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5.2.The relationship between Frisian and the other Germanic languages

From Table 3 and 4 it is possible to determine the distance between all Germanic standard languages. We are especially interested in the position of Frisian within the Germanic language group. For this purpose the mean distance over the 6 Frisian dialects (excluding the dialect of Leeuwarden which is considered Dutch) has been added. This makes it possible to treat Frisian as one language. Examining the column which shows the ranking with respect to Frisian, we find that Dutch is most similar to Frisian (a mean distance of 38.7%). Clearly the intensive contact with Dutch during history has had a great impact on the distance between the two languages. Moreover, German appears to be closer to Frisian than any other language outside the Netherlands. Looking at the ranking with respect to Dutch, it appears that Town Frisian is most similar (Leeuwarden 20.3%), followed by the Frisian varieties (average of 38.7%). Next, German is most similar, due to common historical roots and continuous contact (a distance of 53.3%).

As discussed in the introduction, Friesland has a long history of language contact with the Scandinavian countries, and traces of Scandinavian influences can be found in the Frisian language. The impact of this contact is reflected in our results only to a limited extent. Remarkably, the distances to the mainland Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) are smaller (between 60.7% and 63.3%) than to English (65.3%) even though the Frisian language is genetically closer related to English than to Scandinavian (see Section 2.1).

Table 3. Ranked Levenshtein distances in percentages between each of the five West Germanic languages and the other language varieties in the investigation.

Frisian		Leeuwarden		Dutch		English		German
		Dutch	20.3	Leeuw	20.3	Hindel	63.1	Dutch	53.3
		Wetsens	32.3	Hindel	37.5	Wetsens	64.4	Leeuw	54.2
		Westerg	32.7	Westerg	37.7	Dutch	64.7	Hindel	56.2
		Frisian	34.2	Wetsens	38.3	Swedish	64.9	Westerg	56.9