylt/Sild), its odds of survival are very low.

[@snakeintheshadow]

I studied North Frisian at Kiel University some years ago and wasn't aware that Söl'ring is that much endangered already. I find it to be way more exciting than Fering/Öömrang. Too bad I didn't learn as much Söl'ring as I learned Mooring. I really appreciate your mother tongue.

[@marchauchler1622]

Danish is a North Germanic language. I guess you mean loan words from the low German dialects also spoken in Northern Germany which just like Frisian, Dutch, Luxembourgish and all other German dialects are part of the West Germanic branch.

[@MoLauer]

@@marchauchler1622 No, I mean that due to it being spoken at the Danish border, there was a lot of Danish influence on the North Frisian language

[@marchauchler1622]

@@MoLauer that's true regarding the influence

[@FrozenMermaid666]

I have a question... What exactly are Söl’ring and Fering and Mooring and Öömrang, are these the official names of the Frisian languages? I am trying to learn all Germanic languages, but I cannot find videos teaching some of them, such as the ancient languages and the Frisian languages and some of the German-based languages!

[@EightOneGulf]

As a native West-Frisian speaker, the difference with North-Frisian spoken here was way bigger than I expected. Still mostly understandable but with some effort. Really cool to hear 😃

[@010arschloch]

That's a pretty interesting comment

[@d.v.t]

I feel like I understand Dutch more than North Frisian

[@roerd]

I'm a native speaker of Fering which is one of the closest related dialects of North Frisian to Sölring, and even I had quite some trouble with some parts (though other parts were quite similar to how I would have said it in Fering). North Frisian is very heterogeneous.

[@FeedsNoSliesMusic]

I'm a native English speaker and I remember, when visiting Leeuwarden in the summer, I spoke Dutch to the people in the AFÛK shop while they replied in West Frisian and we understood eachother easily. Edit: I understood the North Frisian in the video with relative ease too.

[@DouweBuruma]

I am Dutch, understand West Frisian very well, because I was born there, and I am also learning Swedish and German, but this was difficult for me to understand.

[@ustit-vuohta6695]

As a Swedish speaker this was like a hand in a glove. All the sentences was easy to figure out. Some words where almost exactly the same as in Swedish.

[@ustit-vuohta6695]

Lönskep = landskap Wuksi = växa ... väldigt likt

[@Asptuber]

Yes! First time on one of these that I am better than the panelists - though I did mess up on the last one (thought something like "shore meadow" instead of dune, but that is probably because I have no idea what the landscape looks like). BUT I am not sure I would have done as well if I hadn't had the written form along with the spoken one.

[@sollte1239]

Das ist interessant

[@livedandletdie]

@@Asptuber It's closer to Scandinavian, because it is, I'd say it's the closest to my dialect of Scanian than any other Germanic dialect. Though most Swedes have a problem understanding me, so yeah... Scanian is weird, I mean we have the weirdos in southern Scania that can't do anything but roll their Rs, and then we have me an actual Scanian speaker. Dää aau sau maungen fejl moj dé anere i Skaune. It is Oh so many faults with the others in Scania.

[@dan74695]

The Scandinavian languages have a ton of Low German loanwords, most of which being from Low Saxon, but a few are from Frisian and Dutch.

[@connyapfelbaum4498]

First time, I heard Simon speaking german in a whole sentence. Well done @Simon

[@catsara9114]

I understand Plattdeutsch, and thought this would be an easy challenge. I was wrong 😅. But interesting to me: When I stopped reading the script, and only listened to Moritz, it was easier, and I recognized more words/grammar.

[@goebelmasse]

It sounded a lot like Danish with a pronunciation much easier to understand for a German… and with some words taken from Lower Saxon.

[@PkPvre]

As a Dutchman it was the opposite. I got a lot from the script and not so much from listening.

[@livedandletdie]

@@PkPvre as a Scanian, I understood a lot of the words, because they sound a lot like Scanian, I mean it's more like a weird mix of Danish, Scanian and German, but still, I'd say it's not the easiest to comprehend what is being said, I'd say I'd have about a 65-70% understanding. But I mean, when I speak Scanian my friends don't understand me, whether they're Danish or Swedish, doesn't matter, so I'm used to faulty communication. Although I speak both Swedish and Danish, Swedish due to it being forced in school, and Danish because it's so close to go to Denmark to drink beer.

[@PkPvre]

@@livedandletdie A lot cheaper too I believe ^^

[@snakeintheshadow]

Sölring is the most difficult of the remaining North Frisian variants, at least in my opinion. Mooring/Bökinghiirder Frasch and Fering/Öömrang are somewhat easier to understand.

