The Frisian Academy (Fryske Akademy) organized the Day of Frisian Linguistics (Dei fan de Fryske taalkunde) on 25 October 2024 in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. The yearly event was held for the thirteenth time and brought together experts from various fields who discussed the current situation of the Frisian language. The extensive program featured more than twenty speakers who presented their research. The topics ranged from new insights into the historical development of Old-Frisian to the distribution of current accent variation in Frisian.
Mr. Zandberg had a presentation, in Dutch, of his research, the title of which was “The linguistic landscape in Saterland and the use of Sater-Frisian in the local government”. The study combined an overview of the linguistic landscape in the public space with a survey and an interview among employees of the local government of Saterland. The summary of the presentation is the following:
- Sater-Frisian’s visibility in the public domain is limited.
- The local government plays a leading role in increasing the visibility of the
minority language, with a focus on making Saterland more attractive to
tourists. - The use of Sater-Frisian in local government is mostly limited to two departments: Personnel &
Organization and Social Affairs. The other two departments, Housing & Finance and
Spatial Planning & Construction, have little to no Sater-Frisian on the work floor. - Government officials mainly use Sater-Frisian in meetings with citizens.
- Sater-Frisian is absent from official documents.
The sheets of the presentation in PDF-format can be viewed by clicking here.
Below are several diagrams and charts from the survey among the employees of the local government in Saterland:
