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From: Trudy & Rod Bray <>
Subject: The ethnic group of Frisians in Germany
Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2000 11:35:29 +1000


This was posted to the Friesland list and I am forwarding it because it
will be of interest to those whose ancestors came from this region.

Trudy
*************************************

From the First Report submitted by the Federal Republic of Germany under
Article 25, paragraph 1, of the Council of Europe's Framework Convention
for the Protection of National Minorities (1999):

I.4.3 The ethnic group of Frisians in Germany

The Frisians, as a people of the coastal region of the North Sea, have
been
known since about the start of the Christian Era. West Friesland -
covering
the contemporary province of Friesland in the Netherlands, and adjacent
regions - and East Friesland have been the settlement area of Frisians
since the times of the earliest historic sources. The settlement area of
the East Frisians essentially covers East Friesland and the northern
Oldenburg region up to the mouth of the Weser River on the North Sea.
>From the coastal region and from the islands, especially after the devastating storm surges during the Middle Ages, settlement also extended to more southerly inland regions where other people of non-Frisian origin already lived.

The Saterland Frisians are descended from those Frisians who, between
1100
and 1400, moved from the North Sea coast that had been devastated by
storm
tides, to settle, more to the south, in the Saterland where Westphalians
had already settled. The Saterland Frisians live in the Saterland
Community
which comprises the villages of Strücklingen, Ramsloh, Scharrel and
Sedelsberg, including many farmstead hamlets. The population structure
of
the Saterland, as well as that of all regions of Germany, changed as a
result of the general mobility in this century and the in-migration of
refugees and expellees after the Second World War. The share of
Saterfrisians in the total population of the community has been reduced
once again in recent years because of the arrival of many so-called
"late
repatriates" (Spätaussiedler) who, as former members of German
minorities,
especially in the former Soviet Union and in South Eastern Europe,
returned
to their ancestors' native country where they settled in places having
sufficient housing available. The majority of the inhabitants of the
Community of Saterland, however, (ca. 12,000) regard themselves as
Saterlanders.

Since the times of the migration of peoples (Middle Ages population
movements), North Friesland at first had not been colonised. The
Frisians -
presumably by the 7th and 8th centuries - were the first to settle in
some
areas of North Friesland. Another group of settlers came to the
low-lying
marshes in the 11th and 12th centuries. The old North Friesland was not
a
political entity, but consisted of loosely connected administrative
districts. Until 1867, North Friesland was part of the Kingdom of
Denmark,
after that - until 1871 - part of Prussia, and subsequently, together
with
Prussia, part of the German Empire. The settlement area of the North
Frisians is along the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein (Kreis of North
Friesland, with the islands of Sylt, Föhr, Amrum and Helgoland). About
50,000 to 60,000 persons consider themselves North Frisians on account
of
their ethnic descent and their sense of personal identity. In their
settlement area, North Frisians account for about one third of the
population, while in some island communities they form the majority.

Frisian, as an autonomous and ancestral language, descended from the
North
Sea Germanic branch of the West Germanic subfamily, differs distinctly
from
Netherlandic (Dutch and Flemish) and Low German and, in terms of
historical
linguistics, is closely related to Old English. It has evolved in three
subgroups: West Frisian, East Frisian, and North Frisian. West Frisian
is
spoken in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands. East Frisian is
native to East Friesland in Lower Saxony. Both regions form the
historical
(geographical) centre of the Frisians.

By around 1500, the East Frisians had already replaced the Frisian
language
by Low German as the language used for drafting legal documents. By
1800,
for the most part, they had relinquished their ancestral Frisian
language
with the language finally disappearing at the beginning of this century
on
the last of the North Sea Islands. North Frisian consists of two groups
of
dialects with nine local varieties: six of these [so-called Continental
North Frisian] are spoken along the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein
(including the holms, or Halligen), and three of them [so-called Insular
North Frisian] on the islands of Sylt, Föhr/Amrum, and Helgoland.
Despite
the linguistic diversity brought about by the subdivision into dialects,
the linguistic communality of North Frisian prevails. Of the North
Frisian
population, some 10,000 persons still speak North Frisian; another
20,000
persons understand this language.

Saterland Frisian, an Emsland-based dialect of the Old East Frisian
language, continues to be used as the language of everyday oral
communication by about 2,000 Sater Frisians. About twice as many people
understand Saterland Frisian. Despite many Low German loan words,
Saterland
Frisian has preserved its linguistic independence. The Saterland Frisian
language originally had superimposed itself on the Westphalian Low
German
of the first inhabitants of the Saterland. After East Friesland and the
adjacent regions of Saterland had changed over to Low German, survival
of
Saterland Frisian was possible because the Saterland villages were
located
in a sandy river valley surrounded by extensive fens which provided a
shield from contacts with the outside world and from its penetrating and
shaping influence well into this century.

East Friesland is still inhabited mainly by people of East Frisian
origin.
Although the Frisian language is extinct in these parts, an East Frisian
-
cultural - identity continues to be preserved by the majority of the
people
in East Friesland, living in the area between the border of the
Netherlands
and the Weser River. However, it is not possible to give a precise
estimate
regarding the share of people in the population of East Friesland who
identify themselves as Frisians.

The Frisians in East Friesland are united by the feeling of a common
history and culture, which finds its expression in a regional identity.
They do not consider themselves a national minority. The Saterland
Frisians regard themselves as the Saterland Frisian language group. Nor
do the largest group of organisationally associated North Frisians - the
North Frisian Association (Nordfriesischer Verein) - consider themselves
a national minority; rather, they regard themselves as a group having
their own language, history and culture within Germany. A much smaller
organisation, the Foriining for nationale Friiske (Association of
National Frisians), sees the Frisians as a people in its own right and
considers themselves a national minority in Germany. Nowadays, the two
groups have agreed on to refer to themselves as the "Frisian ethnic
group" and are thus designated in the Constitution of the Land of
Schleswig-Holstein.

Despite their different positions regarding the description of their
identity, the Frisian associations and organisations welcome the claim
to
the protection and promotion of their culture and language, which is
afforded to them by the application of the Framework Convention for the
Protection of National Minorities.

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