Fering

Wan dü fering snaakest, wal ik faan di hiar! – If you speak Fering I’d love to hear from you!

Northern Frisian or Friisk is spoken by around 10,000 people in Northern Germany. Its biggest dialect (some call it a language) is Fering, spoken on the island of Feer/ Föhr. Here’s the punchline: Let’s focus away from the narrative of “a lot of money” being thrown at a small number of people and shift to: A small amount of money being spent to revitalise a whole culture and give more people the opportunity to experience and learn it, many of whom don’t speak it because their ancestors were forced to speak German.

Below is a video of what seems to be the internet premiere of their “national anthem”! Fering is spoken by around 2000-3000 people alongside German and Platt (low German). (Feer is totally flat and this video was recorded in the Scottish Highlands where I live.)

A group of North Frisians from Germany recently visited the Hebrides and Scotland’s Gaelic college, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, where I caught up with them to explore similarities between the two minorities. A lack of housing is a pressing issue in both places. I hope it’s ok to say that I am proud to have conducted the first interview in Fering and to have translated it myself as well (An Là, BBC ALBA, 26/7/24).

Want to hear what spoken Fering sounds like? My interview in Fering with Heike Volkerts where I talk about my work, why I’m learning Fering and about the Gaelic minority in Scotland. As heard on the local radio, FriiskFunk.

Apparently speaker numbers of Fering are stable, but Northern Frisian is classified as severely endangered by UNESCO and all the other dialects are in a precarious state. I hear that sometimes numbers of speakers are artificially inflated in order to attract or justify funding. It would seem that a wakeup call is needed.

The total disregard for the Frisian language and culture in Germany, especially compared to the support that Gaelic and Welsh are getting in the UK is shocking. It even falls far short of the support for Sorbian, another minority language in Germany. This is the same Germany that prides itself in being a model democracy.

Thankfully the Federal Government have now asked the Frisians to come up with a detailed proposal with a view to increasing funding considerably. The regional government have also just established an entity called “Nordfriisk Liirskap” which is going to develop Frisian education in schools and for adults. But even on Feer the Frisian language is a voluntary subject in school which isn’t marked, although you can take it as an ordinary subject in high school. It should at least be an ordinary subject, offered in every school in Northern Friesland and marked. But even if the political will was there, they wouldn’t have enough teachers.

A hundred days after the first member of the German parliament to represent the Frisian and Danish minorities for 60 years was voted in, he tells me he is making progress in rallying support in Berlin. It comes as the Frisian Council call for the language to become a compulsory subject in schools. As seen on An Là, BBC ALBA (05/01/22).

To finish off here’s the anthem of the neighbouring Ooram/ Amrum island:

Let’s focus away from the narrative of “a lot of money” being thrown at a small number of people and shift to: A small amount of money being spent to revitalise a whole culture and give more people the opportunity to experience and learn it, many of whom don’t speak it because their ancestors were forced to speak German.