Frisians, a Germanic people, inhabiting the N. W. coasts of Germany, portions of Holland, and some adjacent islands. The Romans called them Frisii; Ptolemy, the ancient Norsemen, Frisir; the Anglo-Saxons, Fresena cyn; the old High Germans, Frieson; and the ancient codes of the people, Frisa or Fresa. Their name is believed to signify free. Caesar makes no mention of them, but Pliny knew that they dwelt beyond the Batavians. They were conquered by Drusus, but soon regained their liberty as allies of the Batavians. The name Frisian was subsequently extended to the Chauci, a kindred race living east of them, who ceased to be an independent and distinct people before the beginning of the 4th century. The advance of the Franks pushed the Frisians to the very coast of the North sea. They attempted many times to repel their aggressors; but centuries of feuds and an invasion of Britain in the 5th century diminished their number, and Pepin of Heristal gained a decisive victory over them in G89. A century later the empire of the Franks extended as far as the We-ser. The Frisians were converted to Christianity; their rights and privileges were laid down by Charlemagne in the Lex Frisionum, and to protect them against the inroads of the Norsemen a ducatus Frisioe was formed.

The S. W. Frisians were the first to lose the characteristic features as well as the laws and the language of their race, and in the 13th century the name of Friesland belonged only to the district east of the Zuyder Zee, which the Lauwers divided again into East and West Friesland. The Frisians inhabiting the region between the Lauwers and the Vly outlet of the Zuyder Zee offered a firm resistance to the counts of Holland, and were finally amalgamated with the empire of Charles V. The Frisians between the Ems and the Jade became subject to the counts of Oldenburg in 1234, after the battle of Alteresch. Those between the Jade and the Weser retained their independence much longer, but were subjugated by Oldenburg in 1514, with the aid of Brunswick-Luneburg.-The small remnant of Frisians who still adhere to their ancient peculiarities and dialects are divided into three branches. The West Frisians inhabit the eastern coast land of Holland; the East Frisians live in the fens and morasses of Saterland and on the island of Wangeroog; the North Frisians occupy the western shore of Schleswig, and the adjacent islands of Sylt, Fohr, Amrum, and Helgoland. There is a wide difference among the dialects of these three branches; each village, in fact, has its own way of speaking.

The North Frisian alone has ten distinct dialects, and an inhabitant of the island of Fohr is with difficulty understood by the Frisians on the mainland. The Frisian dialects are most closely related to Anglo-Saxon. Several Danish linguists maintain that the North Frisian dialect was transitional to the Norse language, and, mixing with Anglo-Saxon, became the parent of Danish. According to legends current among them, the North Frisians dwelt in Jutland at a time when the continent extended as far as Helgoland and the other islands. Their dialect is considered purest as spoken by the inhabitants of the Schleswig coast. As it is not used for literary purposes, it does not possess a strict grammatical structure. The definite article in the singular is either de, jo, or dat, according to the gender of the noun (masculine, feminine, or neuter), and in the plural always da; the indefinite article is an, en, or 'n. Personal pronouns are: ick, I; do, thou; he, he; jo, she; dat, it; we, we; wat, we two; jat, you two; jam, you; ja, they; niemmen, nobody; hum, who, some one; sonan, sonijn, such a one.

Possessive pronouns are: man, dan, san, harren, san, uhsen, unken,junken,jdrringe,jdre, for my, thy, his, her, etc, in the masculine singular; and min, din, sin, harr, sin, uhs, unk, junk, jarringe, jure, for the feminine and neuter genders in the singular, and for the three genders in the plural. Possessive pronouns agree in number and gender with the thing possessed. Nouns in the possessive case take an s. The following is the conjugation of a regular verb: Present, ick rogt, do rogtest, he, jo, hat, dat rogtet, I judge, etc.; wat, jat, we, jam, ja rogete, we judge, etc.; past, ick rogtet, do rbgtetst, he rogtet, I judged, etc.; wit, jat, we, jam, ja rogteten, we judged, etc. The past participle is formed by changing the termination n of the infinitive into t, as rogten, to judge; rogtet, judged. The compound tenses are formed as in English. Auxiliary verbs are worden, to be or to become; when, to be; and hewen, to have. They are joined to the past participle as follows: ick hahw rogtet, I have judged; ick word rogtet hujd hewen, I shall have (had) judged; ick hui rogtet hujd, I had (had) judged, etc. The present participles terminate in end.

The syntax of the North Frisian language {nordfrdshe Sprdj-ke) and its points of similarity with English may be gathered from the following example:

Jam shan di stele, noch Ijaage, untig falsh hondle de Ihne ma de Ausere.

You shall not steal, nor lie, nor falsely deal the one with the other.

In the literature of the old Frisian are some of the most ancient sources of Germanic jurisprudence, as the Senarjucht ("Ecclesiastical Law"), edited by Winshem (Franeker, 1622); Ost-Fries-Landrecht, by Wicht (Aurich, 1746); Hunsinger Landrecht of 1252 (Groningen, 1778); Fivelinguer und Oldamster Landrecht, by Wiarda (1784); and Emsinger Landrecht of 1312 (Hanover, 1824). Literary specimens of several North Frisian dialects are to be found in Hansen, Nahrung far Leselust in nordfriesischer Sprache (Sonderburg, 1833 et seq.); Hettema, Frieske, Hilgelaonner en Nord-frieske Rymkes, sammle trog (Dokkum, 1841); and Nissen, De freiske Siemstin, in course of publication (1874). Trustworthy works on the language are: Lyngby, Om Nordfrisisk i Bbk-kingog Hvidding Herreder (Copenhagen and Leipsic, 1858), and Bendsen, Die nordfrie-sische Sprache nach der moringer Mundart (Leyden, 1860). Consult also the articles on the language published by Clement in the recent volumes of Herrig's Archiv far das Stadium der neueren Sprachen und Litera-turen, and by Strauss in Neues Jahrbuch der berlinischen Gesellchaft far deutsche Sprache und Alterthumskunde.