[@mjinhamburg]

As a Bristolian who lives near Hamburg and speaks Dutch and German, and is interested in frisian and Platt, this video's a dream! 😊

[@Pracedru]

Very interesting to hear this as a danish speaker. Some things sounded very danish. Other things sounded almost dutch.

[@joelmattsson9353]

I agree, i'm swedish and i felt like it was definitely easier to follow the frisian in this video than to understand what the german guys were saying when giving their guesses Edit: and interestingly, i felt like the guy from northern germany was also much easier to follow than the guy from the south

[@lhpl]

Another Dane here. Being from South Jutland close to Flensburg, and even nearly trilingual (S. J. Dialect, German, Danish) since infancy, combined with the very effective way we learn English in the Nordic countries, I also would say I had the best possible conditions for understanding North Frisian, without being a "pro" linguist. Although I didn't get "sunshine".

[@Pracedru]

@@lhpl interesting. I was also in doubt about sunshine.

[@jaysimoes3705]

Yeah as a Dutch I had the same feeling. Since it is either close to Dutch and close to Danish and Danish in itself is also close to Dutch all of this made a lot of sense to me. I had no problems with it. His pronounciation of words is really just like Dutch mostly. Much more so than or own Frisian.

[@swecalf]

Would be nice if you had a north germanic speaking person there as well for comparison.

[@Lou-fb9ii]

I understood Christmas tree and now I'm hella proud of myself :D fun video idea!

[@livedandletdie]

I like North Frisian, it sounds like broken Danish. I mean, I speak German, Danish, Swedish, Scanian and English, so it wasn't hard at all to understand. Truly interesting to hear, still, it's not as weird sounding as I'd think, it's a lot more like other Frisian dialects. The word for part, was the easiest word for me to hear and understand, as it's Dejl/Dojl in Scanian, and Del in Swedish/Danish. And of course Teil in German. And I wish the Scandinavian languages had kept the months... instead of adopting the Roman Calendar.

[@jaysimoes3705]

"Deel" in Dutch btw.

[@adamknopp6631]

The legend that is Simon Roper. 😊

[@kknupp101]

As a student of linguistics, native English speaker and second language German speaker, I absolutely love these videos! It’s fascinating to me to compare and contrast these language.

[@greatkaiser5136]

It's so interesting that Frisian has something in common with the Finnish language where December translates as well as "Joulukuu" aka Christmas moon.

[@JJ-ig6ot]

For me as a Scandinavian I found old English "easier" than Frisian, but I definitely hear that the languages are closely related

[@livedandletdie]

I'd say North Frisian is actually closer to modern Scandinavian than it is to modern English. Especially if you speak Danish/Scanian but I'd guess you're Swedish and that would be why you had a harder time understanding.

[@brainimp]

@@livedandletdie Old English and Old Frisian were closer.

[@Alexander-mw1ek]

I never get anything right in these challenges and today I got all 4 correct! (I speak English natively and German as a second language. I also have some limited knowledge of Plattdeutsch, which may helped parse the phonology here)

[@UnshavenStatue]

the riin/rain words, lacking the middle g as in dutch or deutsch, is evidence that, wayyyy back in history, frisian and english have more ancestry in common with each other than with the other low-germanic dialects

[@RobWhittlestone]

As a Brit living in Switzerland I was surprised how much I understaood, but it was nevertheless quite difficult. Excellent content and very interesting! Well done all.

[@MrEnaric]

In fergelyk mei in oare Fryske taal. Ik kin dy goed ferstean, hear!

[@larry7898]

It's crazy that as a native English speaker, I pretty much cannot understand a thing in German or North Frisian, yet as an ~intermediate Spanish speaker, I can understand enough of even Romanian or Latin to guess the right words when watching your videos!

[@Ecolinguist]

Yes, English is so weird this way. 😁

[@poppinc8145]

That's because modern English is mostly loanwords and is only categorized as Germanic due to etymology since the Germanic words are actually a minority. Most of the loanwords are Romance, especially French and Latin. Another consequence of being full of loanwords from different sources is that the phonetics of the letters are completely inconsistent, which makes it hard to master for a lot of non-native speakers. It also probably plays a part in why there's so many English-derived creole languages. Some suggest standard English is a creole itself.

[@lodewijkvandoornik3844]

​@@poppinc8145 do you think that an Anglish speaker would better understand other Germanics tongues ?

[@cellokoen]

I think the Romance languages are generally a bit closer than the remaining Germanic languages, with English being a weird cousin. I’m a native English speaker who speaks German, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as a fair amount of French and a little Italian (and a really tiny bit of Romanian and Catalan), and listening to a bit of tv shows in and have scanned the North Germanic languages.

