Frisian: The Closest Germanic Language To English

West Frisian, or simply Frisian (Westerlauwersk Frysk or simply Frysk, pronounced [friːs(k)]; Dutch: Westerlauwers Fries, pronounced [fris]) is a West Germanic language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland (Fryslân) in the north of the Netherlands, mostly by those of Frisian ancestry. It is the most widely spoken of the Frisian languages. In the study of the evolution of English, West Frisian is notable as being the most closely related foreign tongue to the various dialects of Old English spoken across the Heptarchy, these being part of the Anglo-Frisian branch of the West Germanic family, and is therefore often considered to be in-between English and Dutch — Dutch is widely dubbed in-between the Anglo-Saxon derived components of English and German.