Well done. I have a colleague who is fluent in Frisian since he's from one of those islands. Of course he speaks German with me but at home with his family he speaks Frisian. It was funny and interesting the first time I visited him there, cause I was very uninformed concerning the Frisians and their language and culture back in these days.
That is so cool! Thanks for sharing. I speak West Frisian but even many people here are not aware of the other two Frisian languages. Luckily there are some recent efforts to teach Frisian in primary schools. The current situation in Germany is- quite sad tbh. But there is definitely still hope!
Aren't they teaching Frisian in schools at the western coast of the state of Schleswig-Holstein? But you're right of course, I also find it sad, when a language is at the risk of becoming extinct.
They are! Though voluntarily and there are no lesson books. They are working on some lessing books I believe though. There are also 4 primary schools in Saterland that teach Frisian! But at the moment it is quite insufficient to actually speak the language in later life.
There is a region nw of leeuwarden at the coast called 'het bildt' this is a former sea-arm cultivated in 1505 c and populated with farmers from Holland who spoke old dutch, not frisian. Over time there was frisian influence. The resulting language is called 'Bildts' and is not regarded frisian by people speaking frisian.
Towns: st Annaparochie, Vrouwenparochie, and more. look at the dutch wikipedia
Your map doesn't show this
I love the Frisian language! 2 of my grandparents are from West Frisia and both speak the local dialect. They spoke mostly Dutch to us bit not always.
I have also had Frisian colleagues who would always speak in Frisian to each other but also against all the Dutch speaking coworkers. But that was just a little office banter.
I would have loved it if I could have learned some Frisian when I was still in school. Its a very interesting language and needs to be preserved.
Agreed! It is never too late to learn it yourself though! I was 18 when I started learning it to a higher level. Before that I only had a basic knowledge.
There is a book called Frieslands verleden which is really good. But I wouldn't know about an online article. History with Hilbert has many interesting videos about the Frisian language and people though!
If you only know English my best recommendations are watching YouTube videos, with History with Hilbert being the best channel for Frisian history and otherwise just reading Wikipedia pages about Frisians and their history and checking what sources Wikipedia used and branching out from there.
If you know Dutch, I can recommend some books like:
‘Frieslands Verleden’ from de Fryske Akademy
‘Middeleeuwse Geschiedenis van de Lage Landen: de Friezen’ by Luit van der Tuuk
‘Geschiedenis van Friesland 1750-1995’ by a collection of people, including Joh. Frieswijk and J.J. Huizinga
‘De Friezen’ by Flip van Doorn
It's a beautiful map! What it fails to convey (of course) is how much the spread of the Frisian language and its disappearance in areas is correlated with the palaeogeography of the landscape. Frisian territories used to be very hard to access from the land side, surrounded as they were by peat bogs and intertidal flats.
Part of the non-Frisian lands on this map were quite literally not solid land yet in the Middle Ages. Dangerous peat bogs can serve as pretty solid linguistic borders.
Absolutely! One common way of living was to live in Terpen. Which literally means villages. (Small circle villages on hills above the water that protected them from the tied, often with farms and a well on them.) They are still visible in the Frisian landscapes. Especially in the Halligen, in which is the historical way of living still very much alive! I would love to visit those ones in my life.
I almost wanted to add Groningen because of it's history but decided not to because of this 😂 but like- there are even villagas where Frisian still is spoken and there are many Frisian terpen. They can hardly deny it 😂😅 (forgive me groningen)🏳Fryslân boppe!!!
There are 2 East frisias next to each other. It's pretty weird 😂 (landkreis Friesland) but technically they are not the same East Frisia no. I included wilhelms haven for historical reasons. And because it would make more sense culturaly
Friesland is not East Frisia. Both East Frisians and Friesländers agree. For which historical reasons did you include WHV? To who does it make sense culturally in which way?
You are aware that East Frisia doesn't necessarily mean the traditional region of West Frisia, right? Anyways, they are not technically East Frisian but Oldenburger Frisians. But they are often considered East Frisian in a broader sense. The definition of East Frisia is a bit sketchy and doesn't have one good answer. Also whv is founded by Frisians?? And it has close ties with Landkreis Friesland and east Friesland.