[@FrozenMermaid666]

Technically, that language isn’t Latin and is incorrectly classified as a Latin language, even though it doesn’t look and doesn’t sound Latin at all as it has completely different word endings and letter combinations and intonations that none of the Latin languages have, which are the elements that make a language what it is, and the most accurate classification would be Thracian-Aslavic as it is isn’t truly Slavic either - however, Germanic languages come directly from Latin, so it’s normal for them to have tons of cognates, and English has more words modified from a Latin word than any other language, including most technical terms and medical terms and the 9 million scientific names of plants and animals, which are Latin-based, but most European languages also have mostly words that come from Latin, including the Slavic languages which also come from Latin, and the modern Celtic languages which come mostly from Latin and Norse and Gaulish, and even Gaulish comes mostly from Latin as well, and most words from most European languages are in fact modified from Latin words or created by combining different parts from different Latin words, including most words that aren’t obvious cognates, it’s just that English has more words that are obvious cognates, but English is a Germanic language 100% which has the typical Germanic word endings and letter combinations and sounds and sound patterns etc, and it comes mostly from Norse, so most English words that are used the most are closer to the Norse word than they are to the other Germanic languages!

[@jkoperski9925]

I love this quartet. It's my favorite one together with Jackson Crawford's appearance. Generally, I love the kindness and knowledgeability the people on this channel encounter each other with. Okay, that was grammatically very wrong, I beg your pardon, non-native speaker here. Love to y'all!

[@brianlewis6774]

Wow I've never heard North Frisian before, you can definitely hear the Danish influence on it. On a separate note, Simon is looking damn fine these days 😊

[@ppro6347]

Ah goeie , Ik kom uut Fryslan, de noardelykste provinsje fan Nederlan en ik fyn dit hiel interressant. ik tink dot us frysk nog folle mear op ald engelsk lyket...noflike krystdagen minsken.

[@kebman]

Jokes aside, the Frisian and North Frisian languages are absolutely fascinating languages. In many respects they represent the missing link between a whole host of Germanic languages languages over history. I'm particularly fascinated by the commonalities, and how that makes one theorize about how the peoples who spoke this language evolved, moved and traded over time.

[@urbnctrl]

Holy friggen SHEIT, I am a West Frisian who only understands Frisian but doesn't speak it and I blind clicked this video - without captions the first guy just started introducing himself and I was loosely paying attention and literally understood everything he said. That is just wild. I know it is Frisian but it sounded super different, I thought I was listening to Danish for a second, Interesting.

[@alexsaffamerica]

As an Afrikaans speaker, I could understand a fair bit of the North Frisian speaker's sentences by looking at the text.

[@AlexandraVioletta]

👀😳

[@ronfelix6507]

As you probably saw as well, when it's written, it's pretty easy to follow as a native English speaker. Also, it was interesting that some of the spelling was different, but the sound was similar.

[@GuzelKyrim-Ukraine]

As the speaker of Dutch I am able to understand about 60% of Frisian (probably even more).

[@Ralesk]

This was so much fun to listen to :D

[@landsgevaer]

Not overly difficult as a dutchman (with knowledge of english, and some basics of german, west-frisian and swedish) purely by ear, although for the first word I guessed "trocken" because I thought it /could/ happen at night, and I am still puzzled what grows on the dunes. 10k speakers or even less surprised me though, that is not a lot...! 😮

[@MoLauer]

In North Frisia the dunes are covered in heath and gras, to protect them from erosion. The North Frisian language has around 10.000 speaker. The dialect presented in this video has 80 native speaker and around 400 L2 speaker. Because of their relative isolation from each other, the dialects are only partialy mutual intelligeable and could be considered their own languages by certain metrics. There are 10 dialects, all with their own spoken and written standards.

[@demi3115]

Halem = Helmgras :)

[@higfny]

Honestly, you should have had a Dane or Norwegian here. I understood most of what he said.

[@jaysimoes3705]

Since this is really really close to Dutch, especially the pronounciation, can you also understand standard Dutch?

[@davidcolby7641]

I have absolutely no formal study, but I have done some reading of Beowulf in it's original text. Additionally, I have a smattering of German and Dutch vocabulary. Other than that, I pick up on cognates readily, most frequently in written form as I have limited access to Dutch or German speakers, however there are many words which the cognates are still better picked up in speech. I was surprised at finding I was able to guess all these samples correctly given my limited background, particularly compared to this group. I hesitate to think what a year or two of immersion in Germany and the Nederlands would do to my overall linguistic skills...

[@barbarawright5306]

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

[@FabiWe91]

Favorite video so far, fantastic choice of language!

