FRISIANS (ante). The Frisian language belongs to the Low German branch of the Teutonic, and presents special interest to the English philologist as the nearest of all extant forms to the Saxon basis of his own tongue. It is still spoken in the country districts of the preSent province of West Friesland; in a much more Germanized condi tion it still exists in Saterland, in East Friesland; in strangely differentiated dialects it holds its place in many of the islands along the coast; and, in spite of the encroach ments of Low German on the one hand, and Danish on the other, it survives in the country between Husum and Tondern. Among its peculiarities may be mentioned the dropping of the final n, which is such a favorite termination in German (thus even ma for man, as in Halbertsma, the proper name); the use of sk for the German sch and the English sh, and of t for the German k; and, still more remarkable, the modification of k and g to is when these letters precede e or i, as in tserke for kerke, i.e. kirk, church. The explanation of this last peculiarity may perhaps be found in the contact of the Frisian with Slavonic languages, in which the modification is sufficiently common. A brief sketch of Frisian grammar was published with the poems of Gysbert Japicx; but the first separate treatment of the older forms of the language was by Rask, whose Frisisk Sprogleere brought him into controversy with Grimm, who, in his Deutsehen devoted some attention to the same subject. Moritz Heyne has also given a good treatment of Frisian in his Kurze Flexionslehre der Allegermaniselten Sprachstamme. Richthofen's Altfriesisthes Worterbuch practically supplanted the older work of Wiarda, and its position has not been affected by the publication of Haan Hattema's Idiotieon Frisieum. The Ostfriesisehes Worterbuch, by Sturenburg, is a dic tionary, not of the Frisian, but of the Low German spoken in East Friesland, which has incorporated comparatively few Frisian words.
For the older forms of the language the sources are scanty; no great literary monu ment like that of the Holland or the Nibelungenlied has been preserved; and the investi gator has mainly to depend on the various legal codes or collections which were formed in the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, and have been published hyRielithofen, Friesische Rechtsquellen. The great Lex Frisionum is composed in Latin, and contains only a few Frisian terms, of comparatively small linguistic importance. The date of its recen sion is also a matter of conjecture, as there is no contemporary evidence either internal or external. By the older investigators it was assigned a high antiquity; but the more modern are forth° most part of the opinion that it is, not earlier than the reign of Charlemagne. Haan Hettema, in his Oude Friesehe Wetten, gives 802-4 as the probable date; while Richthofen thinks there are three portions: the first composed for use in Middle Frisia in the reign of Charles Martel or of Pippin; another for use iu all Frisia, composed after Charlemagne's conquest in 785; and a third or supplementary and emendatory portion, composed in 802. The first edition of the Lex Frinonum was pub
lished by B. J. Herold in his Originum, ac Germanicarnm Antiquitaturn Libri, but he gives no indication of the source of the manuscripts which he employed. Since his day there have been DO fewer than 13 editions. Though it has been supposed Linden brog and Siccama marhave had access to some manuscript authority in addition Herold's recension, there is no proof that such was the case; and the text still remains to all intents in the same state as when Herold left it. Some investigators have, owing to this absence of original evidence, even cast doubts on the authenticity of the code. but a comparison of the laws with undoubtedly genuine Frisian remains authorizes its acceptance. In West Frisia the native language holds much the same relation to Dutch as the Scottish language holds to English in Scotland; it has no legal or educational position, but it preserves among the peasantry a considerable vitality, and is even culti vated in a literary way by a small patriotic school. The chief place among West Frisian authors is due to Gysbert or Gilbert Japicx, rector at Bolsward, whose Freisehe IiVinlow was published in 1668, and has since been frequently reprinted, with a glossary by Epkema. The volume contains secular, anfl especially humorous, poems, fifty of the psalms of David, and other religious pieces, a number of letters, one or two prose essays, and fragments of the Customs of Leeuwarden. There is one book which, more than any other, has attracted the attention of other than Frisian scholars. If the Oera, Linda book, as it is called, could be accepted as genuine, it would be, after Homer and Hesiod, the oldest document of European origin; but unfortunately it must be recog nized as nothing more than a brilliant forgery. The first part of the manuscript, the book of the followers of Adele, professes to have been copied in 1256 from an ancient original, and gives an account of Neptune, Minerva, Minos, and other personages of classical antiquity, which would make them out to be of Frisian origin. According to J. Beckering Vinckers, the real author is Cornelis Over de Linden, a ship-carpenter in the royal docks at Den Helder, who was born in 1811, and died in 1873, and who appears to have forged the document for the purpose of giving importance to his invec tives against the church, and of conferring dignity on his family, which is traced by the book back for about two thousand years. [Condensed from Eneye. Brit. 9th ed.] FRIT '(oseinis int, or ehlorops f•it), an insect of the same family with the house-fly; an active greenish-black fly of the size of a large flea, which does great injury to barley crops in some parts of the n. of Europe. It lays its eggs in the flowers, and its larvae live on the young grains, Linnteus affirms that a tenth part of the barley in Sweden and Lapland is annually destroyed by it. It is not known in Britain, but is nearly allied to the insects called and wheat-fly.