Language Research

The Minority Language Teaching Act (OALT) came into force on August 1, 1998. Minority language teaching is provided as an extra educational opportunity for children from ethnic minorities so that they can learn their native language and thus keep in touch with their own culture. By learning about their own cultural background, children will be able to integrate and participate in Dutch society with greater self-awareness. Lessons can be provided for all language groups. Attendance is voluntary.

Minority language teaching is the responsibility of the individual municipalities. Classes must be held outside normal school hours. Transitional arrangements were made for the 1998/99 school year during which up to fifty hours of teaching could take place during school hours. As with other aspects of education, the quality of minority language teaching is monitored by the Education Inspectorate.

Lessons in minority languages such as Turkish and Moroccan can be provided by schools, but should take place outside normal school hours, for instance as part of an extended school day. Since 1986 English has been a compulsory subject in the last two years of primary school.

The municipal authorities must draw up a plan for minority language instruction (OALT) covering four-year period. The number of classes provided and the languages taught depends on local demand. Minority language teaching is part of the local education policy. The plan may, if preferred, be incorporated into the municipal compensatory plan. Criteria will be laid down by the central government for determining whether a municipality is eligible for a four-year specific-purpose grant for minority language teaching.

FRISIAN

In general, Frisian speakers can use their own language in contact with public authorities. The provincial administration and a number of other bodies have made this a matter of policy. Documents issued by public authorities generally are in Dutch only. Frisian or bilingual documents are a rare exception. In courts of justice all parties, including defendants and witnesses, are allowed to speak Frisian. If need be, the court can employ the services of an interpreter. Courts of justice in Friesland accept civil actions brought in Frisian, but this can cause problems in the case of an appeal to a higher court. Documents published in Frisian only are not legally binding. Public signs can be Frisian, Dutch or bilingual, depending on the choice of the municipality concerned.

The Dutch postal service (PTT) has decided to accept Frisian place names in its sorting operations, ending an 11-year campaign in Friesland. Starting September 1, 2000, PTT will use a total of 76 official Frisian place names in all of its databases. The decision means that mail bearing Frisian names will now be sorted automatically and should therefore be guaranteed faster delivery; in the past, such post had to be sorted by hand.

The Frisian language is taught at the primary, secondary and university levels and in teacher training. As far as the primary, secondary and teacher training are concerned, this is limited to Friesland province. For receiving Frisian language education at the primary and secondary levels the criterion is that one must be living in Friesland province. For teacher training the criterion is the demand of the education sector for teachers proficient in the Frisian language and the interest of established teachers for training in the Frisian language. Frisian training exists at “Halbertsma-akademy”. The University of Groningen and the University of Amsterdam have training in Frisian linguistics and literature and in Leeuwarden there is the “Fryske Akademy” which also teaches Frisian.

Trilingual Primary Education is a relatively new concept in Friesland. On the initiative of the Frisian Center for Educational Advice, GCO-Fryslân, and the Fryske Akademy, five schools went trilingual in 1997. In 1999 two more schools joined the project. The multilingual project is based on the principle of linguistic interdependence, encouraging the transfer of language proficiency between the related Germanic languages Frisian, Dutch and English. The Fryske Akademy is monitoring the participating schools and is comparing results with those of trilingual schools in Finland (Finnish-Swedish-English) and the Basque Region (Basque-Spanish-English).

Since February 1994 the Fryslân broadcasting company provides regional TV programs in the Frisian language for five days per week. Apart from these a so-called TV journal is being broadcast. There are no daily, weekly or monthly publications totally in the Frisian language. Only in some articles is Frisian used. Just a few (literary) periodicals are published completely in Frisian. There is a relatively large literary community. About 100 Frisian books of various kinds are published each year.

The Frisian public broadcasting organization Omrop Fryslân is currently working under new guidelines and will be one of the first organizations to benefit from the opportunity to register officially in Frisian. This positive step forward for the Frisian language comes as the Dutch Government and Friesland (Provinsje Fryslân) negotiate a new Covenant for the Frisian language, which will be largely based upon the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe

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Updated (January 2001)

FRISIAN

The first official bilingual daycare center for children will be opened in the Frisian capital in September 2001. The opening of the second and the third location are foreseen for October and January 2002. A joint venture of the Frisian foundation Stifting Pjutteboartersplak and the Dutch enterprise Catalpa plans to host there 250 children. At present 55% of the teachers in children's daycare centers have Frisian as their first language. Even if the majority of children are Frisian-speaking the teachers remain reluctant to use the language in the group, simply because there is no language policy. This new initiative fills a gap to stimulate the use of Frisian.