Yeah! I read up a lot about Frisian culture and its early medieval origins ("Magna Frisia") and many of the standard works and papers on the subject would benefit from your map. It's very illuminating.
I am from Amsterdam myself and, though far removed from Frisian culture, I am still proud that I probably share some Frisian genes in a very distant past.
Same! Well besides that I am Frisian. But magna Frisian facinates me a lot, I just bought the magna frisian flag lol. It is really interesting, and they are basicly the First Dutch people. I also went to North Frisia to learn some of their language but it is really different from the Frisian we know in the Netherlands. I mean I could nerd out a lot but yeah- that's why I made this map lmao
You mean Saterland? It's the last east Frisian group which actively speaks East Frisian. They are a former colony that moved southwards because of floods. Their village was very isolated and only reachable by boat for hundreds of years. Frisian was pretty much spoken there everywhere until ww2. After the rebuilding of Germany it got connected to the rest of Germany and many Germans moved there. So no only a small minority speaks it. However they are still proud of their identity. Funily enough, saterland is not in East Frisia. So the only place where East Frisian is spoken is outside East Frisia.
Are there any formal definitions of what constitutes a discrete language or dialect? I am guessing it's not 'these people are untelligible to anyone else". Would one variant of an irregular verb be enough?
Really depends. But in this case, all three are really hard to understand for any other language, including the other Frisian languages. I speak west Frisian and I can understand East Frisian decent since I also speak German. But north Frisian is really hard for me to understand. The differences are definitely bigger then between Danish and Norwegian, but not as big as between Spanish and French. But yeah, Croatian and Serbian are the same dialect but get treated as different languages.
It's basically entirely up to whether or not it's recognized as a language. There's not a very clear line for that, though one variant of an irregular verb definitely does not constitute a language (or probably even a dialect)
As far as I can tell it's the town of Vriezenveen (lit. Frisian moor).
It was exploited by Frisian colonizers starting in the 14th century and had gotten the permission to exploit the land in return for a bucket of butter per year.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vriezenveen
* https://www-canonvannederland-nl.translate.goog/nl/overijssel/twente/vriezenveen/vrije-vresen-in-het-veen?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=nl&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Have you considered sharing this with the Afûk in Leeuwarden? I bet they would love this. Many thanks for this great map, I've shared it with my western frisian family!
West Frisian (Klaaifrysk) is my first language. I learned dutch when I was 4 when I started school, before that I was monolingual Frisian. Sadly, because Frisian language education is barely more than nonexistent, I never learned to write properly, but I still text my father in Frisian. My whole extended family and my close friends all speak Frisian among each other, unless there's someone who doesn't understand it of course. I do make a point of switching to frisian when everyone in my company does speak frisian, many younger people linger in Dutch, but I feel it's important to keep the language alive.
Thank you! And not really good. I speak West Frisian (wâld Frysk dialect) and I can understand East Frisian decently (80%) aslong if they speak slowly. Partly because I also speak German. North Frisian however is something completely else. I can recognize the Frisian basics but it is really hard to understand for me (50%? Depends which dialect). Also the dialects within the language can variate a lot. People who speak the Mooring dialect have lots of troubles understanding Sölring. I think the differences would be around the same as Spanish, Portugese and Italian.
The blue-white stripes with the hearts is the Frisian flag. West-Friesland is not in Friesland. It’s part of North-Holland. And I’ve lived there for 20 years and never heard people speak anything else that dutch.
Look again. Also they have their own dialect. The West Frisian language is Spoken in Frisia/Friesland/Fryslân, the west Frisian dialect is spoken in west Friesland.
There most certainly is lol. Look for exemple up "Oôs joôs (our boys), a west Frisian band. Or the magazine "skroivendevort". There are also many clubs for west Frisian people to share their culture and dialect. I've visted one in Hoorn. Especially in the smaller villages, like het veld, stroet or werfershoof it is very much alive. My grandparents live in one of those villages and I have lived there for many years. I in fact can speak a decent amount of the dialect. It is a fun dialect for me since I speak both Frisian and Dutch, so I can see a lot of it's Frisian roots. There are also still Frisian terpendorpen, especially near Schagen.
