Saterland Frisian language
Saterland Frisian, also known as Sater Frisian or Saterlandic (
Seeltersk), is the last living dialect of the East Frisian language. It is closely related to the other
Frisian languages,
North Frisian, which, like Saterland Frisian is spoken in
Germany, and
West Lauwers Frisian, which is spoken in the
Netherlands.
East Frisian used to be spoken in
East Frisia (
Ostfriesland), the region between the Dutch border and the river
Weser, in the German state of
Lower Saxony (
Niedersachsen). The area also included two small districts on the east bank of the Weser, the lands of Wursten and Würden. The East Frisian language could be divided into two dialect groups: Weser Frisian to the east, and Ems Frisian to the west. From 1500 onwards East Frisian slowly had to give way to the severe pressure put on it by the surrounding
Low German dialects, and nowadays it is all but extinct.
By the middle of the seventeenth century Ems Frisian had almost completely died out. Weser Frisian for the most part did not last much longer and held on only until 1700, although there are records of it still being spoken in the land of Wursten, to the east of the river Weser, in 1723. It held out the longest on the island of Wangerooge, where the very last Weser Frisian speaker was recorded to have died in 1953. Today, the East Frisian language is
no longer spoken within the historical borders of East Frisia, yet a large number of the inhabitants of that region still consider themselves Frisians and refer to their dialect of
Low German as
Freesk. In this dialect, referred to as
Ostfriesisch in
German, the Frisian
substratum is still evident.
The last remaining living remnant of East Frisian is an
Ems Frisian dialect called Sater Frisian or Saterlandic (its native name being
Seeltersk), which is spoken in the
Saterland area in the
Verwaltungsbezirk Oldenburg, to the south of East Frisia proper. Saterland (
Seelterlound in the local language), which is believed to have been colonised by Frisians from East Frisia in the eleventh century, was for a long time surrounded by impassable moors. This, together with the fact that Sater Frisian always had a status superior to Low German among the inhabitants of the area, accounts for the preservation of the language throughout the centuries.
Today, estimates of the number of speakers vary slightly. Sater Frisian is spoken by approximately 2,250 people, out of a total population of the Saterland area of some 10,000. An estimated 2,000 people might speak the language well, of which slightly less than a half are native speakers. The vast majority of all native speakers are found among the elder generation; Saterlandic thus is a seriously
endangered language. It might, however, no longer be moribund, since several reports suggest the number of acquired speakers is rising among the younger generation and some of them raise their children in Saterlandic.
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). The Ramsloh dialect now somewhat enjoys a status as standard language, since a grammar and a word list were based on it.
The German government apparently thinks the preservation of Sater Frisian is a lost cause, and seems to be unwilling to invest much money or energy in it. Most of the work to secure the endurance of this language is therefore done by the
Seelter Buund ("Saterlandic Alliance").Along whith North Frisian and five other languages, Sater Frisian was included in Part III of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages by Germany in 1998.
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Frisia*
Frisian language*
Frisian Islands*
Frisians