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Updated (June 2001)

In June, for the first time since its first publishing in 1752 Friesland's main newspaper “Leeuwarder Courant” appeared in Frisian as “Ljouwerter Krante”. The appearance of the paper in Frisian was prepared to mark the European Year of Languages. In order to make the bilingual edition possible the newspaper invested over 100,000 Guilders (45,000 Euro) in new software to ensure the grammatically correct “breaking-down” of Frisian words.

The “Leeuwarder Courant” is one of the larger regional newspapers of the Netherlands with a daily circulation of over 110,000 copies. According to research the paper normally carries only 3 to 5% of written Frisian. The “Leeuwarder Courant” publishes a weekly Frisian page on cultural matters every Friday and the Frisian language institute AFUK produces other material with financial support from the province. Apart from that other articles regularly carry quotations in Frisian, a practice which gives some articles almost a bilingual nature. In September the Leeuwarder Courant will publish a supplement entirely devoted to European minority languages.

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Updated (December 2002)

FRISIAN

PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION

Both institutions come under the responsibility of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports and they are not a part of compulsory education in the Netherlands.

Frisian playgroups are set up by the Stifting Pjutteboartersplak, which has a written explicit language policy. It was founded in 1989 to establish a Frisian-speaking environment for young children. Both Frisian and Dutch-speaking children are welcome.

In 2001, the association ran five Frisian playgroups while two others in Leeuwarden were taken over by the municipality. Together, they catered to a total of 200 children. The intention of the Stifting Pjutteboartersplak is to establish one new Frisian-medium playgroup every year.

In September 2001, two day-care groups were started with a maximum capacity of 128 children. Both groups are bilingual and the children are classed according to their mother tongue but they are also in contact with each other for special activities. In December 1999, the Provincial Government issued a four year-grant to promote the use of Frisian in all playgroups and to upgrade the work of the Stifting Pjutteboartersplak to a professional level.

Supervisors, or pre-school teachers, are expected at least to understand Frisian since they have to take care of both Frisian-speaking and Dutch-speaking children. It can be assumed that the degree to which Frisian is actually used in playgroups depends on the linguistic background of the population because a child is free to use its first language.

The attitude towards Frisian can be considered more positive than before. However, it does not mean that a possibility exists to choose Frisian in activities/events, which involve people with different language backgrounds. Frisian is hardly used in urban playgroups whereas rural playgroups can be regarded as bilingual. The research also revealed that Dutch is used far more often than Frisian in group activities, like reading and singing. Frisian is mainly used in individual contacts with children and parents.

In 2000, there were about 225 playgroups and 25 to 30 day-care centers in the province of Friesland. In the day-care centers there were about 2,550 children. The number of children in the playgroups was between 4,500 and 6,750, as the majority of them take care for 20 to 30 children.(It is not possible to mention the exact quantity, as there is no coordinating body.)

Source: Mercator Education, Regional Dossiers, the Frisian Language in Education in the Netherlands, http://www1.fa.knaw.nl/mercator/regionale_dossiers/frisian_nl.htm

PRIMARY EDUCATION

In the school year 2000-2001, 24 percent of the primary schools in Friesland had fewer than 60 pupils. Only 3 percent of schools educated more than 300 pupils.

The current Primary Education Act (Wetophet Primair Onderwijs, 1998) lists a number of subjects that all primary schools have to teach without prescribing how many hours and what in fact schools should teach.

In 1993, the Minister of Education defined attainment targets (kerndoelen) for the individual subjects. These targets were modified to some extent in 1998. Fully identical goals have been developed for both the Dutch and Frisian language, indicating which skills have to be attained in Dutch and Frisian by the end of primary education.

A study by the inspectorate in Friesland (Inspectorate report, April 2001) showed that the majority of primary schools spend 30 to 60 minutes on one lesson in Frisian per week. Therefore, time devoted to Frisian is limited. This situation has been the same for the last decade and it is a result of the gradual process that has been underway since the legislation of 1955.

In 1985, five years after the introduction of Frisian as an obligatory subject, over 70 percent of primary schools reported using Frisian as a medium of instruction. The 2001 survey showed that 56 percent of the schools used Frisian as a medium of instruction, albeit to a varying degree. For instance, only 16 percent of primary schools used Frisian insofar as “world studies” were concerned (in grades 3 to 8).