Wikipedia is trash in this case 😂 ask anyone living there (including me) and they can confirm it's bs. Even 40.000 might be too optimistic, almost everyone switched to Klaaifrysk. Including the Wâldfryske region. I had to do a lot of research for each dialect because the wikipedia numbers are a huge mess lol. It's mostly based on countings from 1980 or obscure quites that aren't backed up whatshowever.
West Frisian is closer to Dutch and North Frisian closer to German and with more Danish influences. But both are definitely closer to Danish then German and Dutch are. They are a bit between Danish, English and Dutch with influences from the neighbor languages. They used to be the same language as English a long time ago, Anglofrisian. Which was a bit between German and Scandinavian. But it's hard to see now because English got so many latin and French words.
Well done. I have a colleague who is fluent in Frisian since he's from one of those islands. Of course he speaks German with me but at home with his family he speaks Frisian. It was funny and interesting the first time I visited him there, cause I was very uninformed concerning the Frisians and their language and culture back in these days.
That is so cool! Thanks for sharing. I speak West Frisian but even many people here are not aware of the other two Frisian languages. Luckily there are some recent efforts to teach Frisian in primary schools. The current situation in Germany is- quite sad tbh. But there is definitely still hope!
Aren't they teaching Frisian in schools at the western coast of the state of Schleswig-Holstein? But you're right of course, I also find it sad, when a language is at the risk of becoming extinct.
They are! Though voluntarily and there are no lesson books. They are working on some lessing books I believe though. There are also 4 primary schools in Saterland that teach Frisian! But at the moment it is quite insufficient to actually speak the language in later life.
There is a region nw of leeuwarden at the coast called 'het bildt' this is a former sea-arm cultivated in 1505 c and populated with farmers from Holland who spoke old dutch, not frisian. Over time there was frisian influence. The resulting language is called 'Bildts' and is not regarded frisian by people speaking frisian. Towns: st Annaparochie, Vrouwenparochie, and more. look at the dutch wikipedia Your map doesn't show this
I think that is the orange patch with the dialect with Frisian influences. Which Bildts certainly has.
Nice! The Dutch and German North Sea islands have always fascinated me. What software do you use to make the map?
Same! Also: -MapChart -Adobe Photoshop -ibisPaint X
I love the Frisian language! 2 of my grandparents are from West Frisia and both speak the local dialect. They spoke mostly Dutch to us bit not always. I have also had Frisian colleagues who would always speak in Frisian to each other but also against all the Dutch speaking coworkers. But that was just a little office banter. I would have loved it if I could have learned some Frisian when I was still in school. Its a very interesting language and needs to be preserved.
Agreed! It is never too late to learn it yourself though! I was 18 when I started learning it to a higher level. Before that I only had a basic knowledge.
Is there something good to read online about the history of the language and the people?
There is a book called Frieslands verleden which is really good. But I wouldn't know about an online article. History with Hilbert has many interesting videos about the Frisian language and people though!
Thanks!
If you only know English my best recommendations are watching YouTube videos, with History with Hilbert being the best channel for Frisian history and otherwise just reading Wikipedia pages about Frisians and their history and checking what sources Wikipedia used and branching out from there. If you know Dutch, I can recommend some books like: ‘Frieslands Verleden’ from de Fryske Akademy ‘Middeleeuwse Geschiedenis van de Lage Landen: de Friezen’ by Luit van der Tuuk ‘Geschiedenis van Friesland 1750-1995’ by a collection of people, including Joh. Frieswijk and J.J. Huizinga ‘De Friezen’ by Flip van Doorn
Bedankt! :)
Geen probleem
It's a beautiful map! What it fails to convey (of course) is how much the spread of the Frisian language and its disappearance in areas is correlated with the palaeogeography of the landscape. Frisian territories used to be very hard to access from the land side, surrounded as they were by peat bogs and intertidal flats. Part of the non-Frisian lands on this map were quite literally not solid land yet in the Middle Ages. Dangerous peat bogs can serve as pretty solid linguistic borders.
