Frysk út Noard-Hollân út de 17<superscript>e</superscript> iuw?

The text known as 1643a from the corpus of early-Modern West Frisian texts is here reinterpreted as a specimen of the Frisian language that existed until the 17th century in North Holland. While it is widely acknowledged that Frisian was the language of Holland from the early Middle Ages, where it was gradually replaced by Dutch from the 9th century, the language itself was only known through indirect evidence of place names, substratum words and a few glosses. This text is the first coherent example of Frisian spoken in Holland. Although no author and/or location is mentioned, the Hollandic origin can be identified on the basis of a number of features: its place of publication (Amsterdam) and the fact that it was addressed to young women in Amsterdam; the content of the verse, describing a practice of courting common in North Holland in the 17th century; its linguistic features which are on the one hand clearly Frisian, yet differ substantially from West Frisian as attested in the 17th century; and finally because of many linguistics features associated with the Dutch dialects of North Holland in the 17th-20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]