West Frisians

Ethnic group in the Netherlands

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Western Frisian. (October 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

*   * Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
* Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
* You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is `Content in this edit is translated from the existing Western Frisian Wikipedia article at [[:fy:Westerlauwerske Friezen]]; see its history for attribution.`
* You may also add the template `{{Translated|fy|Westerlauwerske Friezen}}` to the talk page.
* For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

|

Ethnic group

West Frisian people

Regions with significant populations
Netherlands

Friesland
| 400,000
Languages
West Frisian, Friso-Saxon, West Frisian Dutch, Stadsfries Dutch
Related ethnic groups
North Frisians, East Frisians, Saterland Frisians

The West Frisians or, more precisely, the Westlauwers Frisians (Dutch: Friezen or Westerlauwerse Friezen, West Frisian: Friezen or Westerlauwerske Friezen), are those Frisian peoples in that part of Frisia administered by the Netherlands: the Province of Friesland, which is bounded in the west by the IJsselmeer and in the east by the River Lauwers (hence the name Westlauwers, i.e., "west of the Lauwers").

In Germany, Dutch Frisia is often usually called "West Frisia" (Westfriesland), because the German part is called "East Frisia" (Ostfriesland), hence the term "West Frisians" (Westfriesen). However, in the Netherlands, the term West-Friezen is only used to refer to the inhabitants of the unconnected region of West Friesland and not to the Westlauwers Frisians.

The Westerlauwers Frisians are related to the North Frisians and the eastern Frisians (East Frisians, Saterland Frisians etc.). Whilst many East Frisians had lost their Frisian language by the late Middle Ages, of the 660,000 or so Frisians in the Netherlands, more than 400,000 still speak West Frisian.[1]

Many Frisian Americans descend from West Frisians.[2]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ 1997 data, Yngve, Victor (2006). Hard-Science Linguistics. A&C Black. p. 215\. ISBN 978-1-84714-088-3.
2. ^ Levinson, David; Ember, Melvin (1997). American Immigrant Cultures: Builders of a Nation. Simon & Schuster Macmillan. p. 298. ISBN 978-0-02-897214-5.

## External links

[edit]

* Fryslân: Official site of Friesland/Frisia (in Dutch and West Frisian)

This Netherlands-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

|

* v
* t
* e

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template