English and Frisian in Joost Halbertsma’s Lexicon Frisicum (1872)

The Frisian Mennonite minister and self-taught philologist and lexicographer Joost Hiddes Halbertsma (1789–1869) in his publications, notebooks, and manuscripts showed a constant interest in the relationship between English and Frisian. He wanted to demonstrate that Frisian was the origin of English, and that Frisians had played a larger part in the invasion of England than generally assumed. It comes as no surprise, then, that English in all its phases takes up a prominent place in his unfinished Frisian–Latin Lexicon Frisicum, which was post-humously published by his son Tjalling. The relatively large number of English examples and citations immediately strikes the eye. In the heads of the entries, but also in the semantic part, Halbertsma gives words from other languages that are etymologically related to Frisian forms. Here too, we see a strong preference for Old, Middle and Modern English forms. Sometimes, however, he neglects to point out the relationship between Frisian and English where he could easily have done so, or actually should have done so. He might have made more use of the possibility to juxtapose Frisian and English with Dutch and German. He was particularly focused on Frisian-English innovations that are still manifest in Modern Frisian. Unfortunately, Halbertsma’s efforts to demonstrate the relationship between Frisian and English are unsystematic and therefore not as convincing as they could have been. A direct consequence of his unsystematic way of working is that he undermines his own axiom that the role of the Frisians in the invasion of England is underestimated.