Re: OT: parent languages

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≪
> What we now call
> Frisian (or some proto thereof) is the parent.

The proto was what I was getting at. Modern Frisian would have
changed from whatever the original root was, if not as much as
English has, no?≫

In terms of DNA drift (see "The Severn Daughters of Eve"), the English
are indistinguishable from the Ost Frieslanders. The English are
genetically distinguishable from the Scots, Irish, Manx, and
Welsh--i.e., from the Gaelic-speaking population of the British Isles.

My wife is a Hamburger. Her grandmother spoke Platt Ditsch, which is a
relic of Ost Friesisch. My wife reads Platt Ditsch stories aloud (it's a
sort of a Christmas ritual for us). I, being bi-lingual (German,
English), can understand about a third of Platt Ditsch. The rhythms and
vowel sounds are similar to English, but the grammar is more Germanic.
When my wife reads Platt Ditsch to Swiss Germans, they understand less
than I do. When she reads to Hollanders, they understand more than I do.

So, apparently, the course of migration/trade/invasion went straight
westwards, from Frisia, through the Low Coutnries, to England (possibly
over a land bridge after the last ice age ca. 10,000 years ago). Swiss
German has less in common with Frisian than either English or Dutch has.
Anecdotal evidence, I grant.

We should also not forget that the last invader of the British Isles
were the Normans in 1066, who deposited their language there. English
has been overlayered several times. Surprising is, how little the Romans
left behind of their tongue in the land of the Angles. A philologist
would set us straight on these matters.