[@hakanbjrnson124]

As an English speaker with German relatives, 3 years of learning German in school a long time ago, but no fluency in German, the 2nd and 3rd words were easy. The 2nd was the easiest, but I suspect if I didn't have any knowledge of German/Dutch vocab and cognate words, it would have been harder and perhaps the 3rd would be the only one I could have got correct with nothing but English knowledge. Even with knowing Dutch and German words/cognates, I was only able to get in the ballpark of the meanings of the 1st and 4th. Spoilers for the 4th: I didn't take the false path Simon took. Having understood "North Frisian landscape", I chose not to fixate on Deel. Part of this was because the meaning of 'Slach' turned out to be unimportant to correctly guessing the 2nd word with confidence. Seeing Deel as possibly cognate with Dale never occurred to me. Secondly, I chose to understand See as sharing meaning with Zee/Sea, rather than German Zee - because geographically and culturally, I've always associated the Frisians with the North Sea, and linguistically I expected the deviation in meaning between West Germanic languages to have been a unique Irminonic/High German deviation from the others. The word I clung to was Sön - I thought that's either sun or sand. Sun, sand, sea, I guessed beach. I was trying to figure out what Bärig was. I thought maybe barrier. Honestly I almost thought that meant barrier from the Sun, and if I'd over thought it I might have thought "techbi See finj" meant you could find tech by the sea, and I would have guessed parasol which would have been worse than guessing beach.

[@hakanbjrnson124]

*See not Zee. Typed too quickly and can't find option to edit comment.

[@everyotherusernameistaken7901]

I'm a native English speaker (American) and while I had trouble with the first and last words like I expected, I was surprised how easy the second and third were for me; I could understand like 80-90% of what he was saying by ear. It was pretty cool.

[@robertofranciscomonsalvesp8080]

What a sweet treat for my ears. Thanks for this video and Merry Christmas/ Yuletide to everyone.

[@filiprozmanek6359]

As a Czech who learns german and spend some time in Austria and Switzerland I was able to figure out the topic and got pretty close with my guesses. Love it! Want to see more!

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

those southern dialects are probably the furthest apart from a low german dialect or frisian. Good to see that even non-native speakers get some understanding from it. Next step, come to germany and exchange some beer.

[@manuelmartensen]

Dit es en apārti Programm! Fuul Dank :)

[@languagechallenge]

I'm not sure how many of these Ecolinguist vids I could binge watch before I wanted to stop. I might go all day if there was enough Germanic content. Thank you.

[@ak5659]

As a native English speaker who studied Hochdeutsch and spent a few weeks in and around Hamburg, I thought this dialect of Frisian was much closer to Platt than either Hoch or English. I guessed Holly instead of Christmas tree. I missed sunshine but got seagull and dune.

[@russetmantle1]

Native English speaker here who knows a reasonable amount of German and Dutch (and my tiny bit of Icelandic helped me with "ek" meaning "not"). I got about 30% or so and found it easier to understand when I didn't look at the transcript. The spelling put me off a bit!

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

As a speaker of Low-saxon-dutch I understood most of it, and could guess all the words :)

[@daviddavidk2352]

I know it is easy to say after seeing them written down, but I could see a lot of links between the Frisian and English and particularly Old Saxon English from what I have seen. The old Saxon months were very similar.

[@micmalawi]

I'm an English speaking South African and also speak and understand Afrikaans. I understood a fair bit of North Frisian by using these two languages. I found it much easier than Old English.

[@philroberts7238]

i enjoyed this and understood the bulk of it surprisingly well - but only because I was able to read what Moritz was saying. If I'd had to rely on the audio only, like the three participants, I don't think I'd have had much of a chance! Btw, I'd like to see a similar language challenge between all six Celtic languages - or possibly two separate challenges for the Goidelic and Brytonnic branches.

[@DmitryLavrinenko]

Cool and interesting challenge. Norbert, could you organize the same but with West Frisian?

[@nathalia65157]

In the fourth example, 9:28 I definitely also heard a word similar to ‘Heide’- ‘heather grows on top of it’ the dune. Dune is of course also in English. Also I never thought about dale and German Tal both meaning valley. I grew up going to Sylt every summer so I love that North Frisian is featured! Love these videos!

[@DrWhom]

Kindergarten and elementary education should get you close to native level, depending on the intensity of exposure and embedding of the language in daily life.

[@palmchord]

It would be interesting to hear the frisian sentences in regular talking speed as well. I like your challenges!

[@joebarrera334]

Good challenge. I'm interested in the Frisian languages!

[@Ssarevok]

Would be fun to see with ducth Frisian speaker, too.

