[Great Hall of Rockwall] Frisian pride in the Chicago Tribune

Wed Jun 7 07:17:29 PDT 2006

Hope no one got hit hard in last night's storms. Here's a story that I found 
in this morning's Trib that I know a certain lady on this list will be 
interested in, and the rest of us will find informative.

chicagotribune.com >> Leisure >> Tempo
AT RANDOM: ON LANGUAGE
Sheer pride keeps alive Frisian, a cousin to English

By Nathan Bierma
Special to the Tribune
Published June 7, 2006

With a vague sense of ethnic pride, a vaguer sense that I owed it to my 
great-grandfather and a complete ignorance of the Frisian language, I 
attended the 50th and final Frisian worship service in Grand Rapids, Mich., 
last month.

For me, the service hammered home a key distinction about my own ethnicity. 
I usually say that my ancestors were Dutch. But my great-grandfather, who 
immigrated to the U.S. in 1980, might have objected to that claim. 
Technically, he was Frisian, and for Frisians, that is more than just a 
technicality.

Friesland is a province of the Netherlands along that country's northern 
coast, but dating to the ancient days when it was a vast kingdom and 
maritime power, it has always been its own country, in a way.

The Frisians are one of the oldest ethnic groups in Europe and one of the 
most doggedly independent. A famous Frisian slogan is "Frysk en Frij," 
meaning "Frisian and Free."

The Frisian language also represents a piece of linguistic trivia: Old 
Frisian was the closest relative of Old English, its sibling in the West 
Germanic language family. Linguists tend to say that in its earliest days, 
English used to sound a lot like German. But it's closer to the truth to say 
that English used to sound a lot like Frisian.

Attendance dwindled

So as a Frisian descendant and an aspiring linguist, I had two good reasons 
to attend the final Frisian-language worship service in Grand Rapids, where 
an annual Frisian service has been held since 1957 in an area church. In 
recent years, attendance has dwindled to fewer than 100 people, but last 
month, more than 250 people came, some from around the U.S., Canada and yes, 
Friesland. The language intimidated me at first, especially when the room 
erupted in laughter at a Frisian quip while I sat silent and oblivious. 
Sitting next to me, my father knew German and Dutch well enough to pick out 
some key words and give me the gist of what I missed.

Soon I caught on to a couple of basics as I studied the bulletin: the "tsj" 
sound in Frisian is basically the English "ch," so the word "tsjerke" sounds 
something like its English translation, "church." The first hymn was 
"Hillich, hillich, hillich," which I identified as "Holy, Holy, Holy," and 
in the first line, the word "almachtich" gave itself away as "almighty." 
Fortunately, the ushers handed out an English text of the sermon.

The service happened to be held the same week that the U.S. Senate approved 
two language proposals, one that would single out English as our national 
language. Even if neither measure becomes law, the Senate sent the message 
that linguistic diversity is unwelcome and even threatening. On that Sunday 
in Grand Rapids, in a congregation that was all white and mostly 
gray-haired, the church was surging with immigrant pride.

"I knew it would be emotional," said Louis Tamminga, who preached the 
sermon. Fifty years ago, Tamminga was the young seminary student and Frisian 
immigrant who preached the church's first service in his native language.

Notably absent from the Frisian service was its founder, Bernard Fridsma, 
who died in December. Fridsma immigrated from Friesland at age 3, and taught 
a course on Frisian at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, where I work (and 
where, today, one of the most common surnames is still "DeVries," meaning 
"the Frisian"). Fridsma wrote an "Introduction to Frisian" workbook for the 
course, with the dream of eventually publishing it as a textbook.

Born in Friesland

That dream has now been inherited by Frisian native and retired English 
professor Henry Baron, who was raised speaking Frisian, educated in Dutch, 
and learned English after immigrating to the U.S. after World War II.

"No other Dutch province has anything like that," Baron says about these 
gatherings of expatriates. "It's an extension of this Frisian solidarity. 
... You come across a Frisian anywhere in the world, and you identify each 
other as Frisian, and you immediately have a bond there. It's as if you're 
long-lost buddies."

Frisian pride has helped keep the Frisian language alive, despite the 
constant threat of extinction. So has the Dutch government; in 1955, the 
Netherlands officially recognized Frisian as its second language and dropped 
a 19th Century ban on teaching Frisian in Frisian schools. Today, out of 
Friesland's population of about 600,000, about 400,000 speak Frisian, Baron 
says, while most of the rest can understand it.

After the Frisian service in Grand Rapids, I met Koen Zondag, who traveled 
from Friesland for the service and gave a public greeting from the homeland. 
I asked him whether he considered himself Frisian or Dutch. He sighed and 
looked away, searching for a way to explain it, then looked me straight in 
the eye.

"Are you American or from Michigan?" he asked.

"I live, speak, and dream in Frisian," he said. "But the question of 
identity is complex."

----------

Send your thoughts about language and identity to Nathan Bierma at 
onlanguage at gmail.com.

"I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was, too. But better far write 
twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all."

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)

Down the Rabbit Hole: downrabbit.blogspot.com

>From: "George Reichard" <gmreichard at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: The E-List for the Shire of Rockwall 
><greathall at shireofrockwall.org>
>To: GreatHall at shireofrockwall.org
>Subject: [Great Hall of Rockwall] mem weekend
>Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 23:22:22 +0000
>
>
>
>
>
>
>     Hail to the Hall
>
>
>      The weekend went very well. I had a great time . Id like to thank all 
>of you for the help.
>
>         A very big thank you to the cooks...  and another big thank you to 
>the Sahyun family,
>
>         I was very happy that you joined us , It really made the weekend 
>special. I hope all
>
>         of you had a good time.
>
>
>        There were a few things left here ....platters ,containers,a sledge 
>hammer...etc .
>
>         They are all here  ...if you are missing anything please call and 
>we will try to find
>
>           it and put it aside for you .
>
>
>                                           Again thanks for a great weekend
>
>
>                                                      Martin
>
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