A TRILINGUAL SCHOOL MODEL

In the school year 1997-98, five primary schools in Friesland started an experiment with a trilingual school model. Two other schools were added to the project in the following school year. All schools were small and rural with approximately 400 children in total.

The general aim of this project, initiated by the Fryske Akademy and GCO Fryslân, is to establish trilingualism among the pupils. The ultimate goal is to achieve full bilingualism as far as Frisian and Dutch are concerned and the ability to communicate in English.

To attain these goals, all three languages are not taught only as subjects, but they are also used as instruction media. In the first six grades, 50 percent of teaching time is in Frisian and 50 percent in Dutch. In grades 7 and 8, Frisian gets 40 percent, Dutch 40 percent and English 20 percent. The latter means that for two afternoons every week, all teaching is in the foreign language.

SECONDARY EDUCATION

With the introduction of the Basic Education Act in 1993 (Wetophet Voortgezet Onderwijs), Frisian has become an obligatory subject in the lower grades of secondary education (Article 11). Frisian is also an optional subject in the higher grades of pre-university education and general secondary education. However, not all secondary schools have as yet implemented Frisian into their curriculum and the attainment targets for this language have not been officially determined in educational legislation.

Although the Dutch State supported the implementation of Frisian financially and a Frisian curriculum model and learning materials were developed for the lower grades, the survey conducted by the Inspectorate in 1999 showed that five years after the introduction of Frisian into basic education, the language had been developed only poorly.

More than a third of secondary schools in the province do not offer Frisian lessons to their students. The schools that do offer Frisian lessons mostly do so only in the 1st grade. In practice this means that pupils attend forty Frisian lessons in the first year of their secondary education. As far as Frisian in the higher grades is concerned, only a small percentage of pupils choose it and few of them take a final exam in it.2

To teach in Frisian in all types of secondary schools is permitted; however, the use of Frisian as a language of instruction is rare. In 1999, 69 percent of all secondary schools did not use it, 30 percent of schools did so incidentally and only 1 percent reported using Frisian as a medium of instruction on a regular basis. From the above, it is obvious that the position of Frisian at secondary school level is minimal and that there is no monolingual Frisian secondary education in Friesland.

In 2000/01, in the province of Friesland, 25 schools provided pre-university, general secondary and/or pre-vocational education in 73 locations, involving about 37,000 pupils.

HIGHER EDUCATION

There is no university in Friesland.

Dutch educational legislation declares Dutch to be the teaching medium in higher education. Frisian is only used in teacher training. In other courses, the teaching medium is either Dutch or, on some occasions, a foreign language. Nevertheless, students in most disciplines are allowed to write theses in Frisian, although this rarely happens.

The Frisian language and literature can be studied at three universities in the Netherlands: the University of Amsterdam, the University of Groningen and the University of Leiden. The first two offer Frisian as the main subject while Frisian can be taken as a subsidiary subject at the University of Leiden. The University of Groningen has also a Frisian teacher-training course. The number of students of Frisian enrolled in these three universities is quite small.

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Updated (January 2003)

RIGHT TO SPEAK FRISIAN IN PUBLIC TRANSPORT RAISED TURMOIL IN DUTCH PRESS

The proposal to add Frisian to the legal requirement for railway workers is one of ten proposals that the advisory council “Berie foar it Frysk” has prepared in order to fill the gaps in Dutch legislation, which might have a negative effect on the position of Frisian.

The province of Friesland, by confirming current practice into legislation, wants to ensure that Frisians are able to use their own language while traveling.

According to Alex Riemersma, a spokesman of the advisory council, there is no problem with the regional lines in Friesland. The train company Noordned, responsible for the service between Friesland and Groningen, has rejected to confirm legally the linguistic skills of their staff. “We do have Frisian speaking staff. However, some of our employees do not speak Frisian. This is not a problem, because Frisian travelers are quite capable of expressing themselves in Dutch,” spokeswoman of Noordned S. Krikke stated.

In the Dutch press the proposal caused some turmoil. According to the largest Dutch daily “De Telegraaf,” the province of Friesland is heading for separatism by enforcing the Frisian language upon railway workers.

Source: Eurolang News, Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, December 20, 2002, by Onno P. Falkena, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4020

NEW LANGUAGE STATUTE AIMED AT PROMOTING FRISIAN IN COMPANIES AND ORGANIZATIONS

The Council of the Frisian Movement, an umbrella organization with some 10,000 members, prepares a language statute for Frisian companies. The language statute will confirm that workers and customers may speak Frisian wherever they want and that Frisian letters should be answered in Frisian.

