Wood Frisian is a dialect

Dialect

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

 of the West Frisian language

West Frisian language

West Frisian is a language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. West Frisian is the name by which this language is usually known outside the Netherlands, to distinguish it from the closely related Frisian languages of Saterland Frisian and North Frisian,...

 spoken in the eastern part of the Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 province of Friesland

Friesland

Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...

, which is called Wâlden (English: "woods"). The dialect is also spoken in parts of Groningen

Groningen (province)

Groningen [] is the northeasternmost province of the Netherlands. In the east it borders the German state of Niedersachsen , in the south Drenthe, in the west Friesland and in the north the Wadden Sea...

, the province to the east of Friesland.

Phonological differences

The largest difference between Wood Frisian and the northwestern Clay Frisian

Clay Frisian

Clay Frisian is a dialect of the West Frisian language spoken in the northwestern part of the Dutch province of Friesland. It has been the primary dialect of written West Frisian since the nineteenth century as a result of its high status. Historically, this region has been the centre of commerce...

 dialect are the words my ("me"), dy ("you"), hy ("he"), sy ("she" or "they"), wy ("we"), and by ("by"), which are pronounced in the Wood Frisian as a mi, di, hi, si, wi, and bi and in Clay Frisian as mij, dij, hij, sij, wij, and bij. Other differences are in the pronouncement of the diphthongs ei, ai, and aai which are pronounced ij, ai, and aai in Wood Frisian, but ôi, òi, and ôi in Clay Frisian. Thus, in Wood Frisian, there is no difference between ei and ij, whereas in Clay Frisian, there is no difference between ei and aai.

Westereendersk dialect

In the town of the de Westereen, Zwagerbosch

Zwagerbosch

Zwagerbosch is a small village in Kollumerland c.a. in the province Friesland of the Netherlands and has around the 640 citizens. People speak a dialect of the standard Wood Frisian: Westereendersk dialect.-References:...

 and Twijzelerheide

Twijzelerheide

Twijzelerheide is a small village in Achtkarspelen in the province Friesland of the Netherlands and has around the 1960 citizens . In this village they speak a dialect of Wood Frisian: Westereendersk dialect.-External links:...

 people speak a different kind of Wood Frisian: Westereendersk dialect.
Other phonological

Phonology

Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...

 differences include:

English	Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...	Wood Frisian	Clay Frisian
you (singular)	jij	dû	do
plum	pruim	prûm	prom
thumb	duim	tûme	tomme
naked	naakt	nêken	neaken
crack	kraken	krêkje	kreakje
weak (soft)	week	wêk	weak
grass	gras	gjers	gers
cherry	kers	kjers	kers
calf	kalf	kjel	kel

Lexical differences

Some lexical

Lexicon

In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...

differences between Wood Frisian and Clay Frisian include:

English	Wood Frisian	Clay Frisian
Saturday	saterdei	sneon
ant	mychammel mychhimmel	eamel eamelder
fleece	flij	flues
sow (pig)	mot	sûch