Groningen University has launched a bachelor’s degree programme in the Frisian language, the first standalone course in the country’s second official language for 15 years.
Three students began the course this week, which covers linguistics, history and Frisian culture. Frisian was taught as a degree in its own right until 2012, when it was absorbed into a broader programme on Europe’s minority languages, Minorities & Multilingualism.
That programme drew too few students to survive and the university said it would phase it out from the 2025/26 academic year, leaving the academic study of Frisian at risk of vanishing altogether.
A rescue from The Hague
The course was saved after the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) recommended, in a report on the future of Frisian studies, that the state pay for a dedicated bachelor. The government agreed to put in €340,000 a year, with further provincial money.
For legal reasons the new degree sits as a Frisian track within the university’s Dutch Languages and Cultures programme, though the focus is now entirely on Frisian.
Professor of Frisian Arjen Versloot said he was happy with the intake, even though a course usually needs around 20 students to break even. “There are often only five students in French and German too, so as a small language we can’t complain,” he told regional broadcaster Omrop Fryslân.
Teachers in demand
The degree is also meant to supply qualified teachers. Since August, schools in Friesland have been required to use more Frisian in the classroom under new curriculum rules, and Versloot expects strong demand for teachers able to deliver it at the highest level.
Frisian is spoken by around 470,000 people in Friesland and is the closest living relative of English.
Reading and writing proficiency in Frisian has risen sharply over the past two decades, despite fewer people speaking the language at home, according to a recent survey.
Around 58% of residents in Friesland now say they can read Frisian well or very well, up from 46% in 2007. Self-reported writing proficiency nearly doubled over the same period, from 9.6% to 18.9%.
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