[@010arschloch]

Thanks Norbert for making these vids and showing those small languages which are most of time forgotten in every day's life

[@timoloef]

Very enjoyable :) I could understand some of it, but (being dutch) once I read it it was all clear, very close to modern day dutch

[@peterl0815]

This was the first time I ever heard Frisian and I didn't know it's spoken in Germany. But I understand a good part of it. I'm really surprised. I think after some audio books in Frisian (if they exists) as a German it's seems to get used to it. Nice one! 👍

[@ppro6347]

the actual province of frisia is in the netherlands and this german version doesnt sound like actual frisian whatsoever.

[@peterl0815]

@@ppro6347 well Nordfriesland seems to be in Schleswig Holtstein on the side of the north sea below or near the Danish border. The Frisians seem to have settled in a wider area than you think. So this language may have different variations which must not seem very similar. Just guessing and some Wikipedia

[@MoLauer]

@@ppro6347 another case of West Frisians thinking that they are the only Frisians

[@Glossologia]

@@ppro6347 North Frisian isn't the same thing as West Frisian. One isn't more 'real' than the other. What a silly comment.

[@renegade1701]

Veldig interessant og morsomt for en nordmann å prøve å forstå! 😊 Tusen takk og god jul! 🎉

[@dan74695]

Heve du høyrt saksisk?

[@renegade1701]

@@dan74695 Takk for at du lurer meg ned i det kaninhullet på lille julaften! 😅

[@willmurphy4073]

Som amerikaner var det litt vanskelig å påpeike spesifikke ord at jeg definitivt kunne forstå, men med hjelpen av norsk og gammel engelsk kunnskap gikk det an å lese teksten uten problemer. Lurer på hvor mye fra videoen forsto du da

[@SIC647]

I am SO fascinated by the fact that you still use the old (North) Germanic names for the moon-months. We don't even do that in the Nordics anymore.

[@Marcoldnia]

Being from Middle Frisia I had also some struggle with the understanding of number 4, great vid

[@MoLauer]

Middle Frisia?

[@annevandijk1771]

Als Nederlandse zijn voor mij ook sommige woorden herkenbaar. Het woord "Diil" lijkt op het Nederlandse woord "Deel" een deel of een gedeelte van iets. Vooral de uitspraak helpt mij, om de vergelijking te maken. Ik ben ook bekend met verschillende Nederlandse dialecten en het Duits, daardoor leg je ook makkelijker een link.

[@annie1626]

I'm an English speaker who knows very little German, and has never studied any other North European languages, and my only knowledge of Friesland would be 'black and white cows' and 'pretty flat landscape'. So I was amazed that I came close with three of the four words - I guessed holly or ivy, a pigeon and beach. I couldn't have done it without the subtitles though, as I didn't get long enough to tune in to the language. I think it was probably the smattering of German that did it, not being an English speaker.

[@AnalediAfrika]

Very enjoyable challenge! I'm a native Afrikaans speaker, L2 is South African English. I understand Dutch/Flemish, and a bit of German, but can't speak these. My knowledge of French didn't help at all. I have never heard North Frisian before, but I could follow a fair bit with the subtitles on. I got "sun" (not sunshine, which in Afrikaans is "sonskyn") and "denneboom/Kersboom" (pine tree/Christmas tree). For the third word I got that this was a bird, but my African frame of reference sent me to ostrich, haha! (white and grey, tourists ... - Afrikaans word for seagull is "seemeeu"). My guess for the last word was "heuwel" (hill).

[@jkoperski9925]

I'd like to give this five thumbs up. Thank you

[@lauratictoc]

It's more difficult than I thought but I got a few cognate words here and there. I think I might have heard a different dialect or variation perhaps. I remember hearing it as more "Dutch" sounding than German. I like the references to nature in the Frisian calendar, like Dùbhlachd for December in Gaelic the Darkness month.

[@Andalusian_]

Yes! I was going to guess “sunny weather”. I wonder if I would’ve gotten the point for the first one.

[@MoLauer]

I'd give you the point. Gröötnisen fan Kiil :)

[@Andalusian_]

​@@MoLauerhaha danke. Grüße zurück an dich.

[@Aleiza_49]

I'm used to West Frisian as an L1 English + L1.5 German speaker myself this sounds a lot different, but still rather understandable

[@BinneReitsma]

For the next time it would be quite cool if you add a western frisian, it's similar in some extend but even for me it's difficult. I think a normal western frisian would even struggle with Northern frisian.

[@eliteteamkiller319]

God I love this. It's so weird when you get one right when you don't speak any Germanic language except English. I'm listening to it without reading, then going back and listening while reading. Managed to get the second one, and got a couple words of the others (knew the third was a bird, but not what kind, because ba-ba-ba bird is the word bird is the word hehe. Wasn't sure if gre was green or grey, and guul I assumed was yellow for no reason other than the L, and it didn't occur to me to think of gold). Also, this guessing game is great, because it's not just vocabulary testing, it's comprehension testing.