Companies with such a language policy will be rewarded with a special certificate informing the public that this company is bilingual and they can speak the minority language without problems.

The language statute is inspired by the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages; however, it deals both with public and private organizations and companies.

The initiative of the Council of the Frisian Movement is not limited only to Frisian, but it also includes Bildts, a much smaller language which is spoken in the north of Friesland.

The Council will discuss the language statute for companies with its members in February. Later this year the statute will be presented to the companies and to provincial authorities.

Source: Eurolang News, Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, January 7, 2003, by Onno P. Falkena, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4023

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Updated (February 2003)

NEW LANGUAGE POLICY AIMS AT CREATING SITUATION WHERE “SPEAKING FRISIAN GOES WITHOUT SAYING”

The Frisian language policy for the next four years should focus more on Frisian-speaking groups in kindergartens and day-care centers and should pursue the use of Frisian in health care institutions.

Frisian material will be developed at short notice for a speech therapy because currently, Frisians with speech problems are often tested and helped in Dutch.

An important part of the Frisian population prefers to speak Frisian. However, if they are dependant on health care workers, they will not protest to be addressed in Dutch. According to the Frisian Deputy for Culture, Bertus Mulder, the quality of health care had been better if it would have been given in the language of people. Therefore he asked the health care institutions to develop a language policy. Mentally ill elderly people, for instance, understand only the language of their childhood. It is a matter of decency to address them in Frisian.

Apart from the health care institutions the Province also aims at education in the Frisian language. Approximately €357,000 will be invested in a new method for the teaching of Frisian in primary schools. Groups of primary schools will get language coordinators who will monitor the use of Frisian. For younger children the capacity of Frisian kindergartens and children's day-care centers should grow by 10 percent every year. For this goal the province allotted the sum of €48,000 a year.

This new language policy of Friesland is based upon the language covenant, signed in June 2001 by the national government and also on the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe. The province itself also intends to use more Frisian, both in a written and spoken form.

In the past the province prepared proposals and documents either in Frisian or in Dutch. In practice it meant, that only ten percent of all documents and proposals were written in Frisian. In the future more documents will be made available in both languages.

Source: Eurolang News, Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, January 31, 2003, by Onno Falkena, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4069

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Updated (September 2003)

CIVIL SERVANTS DENOUNCE A NEW FRISIAN LANGUAGE POLICY

The workers council of the Province of Friesland has rejected the plan of the regional government to make the ability to speak and write Frisian a requirement for provincial civil servants. A spokeswoman of the workers council, Anoesjka Duinstra, declared that though they acknowledge the necessity that everyone should be able to understand and read Frisian, speaking and writing Frisian is just very difficult for some of their staff members.

The Frisian Council recently decided that from January 2004 onwards at least 25 percent of all governmental documents should be available in Frisian. At present only 5 to 10 percent of all documents and proposals are available in Frisian. According to Duinstra, this new goal is just too ambitious. She believes that there are other ways how to promote the language.

The Provincial Council member, Annigje Toering, of the Frysk National Party stated that the declaration of the workers council is obstructing a democratic decision made almost unanimously by the Frisian Council. According to the Frisian nationalists, at present the employees of the regional authority should take the language more seriously. The question arises whether they are not able to produce more documents in Frisian or they just do not want to write in Frisian.

Finally, the workers council declared that though they support the intention of the Provincial Council to strengthen the position of the Frisian language, they believe that this matter should be given more thought. They are ready to accept the requirement of speaking Frisian for some civil servants, but not for all of them so they expect other proposals from the Provincial Executive. One of the solutions could be to reward those who make an effort to learn and speak Frisian.

Source: Eurolang News, Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, September 8, 2003, by Onno P. Falkena, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4376

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Updated (October 2003)

EDUCATION

Until recently ethnic minorities (Arabs and Turks) in the Netherlands might use the system of “doubling” in primary schools when subjects were studied in two languages - Dutch and Arabic or Turkish.

This is still true in a limited number of schools today. However, the Dutch Minister of Education indicated that this way of teaching is not in line with the law stipulating that Dutch should be the only medium of instruction in the country.

According to a new trend introduced in the Netherlands, the Arabic and Turkish language as well as other subjects taught through the medium of Arabic or Turkish are studied outside regular schools hours. So far funding is available for these extra-curricular lessons, but from 2004 onwards, severe budget reductions are foreseen to take place.

