The Frisian language is passed on more successfully than Low Saxon

Frisian is in a better condition than Low Saxon. Frisians tend to use the language more at home and are better at passing it on than inhabitants of the region where Low Saxon is spoken. In addition, Frisian is less receptive to Dutch influences than Low Saxon. These are the conclusions drawn by PhD student Raoul Buurke in his PhD thesis Frisian and Low Saxon in Flux, in which he researched the state of these two languages over the past decades. He will be awarded a PhD by the University of Groningen on 13 February. His PhD project was conducted in collaboration with Centrum Groninger Taal en Cultuur (Centre for Groningen Language and Culture). 

At the same time, Buurke also sees many positive prospects for both regional languages: ‘There is currently a lot of interest for regional languages from the Dutch population and government. We also see investments being made in language and speech technologies for these languages, and language variation is going to be a fixed part of the curriculum for the school subject Dutch.’

Considerably more speakers of Frisian

There have been a lot more recent language counts for Frisian than for Low Saxon. Buurke and his colleagues have therefore used a questionnaire that was distributed through Lifelines to estimate how many people use Frisian or Low Saxon in the North. Buurke: ‘Based on 38,500 respondents, it was found that roughly 48% of the population of Friesland uses Frisian at home, while only 17% of the population of Groningen and Drenthe uses Low Saxon at home.’
Furthermore, around 70% of Frisian-speaking parents consistently pass on Frisian, while the transmission percentage of Low Saxon-speaking parents has strongly decreased over a period of 40 years: from about 50% for children born around 1960 to 30% for children born at the start of the twenty-first century.

Dutchification of Low Saxon

Low Saxon regional languages are starting to borrow more and more features of the Dutch language. Buurke: ‘A well-known example of Dutchification in the Groningen language is “schoatsen” (ice-skating), which is much more similar to “schaatsen” than the former “scheuveln”. At the same time, the translation of the Dutch word “trein” (train) nowadays often more resembles something like ”troin” rather than the former “train”. As you can see, there are also language changes that make the language look less like the Dutch.’

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Frisian variants look more alike

Buurkes’ research also showed that the various Frisian variants have become increasingly more similar to one another but not to Dutch. A similar pattern was found for Groningen variants, although these variants do look increasingly like the Dutch. For the other Low Saxon variants, the local differences have grown bigger. Buurke suspects that this is due to the fact that less and less people learn the regional language through their parents but more likely from various people in their environment. This probably causes them to learn less consistent pronunciation patterns. Evidence has been found for this among regional language speakers in the southern province of North Brabant.

Preserving the regional language

Buurke: ‘Most people in the Netherlands think that Frisian is a language and Low Saxon isn’t, even though they are both recognized languages in the Netherlands. There are, however, great political differences between these languages and the degree to which the speakers are proud of their language, something that could have far-reaching consequences for the continuation of the languages.’
There lies a great responsibility with both the government and regional language speakers themselves to preserve the regional languages, according to Buurke: ‘The government can pursue policies to actively support the regional language and to remove any prejudice. Regional language speakers should also stand up for their language and dare to acknowledge that the language is a valuable component of their identity and their cultural heritage, so that it becomes clear why everyone will benefit from preserving the regional language. Once a language is lost, it’s usually impossible to retrieve it.’