[@willmurphy4073]

Would you be able to do Old English vs Icelandic/Dutch/English? Also maybe Icelandic (or Norwegian) vs German/Dutch/Frisian? Or maybe Native Norwegian vs Non-native learners (like you did with Danish)! If doing that one, I volunteer to be on 😁😁😁

[@Yulo2000Leyje]

Great fun ! Without the writing it would have been more difficult. But with it, it was pretty easy . (germany, dutch boarder)

[@hideouswh5718]

Awesome video! As a native West-Frisian speaker I could understand most things without a lot of effort, though I found that the spelling differs quite far from West-Frisian.

[@martr1x384]

Would be great if you would do such a video with an austrian dialect. Nice greetings from upper austria :-)

[@jacquelinevanderkooij4301]

Nordfrysish is very different to Westlauwers-frysish. Lot of saksish/danish in its pronouncing. Probably because of a lot of trading in that region.

[@narapo1911]

Love Simon

[@oscebe2691]

Native UK English speaker, studied Old and Middle English at university but only know very little German/Dutch. Tried listening to it without reading any of the subtitles: First three mostly understandable, like Simon I thought "the sun". Guessed "holly" for the second (picked up all the words just got the wrong tree, maybe holly/Christmas is an English thing) Seagull- yes Fourth one was so much harder; got the bits about the sea and landscape but I did exactly the same thing as Fernando! Thought he said "deer" (animal) again so thought something like seal or whale. (Like deer/deel, in the third I also misheard "stialt" as "tail"- "steort" in OE, but still got it. Is it me or does he have a very "dark" L sound, except after the ü?) Another interesting thing is his accent in English sounds to me much more Scandinavian than German

[@MoLauer]

Well done and really fascinating observations :) I never thought about having a "darker" l-sound. But I think I'll look into it, I had a lot of contact with other german dialects, so maybe I picked it up there. I speak a lot of Danish in my university life, so maybe I adopted a more scandinavian pronounciation there, but northern german english prounciation sounds very different to the stereotypical "german" accent, that is largely based on Bavarian and Austrian prounciation

[@Akkolon]

As a Dane it was pretty easy to get the meaning of most sentences - I feel there must be a lot of influence from Danish in the North Frisian dialect's.

[@Glossologia]

It's more that Danish has a lot of Low German/Saxon influence, and Low German is fairly close to Frisian.

[@MoLauer]

@@Glossologia in this case, it is more direct language contact to Danish that had the bigger impact. Due to proximity NF had a strong jutlandic (southern danish) influence over the centuries. My dialect Söl‘ring is an insular dialect, which made it pretty isolated from the Low German spoken on the mainland. The mainland dialects of NF have a lot stronger Low German influence. So although you‘re right about the Low German impact on Danish, it isn‘t really the reason for similarities here :)

[@Glossologia]

@@MoLauer Interesting! Thanks for the correction! :-)

[@Aoderic]

Yes. I managed to guess all the sentences, but with some uncertainty. Like in the first sentence, I was guessing sunshine, but when they both said rainbow, I thought I must be wrong then, but then I wasn't 😄

[@lhpl]

@@MoLauer I'm not sure I got this right. Are you saying that NF has been influenced by SJ centuries ago? (As in, long before various natonalist tendencies resulted in the reduction of dialects in favour of "national" languages - typically based on the dialect spoken in the capital city.) "Modern" SJ - to my best assessment - is heavily influenced both by std Danish and std German, which means its connection to an earlier version has weakened a lot. I often wonder how it may have sound just 50-100 years before I was born in 1968. I remember our neighbours from my childhood, they had an extremely musical lilt, especially the mother, and I've always wondered where that came from. (Given the location, just on the northern bank across from Flensburg, I have speculated if there might be some relation to - or remaining fraction of - Angeldansk. When I read the WP entry, I can see some similarity in the examples.)

[@ArjenHaayman]

I'm Dutch and for me it wasn't too hard. Got most of it

[@nickwysoczanskyj785]

I think that the original Old English name for December, was “Yule month” - and January was “After Yule month”. Similarly, September was “Havest month”. 6:46

[@ustit-vuohta6695]

Jul-månad in Swedish

[@nickwysoczanskyj785]

@@ustit-vuohta6695 That’s very similar! I had to look up the orthography, but the Anglo Saxon name was “Ġēolamōnaþ”.

