- published: 06 Sep 2012
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A Frisian American is an inhabitant of the United States with full or partial Frisian ancestry.
Frisians a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany. They are closely related to the Dutch and the English. They have their own Frisian languages divided by geographical regions. The Old Frisian language was once the Germanic language closest to English, though outside influences (from Dutch on Frisian and from French or English) have made both languages grow ever farther apart as time went by.
Today there exists a tripartite division of the original Frisians; namely the North Frisians, East Frisians and West Frisian, caused by the Frisia's constant loss of territory in the Middle Ages, but the West Frisians in the general do not feel or see themselves as part of a larger group of Frisians, and, according to a 1970 inquiry, identify themselves more with the Dutch than with East or North Frisians. Therefore the moniker 'Frisian' is (when used for the speakers of all three Frisian language) a linguistic (and to some extent, cultural) concept, not a political one.