Source: Minelres News Archive, August 26, 2003, Auke van der Goot, http://lists.delfi.lv/pipermail/minelres/2003-August/002900.html

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Updated (April 2004)

FRISIAN MOVEMENT DEMANDS THE USE OF THE RIGHT ACCENTS IN FRISIAN INTERNET ADDRESSES

The Council of the Frisian Movement, Fryske Beweging, has asked the Dutch Foundation for the Registration of Internet Domains (SIDN) to allow the use of Frisian accents on Internet and e-mail addresses as soon as possible.

Following the news that a German umlaut on the letters such as ö and ü will be accepted on German internet addresses, the Frisian umbrella organization demands the same for â, ê, ô, û and ú letters, which are widely used in Frisian. The SIDN has prohibited so far the use of these in Internet domains because of technical, operational and juridical complications.

According to the spokesman of the Fryske Beweging, it is unacceptable that they are forced to spell Frisian names wrongly.¹ Technical impediments should never hinder correct and free use of a minority language. Thus when international agreements will allow the Germans to use their umlaut and the French their circumflex accent, the Frisians should be also allowed to use the same punctuation marks that their language shares with French.

The SIDN has appointed a committee to study the possible consequences of this step for both themselves and Dutch Internet providers. Apart from the Fryske Beweging, the similar requests have been received from other foreign organizations in the Netherlands, which have asked for the possibility to register their Internet domain names in the Arabic, Chinese or Hebrew letters.

The special advisor of the SIDN, Piet Beertema, argues that it was a mistake to allow the usage of the umlaut in Internet addresses. Currently an internationally standardized alphabet has 24 letters. However, if all European languages were allowed to use their letters, this alphabet would have over 80 letters soon what could certainly complicate the exchange of e-mail and Internet addresses.

In order to function properly on the Internet, people and organizations involved would have to register themselves both with and without a special accent. Even though the pressure to accept Internet domain names with the special accents is growing, many people do not consider it to be a good idea.

Source: Eurolang News, Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, March 30, 2004, by Onno P. Falkena, http://www.eurolang.net/news.asp?id=4491

¹ When it comes to the Internet and e-mail addresses even the official name for Friesland, (“Fryslân”) in Frisian, is decapitated from its “little roof”, as the Frisians usually call their preferred accent.

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Updated (November 2004)

FRISIAN ON THE DECLINE

The children in Friesland speak more Dutch than Frisian these days. According to a survey conducted by the Frisian broadcaster "Omrop Fryslân" among parents, only 34 percent of all children are raised in Frisian nowadays, while 54 percent are raised in Dutch and 9 percent of couples raise their children bilingually. Twenty years ago 42 percent of all children were raised in Frisian, 48 percent in Dutch and 3 percent bilingually.

Frisian is losing its ground because it is less spoken in schoolyards and playgrounds (only 9 percent of children while one generation before it was 30 percent).

According to the professor Gorter of the University of Amsterdam, Frisian is seriously threatened because it loses approximately ten percent of its speakers with every new generation. Thus a campaign to promote the language is needed, especially among young parents who usually know very little about the methods how to raise a child in a minority language or bilingually.

In general the attitude of most Frisians towards the language is quite positive when 95 percent of the population understand Frisian, 66 percent speak it and 65 percent claim to be proud of their Frisian roots. Taking into consideration that one out of three Frisians was born outside Friesland these figures are encouraging.

Almost 85 percent of the Frisians claim that they do not want the language to disappear; however, the survey clearly displays a large gap between how people feel and how they act about the language. Especially mixed couples (one Dutch and one Frisian parent) fail to pass the language on to the next generation. Sixty percent of these raise their children in Dutch, 20 percent in Frisian and 20 percent bilingually.

Many parents in Friesland support Frisian primary education, 37 percent of them are even in favor of more Frisian in the educational system; however, the majority (58 percent) want their child to be educated in trilingual schools¹, teaching in Dutch, Frisian and English.

The Frisian Councilor and the member of the Frisian National Party, Annigje Toering, called for an open debate on the new Frisian language policy. Popularly held belief that Frisian will survive without any special effort is simply not true anymore and the country definitely needs a new language strategy.

Source: Eurolang New, Ljouwert, November 19, 2004, by Onno P. Falkena, http://www.eurolang.net/news.asp?id=4821

¹ The number of such schools is limited.

