h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey!

I was just wondering about Friesan... Is that a isolated language, too. I just know that it most certainly is not related to German. But maybe to Norwegian or some other language?

Methos

Methos, I have to assure that FRISIAN, to give it it's correct spelling IS indeed related to German, and also happens to be one of the languages most closely related to german.
Frisian is a language of the Germanic family and furthermore, a branch of the Germanic family known as West Germanic, which includes, among others, German, Dutch, English and Frisian. Frisian is spoken by a few thousand people in the province of Groningen in the North of the Netherlands, an area also known as Friesland.
Anyway, I am a speaker of Dutch (closely related to German) and can tell you that Frisian is very similar,to the extent that I can understand a large chunk of Frisian speech.
Something else that might interest you and convince you that Frisian is not an isolate? Frisian is in fact widely regarded by professionals in the world of linguistics as the language most closely related to English.
So, there you go!

Frisian is indeed closely related to English. In a recent T.V. series about being English Eddie Izzard learnt some "Old English" and using this was able to conduct a converstion with a Frisian farmer, enabling him to buy a cow.

I wish I'd seen that!