The story of Frisian in multilingual Friesland

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In ‘The story of Frisian in multingual Friesland’, sociolinguist Reitze Jonkman (NHL Stenden, Leeuwarden) and historical linguist Arjen Versloot (University of Amsterdam) tell the history of the Frisian language: where it comes from, how old it is and how it has changed substantially as a language over the course of history, but also how its position in society has changed and what its current status is. One thing this story makes clear is that Frisian has never existed in isolation. From the very beginning of the Common Era, the Frisian language has been in direct contact with a variety of other languages including Latin, Frankish, Low German, the ‘Townish’ Dutch as spoken in the Frisian towns, and – for the last couple of centuries – Standard Dutch.

The story of Frisian in multilingual Friesland is een zeer leesbare en rijk geïllustreerde uitgave over de geschiedenis van het Fries: waar het vandaan komt, hoe oud het is en dat het in de loop der eeuwen nogal veranderd is. Hoe de positie in de maatschappij niet altijd hetzelfde was en wat deze in de laatste eeuw is geworden.