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Updated (March 2005)

FRISIAN POLITICIANS REJECTED THE PROPOSAL TO LOWER THE TARGETS FOR TEACHING OF FRISIAN

MPs of the Frisian Parliament wanted to be sure that Frisian and Dutch will be taught equally at primary level, therefore, with the exception of the liberal VVD, all political parties in Parliament rejected the proposal of the Frisian executive to lower the targets for teaching of Frisian.

According to a survey only 30 percent of all primary schools in Friesland succeed in meeting the present targets for teaching of Frisian. Such lowering would enable more schools to meet these what might help to stimulate teaching of Frisian at the schools, which performed poorly. On the other hand, it could let down the schools, which have been teaching Frisian well.

The Frisian National Party (FNP) reproached the Frisian executive’s lack of ambition when it comes to the teaching of Frisian. The Green Party dismissed the proposal as poor and without vision. Various other parties quoted the recent report from the Committee of Experts of the Council of Europe, which warned of a serious step backwards in Frisian education.

In spite of the clear rejection of the proposal all parties acknowledged that the teaching of Frisian needs to be improved shortly. Unfortunately the province has very limited resources when it comes to education, particularly the lack of qualified teachers is a serious problem.

The Frisian Education Association suggested that a Frisian qualification should become compulsory for all students at two Frisian teacher-training colleges. Teachers from the other parts of the Netherlands working in Friesland should be obliged to obtain such a qualification within five years.

Source: Eurolang News, Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, March 11, 2005, by Onno P. Falkena, http://www.eurolang.net/news.asp?id=4967

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Updated (April 2005)

THE DUTCH FOREIGN MINISTER ANNOUNCED A TRANSLATION OF THE EUROPEAN CONSTITUTION

The Dutch Foreign Minister, Bernard Bot, has announced recently that the Netherlands will translate the whole European Constitution into Frisian. Last year the same demand was refused by the Minister with the claim that all Frisians are able to read the Dutch version; however, this year he has changed his mind.

The costs of the Frisian translation will be shared both by the State and the province of Fryslân that are responsible for the second official language in the country.

In the middle of April a Frisian summary of the European Constitution was already published in the province.

An annexe to the Constitution (Declaration 29) allows member states to translate it into other languages than the official European ones. Until now only Spain and the United Kingdom decided to translate the Constitution into other languages. The Frisian National Party mentioned the examples of Basque, Catalan and Welsh to urge the Minister to take action.

Source: Eurolang News, Hague, April 22, 2005, by Onno P. Falkena, http://www.eurolang.net/

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Updated (November 2005)

THE RESULTS OF AN INSPECTION IN FRIESLAND

Although teaching of Frisian has been compulsory since 1980 six percent of all primary schools in Friesland do not teach the language at all.

The Dutch school inspection came to this conclusion after interviewing the headmasters, two teachers, eight parents and eight pupils from all 400 primary schools in Friesland.

According to the replies of the headmasters, only 2 percent of schools do not teach Frisian but according to what the pupils said, at least 6 percent of schools, especially in Frisian cities, do not offer Frisian in their curriculum at all.

The inspectors are worried about the level of Frisian in most Frisian primary schools. Only one school out of five reaches the attainment targets for Frisian and only one school out of four regularly measures the Frisian language skills amongst its pupils.

Differences in the level of Frisian are sometimes huge in a classroom. To improve the situation children should work in small groups or individually, their progress should be measured through a language follow-up system and schools should develop their own language policy and consider where and when they can use Frisian.

The survey revealed that most schools teach Frisian for 30 to 45 minutes a week. This means that 25 years after the introduction of Frisian as a compulsory subject the progress in the majority of schools has been very limited. In comparison with the 2001 survey, the use of Frisian in primary schools has decreased recently.

The situation is different only in the countryside where the amount of Frisian-speaking children at schools seems to be quite stable. More than three-quarters of pupils in 32 percent of all primary schools in Friesland speak Frisian at home. In five largely Frisian-speaking counties it seems that there is more Frisian in schools than it was five years ago. The survey also showed that many parents and pupils would like to have more Frisian in primary schools; however, the headmasters think that other parents and pupils would not agree with that.

From next year onwards all primary schools in Friesland will teach Frisian according to a new Frisian learning plan (Learplan Frysk). Currently only 19 percent of all schools teach pupils to write Frisian, while 40 percent of schools teach their students to read Frisian. Other schools concentrate on understanding the language or creating a positive attitude towards it.