[@user-kp1gb7cp8g]

Here all are the months in Old English compared to Modern English: January - Æfterra ġēola(after Yole) February - Solmōnaþ(month of mud) March - Hrēþmōnaþ(month of glory) April - Ēastermōnaþ(month of Easter) May - Þrimilċe("three milks", because animals could be milked three times a day at this time of year) June - Ǣrra līþa("former līþa(which meant both June and July)") July - Æfterra līþa("latter līþa") August - Wēodmōnaþ(month of weed) September - Hærfestmōnaþ(month of harvest) or Hāliġmōnaþ(holy month) October - Winterfylleþ(wintry full moon) November - Blōtmōnaþ(month of blood, because Anglo-Saxons made sacrifices before winter) December - Ǣrra ġēola(before Yole) Who wants a comparison with other language from IE group, which preserved their native names of months here are the names of months in Ukrainian: January - Січень/Síčenʹ(month of mow) February - Лютий/Ljútyj(harsh month) March - Березень/Bérezenʹ(month of birch) April - Квітень/Kvítenʹ(month of flowers) May - Травень/Trávjenʹ(month of grass) June - Червень/Čérvenʹ(red month) July - Липень/Lýpenʹ(month of linden) August - Cерпень/Sérpenʹ(month of sickle) September - Вересень/Véresenʹ(month of heather) October - Жовтень/Žóvtenʹ(yellow month) November - Листопад/Lystopád("leaf fall") December - Грудень/Hrúdenʹ(month of heaps?) As you see, there are no real correspondences in any months, some are named similarly(Травень - Wēodmōnaþ), but that's all. And even among the Slavic languages themself the names vary strongly.

[@nickwysoczanskyj785]

@@user-kp1gb7cp8g Thank you! I had seen these in the not too distant past, but couldn’t really remember them well. It’s is ironic that you did a comparison with the Ukrainian names - I’ve always loved them and know them well! My surname is Latinised in a Polish style, but it’s actually Височанський. My grandfather was Ukrainian, and I have a lot of relatives and friends there.)) (Звідки ви?)

[@user-kp1gb7cp8g]

@@nickwysoczanskyj785 Взагалі з півдня України, але зараз перебуваю в Австрії.

[@amandachapman4708]

I get fascinated by odd words. Today's word was Jöölbosk, which reminded me of the adjective "bosky." Checking my Oxford dictionary, I find there is a link, also with the French "bois" and the English "bush." So an interesting series of cognates.

[@MoLauer]

In North Frisia, there are only very few tall trees. The sandy ground and strong winds are the main reason for this. It is mostly the rule that if a tree is smaller than a grown man it is a "bosk" and if it is bigger it is a "boom". Also all trees that give fruit are considered "bosk".

[@wel40]

In portuguese we the word "bosque" which means forest or woods.

[@simonevanmuiswinkel9464]

In Dutch the word for forest is 'bos', in french 'bois' indeed, in Italian 'bosco'.

[@BierdopjeNL]

I'm Dutch and can understand most of what is said. Knowledge of Dutch, English and German often really helps to put the pieces together. Edit: I found out I have mostly north west European (67.7), but also northern and English ancestry(10.5%). I'm part Scandinavian (13.7%) and part Finnish (8.1%). Is it weird that I have a feeling that my ancestry may influence how quickly I pick up some of those languages because they're like in my DNA?

[@EresirThe1st]

It's not that weird, genetic memory is a real thing. I would point out though that England and Scandinavia are Germanic lol, maybe you mean German?

[@BierdopjeNL]

@@EresirThe1st I made an edit haha. But yes I'm mostly German from what I know from both sides of my family. Was able to trace both lineages back to mid 17th century. Seems like they started recording stuff arround 1650.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I only speak german and english, but I'm form the north west, so dutch and frisian aren't too difficult to figure out. Same with the scandinavian languages or Simon's big thing, old english

[@KinseyReynolds]

Given your results I assume you've done an ancestry test with Myheritage, their results are usually very imprecise and confusing. From what you're saying I would wager you're 100% ethnically Dutch.

[@randomcomment6068]

​@@EresirThe1stGenetic memory influences mostly body development, not how much you understand a certain language. You might have a certain talent for languages in general but that's another thing..

[@ArmArmAdv]

As someone learning Dutch I got all of them right! I didn't expect that.😮

[@landsmannderaltenschule9004]

Ein Schlagbaum steht doch an einer Landesgrenze. Auf jeden Fall ein sehr interessantes Video, da sieht man mal wieder wie unterschiedlich selbst innerhalb der Grenzen der BRD unsere Dialekte sein können. :) Vielen Dank, für das Video! :)

[@jaysimoes3705]

Yes in Dutch too. "Slagboom" but that is when you wrte it as one word. "Een slag bomen" is first of all not something we would usually say but it is perfectly fine in Dutch. Now it means "a kind of trees". Much like North Frisian. This version of Frisian is much closer to Dutch than the Frisian that is actually spoken in The Netherlands. I can understand most of that language too since it is also close to Dutch, but this one in pronounciation is much closer and I think the words are also more similar.

