Anglo-Frisian languages

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Line dividing the North and West Germanic languages.}}

The Anglo-Frisian languages (also known as Ingvaeonic languages, North Sea Germanic languages or sometimes Insular Germanic) are a group of West Germanic languages consisting of Old English, Old Frisian, and their descendants. The Anglo-Frisian family tree is:

Anglo-Frisian
*Anglic languages
**Old English
**Middle English
**Early Modern English
**Modern English
**Scots
**Yola
*Frisian languages
**West Frisian
**Saterland Frisian (also called East Frisian)
**North Frisian

The Anglo-Frisian languages are distinguished from other West Germanic languages partially by the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law and by the palatalization of Proto-Germanic *k to a coronal affricate before front vowels: cf. English cheese and Frisian tsiis to Dutch kaas and German Käse, or English church and Frisian tsjerke to Dutch kerk and German Kirche. Early Anglo-Frisian formed a Sprachbund with Old Saxon, which is counted among the Low German languages.

Note that West Flemish, a dialect of Dutch spoken in the Belgian province of West-Flanders, has also got a great deal of the Ingvaenonic characteristics.

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