{"id":3666,"date":"2015-11-02T21:10:25","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T21:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=3666"},"modified":"2015-11-03T10:16:25","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T10:16:25","slug":"fries-a-language-for-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/fries-a-language-for-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"Fries &#8211; a language for itself!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span lang=\"fry\" xml:lang=\"fry\"><i>Frysl\u00e2n &#8211;\u00a0<\/i>it will probably not tell you a lot. It is a word not from the Dutch, but the Frysian language, het\u00a0<em>Fries<\/em>.\u00a0<i>Frysl\u00e2n\u00a0<\/i>is the name of the Dutch province in which\u00a0<em>Fries\u00a0<\/em>is spoken:\u00a0<em>Friesland<\/em>. Now, yes, there are many different dialects, and versions of\u00a0<em>Fries<\/em>. But in this post, I mean <i>Westerlauers Fries<\/i>, or\u00a0<em>Standaardfries\u00a0<\/em>when I mention\u00a0<em>Fries<\/em>. This is the officially recognized language in\u00a0<i>Frysl\u00e2n.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Friesland is bordered by <em>Groningen<\/em>, <em>Drenthe<\/em>, <em>Overijssel<\/em>, <em>Flevoland<\/em>, and <em>Noord-Holland<\/em>. The <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/de-afsluitdijk-enclosing-the-sea\/\">Afsluitdijk <\/a>is also connected to\u00a0Friesland, in the town\u00a0<em>Zurich<\/em>. Furthermore, all Dutch islands, apart from <em>Texel<\/em>, lie in Friesland:\u00a0<em>Vlieland<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Terschelling<\/em>,\u00a0<em>Ameland<\/em>, and\u00a0<em>Schiermonninkoog<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 551px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:2015-P02-Fryslan.jpg\" aria-label=\"752px 2015 P02 Fryslan\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\"  alt=\"\" width=\"541\" height=\"431\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/1\/15\/2015-P02-Fryslan.jpg\/752px-2015-P02-Fryslan.jpg\"><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Friesland (Image by Janwillemvanaalst at Commons.wikipedia.org under CC BY-SA 4.0)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"fry\" xml:lang=\"fry\">The language\u00a0<em>Fries\u00a0<\/em>is so widely spoken and important in the province, that it is even recognized as an official language, next to Dutch. The official name of the province was also changed in 1997 from\u00a0<em>Friesland\u00a0<\/em>to\u00a0<i>Frysl\u00e2n.\u00a0<\/i>In the rest of the Netherlands, it is still just called\u00a0<em>Friesland<\/em>, also in written form. On official documents, however, it should now read\u00a0<i>Frysl\u00e2n\u00a0<\/i>instead!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Thus, the Netherlands has also recognized <i>Fries\u00a0<\/i>as an official language, a so-called\u00a0<em>autochtone minderheidstaal<\/em> (native minority language).\u00a0<em>Fries\u00a0<\/em>is therefore also protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a fragment of\u00a0<em>Fries<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Nederlandse dialecten fragmenten\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zHmcVjMzS-I?start=210&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Very different than Dutch! For me, as a native speaker, it is pretty much impossible to understand, just like some well-spoken dialects from other regions in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n<p><em>Fries<\/em> is spoken in the blue part of\u00a0<em>Friesland\u00a0<\/em>in the graphic below. As you can see, dialects of Frysian are also spoken on the islands <i>Schiermonninkoog\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0<em>Terschelling<\/em>.\u00a0<em>Fries\u00a0<\/em>is spoken by about 480.000 people in\u00a0<em>Friesland.<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 553px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nl.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Westerlauwers_Fries#\/media\/File:Taalsituatie_Noord-Nederland.png\" aria-label=\"800px Taalsituatie Noord Nederland\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\"  alt=\"\" width=\"543\" height=\"455\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/9\/90\/Taalsituatie_Noord-Nederland.png\/800px-Taalsituatie_Noord-Nederland.png\"><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image by Wutsje at nl.wikipedia.org under CC BY-SA 3.0<\/p><\/div>\n<p>What is nice as well: if you move to\u00a0<em>Friesland<\/em>, which around 10.000 people a year do, they receive a welcome package. It contains a guide to the Frisian language, some motivational stuff why you should choose a multilingual life!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"279\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/11\/752px-2015-P02-Fryslan-350x279.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/11\/752px-2015-P02-Fryslan-350x279.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/11\/752px-2015-P02-Fryslan.jpg 752w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>Frysl\u00e2n &#8211;\u00a0it will probably not tell you a lot. It is a word not from the Dutch, but the Frysian language, het\u00a0Fries.\u00a0Frysl\u00e2n\u00a0is the name of the Dutch province in which\u00a0Fries\u00a0is spoken:\u00a0Friesland. Now, yes, there are many different dialects, and versions of\u00a0Fries. But in this post, I mean Westerlauers Fries, or\u00a0Standaardfries\u00a0when I mention\u00a0Fries. This is the&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/fries-a-language-for-itself\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":4412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[60713,3590],"tags":[358613,117761,235970,358757,8,358758],"class_list":["post-3666","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-2","category-dutch-language","tag-fries","tag-friesland","tag-frisian","tag-frysian","tag-language","tag-minority-language"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3666"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3674,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3666\/revisions\/3674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}