[@thomasdahill6587]

Very fun!!!

[@thomasdahill6587]

I guessed the first three but didn't have a clue on the last.

[@homo_esperans]

I learn English and German and I still could understand a little! Very cool!

[@jaardpeer4148]

In Dutch we also say: "Een ander slag volk" ("A different type/kind of people")

[@SIC647]

Wow! As a Dane it is so understandable. 😮 Imean, it still sounds like when my Dutch brother-in-law mixes Dutch and Danish. 😂 But so many words, more than in Dutch and German, are like Danish. Which really shouldn't be surprising, since the Southern Jutland/Sleswig/Holstein and the regions just below are really a dialect continuum from Danish to German/Dutch. But I was still surprised.

[@qentrepreneurship9987]

Merry Xmas from lake Titicaca Bolivia

[@ludvigglhasseris]

Wish I could have participated in this video. Frissian sounds so much like a combination of Danish German and Dutch. I from Denmark btw 😂

[@d.v.t]

🤣 I only got like 10-20% when listening. It's strangely harder to understand than Dutch

[@mkooij]

Im Dutch and I thought the first word was "clear sky" The second word was quite obviously Christmas tree. The word Slach translates to "slag" in Dutch which ankther word for the English word "kind", we also use the words "soort" or "type" for the same meaning The third word i had "seagull" as i understood everything The fourth word i had "Dunes". I got that it was a part if the landscape found in north frisia, found close to the sea, often has helmgrass and heathen on it

[@afocusonsatisfaction]

I've always found it interesting that (especially when written) it's relatively easy to make out the basic idea of what's being said in any Germanic language as long as you speak one of them... unless that one is English 😅 Despite North Frisian being more closely related to English from a historical linguistics standpoint, Swedish helped a lot more with understanding this than English did. Just goes to show how much English has diverged from the pack.

[@d.v.t]

some people say it may have been influenced by Danish. For me, it was easier to make sense of Dutch than this Frisian variety.

[@MoLauer]

@@d.v.t It has. North Frisia was under Danish administration for centuries and especially the Insular dialects have a lot of influence from southern Danish dialects

[@faithlesshound5621]

English is a daughter of German and Danish who was brought up by a French aunt.

[@xaverlustig3581]

I've holidayed several times in the North Frisian Islands since my childhood. You can buy books about the language there, but honestly I've never consciously heard it spoken. Even the use of Low German is rare there nowadays, even though that dialect used to be much more widespread than the Frisian language. Interesting to hear it spoken for a change.

[@Uuuuuuurrgggggghhhhh]

It's eary how easy this north frysian is to understand for a native Dutch speaker (who also speaks German and English).

[@mfaizsyahmi]

About schlagbaum, I recalled a certain small time American writer by the name of Mark Twain who wrote a piece about the German language, and he mentioned how Schlag is used for just about every _thing_ in German.

[@CapybaraConnoisseur89]

Languages are great! I am actually planning to start learning French as I am bit familiar with it but I need from basics anyway (thanks to Battlefield 1 and Age of Empires 4 love to hear the language, who said games cannot inspire you?)

[@Honorsprenn]

did pretty good with Norwegian and english, i missed the first and 4th though

[@Mindartcreativity]

I got the first three words correct. For the last one I couldn't figure a specific word out but I got part of the sentence correct. I'm a native Luxembourgish and German speaker, English as second language.

[@gerritgovaerts8443]

Dutch speaker here (flemish actually) , got 4 out of 4

[@klingoncowboy4]

For the last clue I am reminded on how even in different dialects of English we have varying terms of geography. For example in the part of Canada I am from we use the word "slough" (pronounced slew) to refer to a natural fresh water body that is too small to be a lake. Other dialects might say "pond" but in my mind a pond is a shallow artificial freshwater body (as opposed to a dugout that is a deep artifical freshwater body). We also use the work "bluff" to refer to a small stand of trees... and a local bit if cruel humor is to giggle in anticipation when workers from other regions discover muskeg, a kind of semi swampland that appears solid until you attempt to cross it. Another term that is espesially prominent in the oil and gas sector is "breakup" which is similar to the Russian work "raspusitsa". It refers to the time when outdoor temperatures rise but the ground hasn't completely thawed. So any roads that are not specifically built for these conditions will collapse under loads and swallow cars and even people and animals. What happens is you get layers of frozen ground and liquid water and the pressure of driving or walking can melt the frozen layers turning the ground into a death trap. A common site around here in late winter are oil and gas companies rushing to move heavy equipment before the ground thaws to escape breakup.

[@baibac6065]

0:17 That sound effect made my heart race 😭