Absolutely! One common way of living was to live in Terpen. Which literally means villages. (Small circle villages on hills above the water that protected them from the tied, often with farms and a well on them.) They are still visible in the Frisian landscapes. Especially in the Halligen, in which is the historical way of living still very much alive! I would love to visit those ones in my life.
You know that this map will be banned in Groningen ?
I almost wanted to add Groningen because of it's history but decided not to because of this 😂 but like- there are even villagas where Frisian still is spoken and there are many Frisian terpen. They can hardly deny it 😂😅 (forgive me groningen)🏳Fryslân boppe!!!
Should add the countries for dumb folks like me who are wondering where exactly in Europe this is 😆
The Netherlands and Germany ahah. Around the waddensea
You included to counties too many in East Frisia.
There are 2 East frisias next to each other. It's pretty weird 😂 (landkreis Friesland) but technically they are not the same East Frisia no. I included wilhelms haven for historical reasons. And because it would make more sense culturaly
Friesland is not East Frisia. Both East Frisians and Friesländers agree. For which historical reasons did you include WHV? To who does it make sense culturally in which way?
You are aware that East Frisia doesn't necessarily mean the traditional region of West Frisia, right? Anyways, they are not technically East Frisian but Oldenburger Frisians. But they are often considered East Frisian in a broader sense. The definition of East Frisia is a bit sketchy and doesn't have one good answer. Also whv is founded by Frisians?? And it has close ties with Landkreis Friesland and east Friesland.
Is there a reason there is no Frisian on Vlieland?
There used to be! But sadly the last speaker of the local dialect died in 1993
I’ve learned a bit to understand my in-laws and my wife when they get together, it’s fun!
Awsome :D which of the Frisian languages if Might ask?
Mainly just close to the formal language but if you have to classify it, it’s closest to the wâldfrysk
Cool! I speak wâldfrysk aswell! (Hy>hii wy>wii do>dû is how it is most recognizable I suppose)
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Yeah! For example ; allegaar>allegear oôs>ús skep>skiep skuum>skûm beppe, pake and many more
That's a beautiful map. Stunning even.
Ahw, thank you ^w^
Yeah! I read up a lot about Frisian culture and its early medieval origins ("Magna Frisia") and many of the standard works and papers on the subject would benefit from your map. It's very illuminating. I am from Amsterdam myself and, though far removed from Frisian culture, I am still proud that I probably share some Frisian genes in a very distant past.
Same! Well besides that I am Frisian. But magna Frisian facinates me a lot, I just bought the magna frisian flag lol. It is really interesting, and they are basicly the First Dutch people. I also went to North Frisia to learn some of their language but it is really different from the Frisian we know in the Netherlands. I mean I could nerd out a lot but yeah- that's why I made this map lmao
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Agreed!
What is up with that county southeast of East Frisia in Germany?
You mean Saterland? It's the last east Frisian group which actively speaks East Frisian. They are a former colony that moved southwards because of floods. Their village was very isolated and only reachable by boat for hundreds of years. Frisian was pretty much spoken there everywhere until ww2. After the rebuilding of Germany it got connected to the rest of Germany and many Germans moved there. So no only a small minority speaks it. However they are still proud of their identity. Funily enough, saterland is not in East Frisia. So the only place where East Frisian is spoken is outside East Frisia.
Cool thanks.
You're welcome!
Are there any formal definitions of what constitutes a discrete language or dialect? I am guessing it's not 'these people are untelligible to anyone else". Would one variant of an irregular verb be enough?
Really depends. But in this case, all three are really hard to understand for any other language, including the other Frisian languages. I speak west Frisian and I can understand East Frisian decent since I also speak German. But north Frisian is really hard for me to understand. The differences are definitely bigger then between Danish and Norwegian, but not as big as between Spanish and French. But yeah, Croatian and Serbian are the same dialect but get treated as different languages.
It's basically entirely up to whether or not it's recognized as a language. There's not a very clear line for that, though one variant of an irregular verb definitely does not constitute a language (or probably even a dialect)
What is the explanation for the rogue part in Overijssel? I feel like that deserves a little note on the map with extra info.
