Frisian language Wikipedia approaching 10,000 articles

Friday, November 14, 2008


See, it's at 9,721 articles right now. Perhaps one more month or two?

Having read a few years back about the similarities between Frisian and older forms of English I made a request for a short translation of the first part of Beowulf on their Wikipedia, and someone wrote up the following:

Old English:

Hwæt! We Gārdena in gēardagum,
þēodcyninga, þrym gefrã non,
hû ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Modern Frisian:

Hear! Wy Wapen-Denen yn weiwoarn dagen
fan de rykskeningen har rop haw heard
hoe dy ealju eardieden ferjochten.

Modern English:

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.

Not sure if such a book already exists, but it would be interesting to see a Frisian version of a book like the Canterbury Tales alongside the original text for comparison. There are quite a few words from there that jump out at you if you know a bit of Dutch (like eek for ook for example) and a complete version in Frisian might be even more interesting.

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