Although the number of Frisian-medium schools in Friesland is quite limited, their results are encouraging. Since 1998 there have been only seven trilingual primary schools with Frisian, Dutch and English as languages of instruction. The children studying there reach a much better standard in Frisian and English, while their results in Dutch are equal to Dutch monolingual schools where Frisian is taught only as a subject. The results have encouraged the Frisian language advisory board (Berie foar it Frysk) to advise the Province of Friesland to broaden the project and support more primary schools to become officially trilingual.

Source: Eurolang News, Ljouwert, October 21, 2005, by Onno P. Falkena, http://www.eurolang.net/

FRISIAN MUNICIPALITIES SHOULD USE MORE FRISIAN

According to a study conducted by the Frisian language advisory council (Berie foar it Frysk) only five of the thirty-one Frisian municipalities carry out an active language policy to promote and stimulate the Frisian language and culture.

The president of the council believes that the efforts of most municipalities to promote the use Frisian are not substantial. Although civil servants use the language more and more, this progress is rather slowly. Frisian is used during wedding ceremonies (more weddings are being concluded in Frisian than five years ago), for street and village signs and during council debates (more than half of thirty-one Frisian councils conduct their debates mainly in Frisian).

According to the survey, the majority of municipalities lack a more general language policy. The only project that almost all Frisian municipalities do support is an annual pre-school Tomke¹ Project to stimulate the use of Frisian among children in playgrounds and daycare centers. Thousands of toddlers throughout Friesland participate in Tomke activities every year.

Bertus Mulder, the Frisian Minister of Culture, would also welcome the broader use of Frisian in municipalities. Recently eleven municipalities have adopted a language statute, which regulates the use of written Frisian by the municipality.

Mr. Mulder visited most municipalities to discuss the local language policy. The Province of Fryslân, for example, intends to have 25 percent of its annual written output in Frisian before 2010. This plan can be achieved because in 2005, ninety-four civil servants have visited a Frisian course. The civil servants who will pass the final examination receive a reward of Euro 170 (A-level) or Euro 270 (B-level). Last year only nine civil servants did the same course.

At the presentation of the survey on local language policy the Frisian municipality of Wymbritseradiel received an award for the most language friendly website. Wymbritseradiel, situated in the Frisian Lake District, belongs among the five most active municipalities. Apart from the website Wymbritseradiel also supports several cultural activities such as a Frisian pop festival.

Source: Eurolang News, Ljouwert, November 4, 2005, by Onno P. Falkena, http://www.eurolang.net/

1. Tomke is a funny little fellow, who appears on the Frisian television, in magazines and on his own website.

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Updated (April 2006)

NEW FRISIAN LANGUAGE MOVIE HITS THE DUTCH CINEMAS

A new Frisian movie "Sportsman of the century", which comes across as a modern fairytale, had its premiere at the beginning of April 2006 in four cinemas in the Frisian capital of Ljorwerd.

The movie was shot at various locations in the Frisian countryside. Because both Frisian broadcaster Omrop Fryslân (the Netherlands) and German broadcaster NDR act as co-producers, a few parts of the movie have been shot in Ostfriesland in Germany as well.

In the near future Omrop Fryslân will broadcast the movie in Frisian. On the contrary, the movie will be dubbed on German television and the Frisian carefully learned by the cast will remain unheard. However, a movie producer Emjay Rechsteiner believes that it should go to the German cinema with subtitles, but it is still uncertain whether this will happen.

The Frisian language in the movie sounds very natural although some of the minor roles produce a peculiar sound to the ears of native speakers. Nevertheless, speaking the language seems to be easy for Dutch actors who did not grow in Friesland or in a Frisian environment. In the movie, there are also actors speaking Frisian as their mother tongue and a few roles are performed by the German.

Source: Eurolang News, April 8, 2006 by Onno P. Falkena http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2584&Itemid=1&lang=en

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Updated (May 2006)

FRISIAN SCHOOLCHILDREN DROP FRENCH IN FAVOR OF THE FRISIAN LANGUAGE

The Dockinga College in the Frisian town of Dokkum decided to offer all pupils in the first year of secondary education the choice between Frisian and French as their third obligatory language. Surprisingly, dozens of children have chosen Frisian lesson instead of French for the next school year. Some because they believe the Frisian language is easier to learn, but most of them consider it more useful than learning French.

Most children realize that Frisian matters and that they will need the language when they start looking for a job later on, Jouke Douwe de Vries, a teacher of the Dockinga College, explains. He also adds that this step will give a boost to the teaching of the language because Frisian is definitely more important in Dokkum region than French. De Vries expects that in the future many children will take their final examinations in this language as well.