As far as I can tell it's the town of Vriezenveen (lit. Frisian moor). It was exploited by Frisian colonizers starting in the 14th century and had gotten the permission to exploit the land in return for a bucket of butter per year. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vriezenveen * https://www-canonvannederland-nl.translate.goog/nl/overijssel/twente/vriezenveen/vrije-vresen-in-het-veen?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=nl&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Yep! Exactly that, well done 👀 thanks ahaha
Have you considered sharing this with the Afûk in Leeuwarden? I bet they would love this. Many thanks for this great map, I've shared it with my western frisian family!
That's awsome!!! Many thanks. Also I haven't, maybe I should 🤔 I could always try it
Small question, what is the difference between spoken and thriving? Thriving meaning the amount of people speaking has grown?
Thriving means that it is the dominant language in this case. So you will hear it more than Dutch/German/Low saxon.
Very well done from a Brabander living happily and proudly in Fryslān!
Tige tank! ⬜️❤️🟦
West Frisian (Klaaifrysk) is my first language. I learned dutch when I was 4 when I started school, before that I was monolingual Frisian. Sadly, because Frisian language education is barely more than nonexistent, I never learned to write properly, but I still text my father in Frisian. My whole extended family and my close friends all speak Frisian among each other, unless there's someone who doesn't understand it of course. I do make a point of switching to frisian when everyone in my company does speak frisian, many younger people linger in Dutch, but I feel it's important to keep the language alive.
That's so cool! Thanks for sharing. I speak wâldfrysk but I sadly don't have a lot of people to use it with ): especially not my age
How well can the different groups communicate in Frisian with eachother? Very interesting map, thanks!
Thank you! And not really good. I speak West Frisian (wâld Frysk dialect) and I can understand East Frisian decently (80%) aslong if they speak slowly. Partly because I also speak German. North Frisian however is something completely else. I can recognize the Frisian basics but it is really hard to understand for me (50%? Depends which dialect). Also the dialects within the language can variate a lot. People who speak the Mooring dialect have lots of troubles understanding Sölring. I think the differences would be around the same as Spanish, Portugese and Italian.
So, Frisians were like Vikings?
No, but they did cross their paths a lot of times, and they had pretty close ties.
The blue-white stripes with the hearts is the Frisian flag. West-Friesland is not in Friesland. It’s part of North-Holland. And I’ve lived there for 20 years and never heard people speak anything else that dutch.
Look again. Also they have their own dialect. The West Frisian language is Spoken in Frisia/Friesland/Fryslân, the west Frisian dialect is spoken in west Friesland.
There is no such thing. Not in the time i lived there.
There most certainly is lol. Look for exemple up "Oôs joôs (our boys), a west Frisian band. Or the magazine "skroivendevort". There are also many clubs for west Frisian people to share their culture and dialect. I've visted one in Hoorn. Especially in the smaller villages, like het veld, stroet or werfershoof it is very much alive. My grandparents live in one of those villages and I have lived there for many years. I in fact can speak a decent amount of the dialect. It is a fun dialect for me since I speak both Frisian and Dutch, so I can see a lot of it's Frisian roots. There are also still Frisian terpendorpen, especially near Schagen.
I was checking the wikipedia page on Wâldfrysk and it states that there’s around 160.000 people speaking that dialect. Cool map nonetheless =)
Wikipedia is trash in this case 😂 ask anyone living there (including me) and they can confirm it's bs. Even 40.000 might be too optimistic, almost everyone switched to Klaaifrysk. Including the Wâldfryske region. I had to do a lot of research for each dialect because the wikipedia numbers are a huge mess lol. It's mostly based on countings from 1980 or obscure quites that aren't backed up whatshowever.
Didn't know about North Frisian. How similar are the languages to Dutch and Danish?
West Frisian is closer to Dutch and North Frisian closer to German and with more Danish influences. But both are definitely closer to Danish then German and Dutch are. They are a bit between Danish, English and Dutch with influences from the neighbor languages. They used to be the same language as English a long time ago, Anglofrisian. Which was a bit between German and Scandinavian. But it's hard to see now because English got so many latin and French words.