Now the schools in the Netherlands are more flexible in the composition of their curriculum, which keeps Frisian under pressure, especially in primary education. Therefore, representatives of the College want to show by their approach that it is possible to stimulate the Frisian language just by offering it; the children themselves decide to have more Frisian.

According to de Vries, the Dockinga College wants to promote itself as a pro-Frisian school with trilingual approach as they want Dutch, English and Frisian to be the main languages of instruction in the school. This will follow the example of the trilingual primary schools, which teach the same languages at the level of native speakers. Several schools of this kind are located in villages nearby Dokkum.

According to the Ministry of Education, the development in Dokkum follows the pattern of national trends in the Netherlands. Traditionally all children in secondary education in the Netherlands were obliged to learn English, German and French. The position of Frisian used to be marginal, but this appears to be changing gradually. According to figures from the Ministry of Education, both French and German are losing ground in favor of "other" languages such as Frisian, Arabic, Russian and Spanish.

Source: Eurolang News, May 22, 2006 by Onno P. Falkena http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2640&Itemid=1&lang=en

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Updated (November 2006)

OMROP FRYSLÀN WILL BROADCAST ON SATELLITE

Omrop Fryslàn has taken a big step forward - all its TV-programmes are now broadcast free to air throughout Europe by satellite. This means that the programmes will be distributed un-coded and free of charge not only for viewers in the Dutch province of Friesland as previously, but also for thousands of Friesians living outside the province.

The measure became necessary because all analog public television in the Netherlands will be switched off in December 2006. Omrop Fryslân, therefore, campaigned for some time for transmission by satellite as many people in the Frisian countryside depended on the analog signal for the reception of Frisian television.

Up until recently, the Dutch government, however, have refused to pay for the distribution of the so-called regional broadcasters by satellite. According to the former secretary of state for culture, Medy van der Laan, Omrop Fryslàn and the province of Friesland should pay for satellite distribution and not the Dutch state.

This point of view changed when the Dutch cabinet fell and the party of Medy van der Laan (D66) left the government. Subsequently, Christian-Democrat Minister of Culture, Maria van der Hoeven, pushed the button to put Omrop Fryslàn on satellite.

Source: Eurolang News, November 13, 2006 by Onno P. Falkena http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2762&Itemid=1&lang=en

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Updated (April 2007)

FRISIANS HAVE A GOOD COMMAND OF THE FRISIAN LANGUAGE

According to the most recent language survey, a large majority of the Frisian population has a good command of their mother tongue. 94 percent of them understand the language, 74 percent of Frisians are able to speak the language and 75 percent are able to read it. On the other hand, writing Frisian is still a problem for many people. Nowadays one out of four Frisians are able to write the language whilst in 1980 only 10 percent of the population was able to write their own language.

The same survey has revealed that the younger generation tends to use more Dutch and less Frisian at home. In 1980, 58 percent of Frisian children were raised in Frisian. Today this figure has dropped by 10 percent (48 percent). One of the main causes is the growing number of bilingual couples; 75 percent of these couples speak Dutch together and not Frisian, 68 percent of them raise their children in Dutch, whilst 31 percent chooses to do so in their mother tongue. In general, 47 percent of all couples in Friesland speak Frisian together, 44 percent Dutch. The survey has also shown that older generations of parents were less inclined to raise their children in Frisian than today's young adults under 30 years of age.

The results of the language survey have been presented in a Frisian language atlas, which clearly shows the position of Frisian, Dutch, and smaller minority languages such as Stellingwarfs (Low Saxon), urban Frisian (a mixture of Dutch and Frisian) and Bilts, in all the Frisian municipalities. This will help the new Frisian Executive and the municipalities to shape their language policy for the coming years with clear goals.

Within Friesland, there are significant differences among the 27 municipalities involved. For example, the municipality of Dantumadiel is the most Frisian-speaking part of Friesland: 90 percent of its 19,556 inhabitants are Frisian-speakers and 87 percent of the children are raised in the language. Whilst in Weststellingwerf (southern part of Friesland), only 21 percent of the population speaks Frisian and only 6 percent of children are raised in the language. In general, Frisian is quite strong in the Frisian countryside and much weaker in the Frisian capital of Ljouwert (43 %) and the port of Harns/Harlingen (30 %).

Source: Eurolang News, April 26, 2007 by Onno P. Falkena

www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2866&Itemid=1&lang=en

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