A Frisian Enclave in the USA? | Friesland Wisconsin (1881-1945)
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- Опубліковано 20 жов 2023
- The West-Frisian language is spoken in the province of Fryslân in the north of the Netherlands. But, from about 1880 onwards, a community of Frisian speakers continued to speak their language in the wilds of Wisconsin, even naming their town 'Friesland' in honour of the province of their birth. But how was this possible in the predominantly Anglophone USA?
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Did you know there was a Frisian-speaking pocket in the USA? Let me know!
It wasn't really all that unusual for pockets of language to survive for more than a century in the farmland and small towns of the Upper Midwest and Canada in the 19th century. My dad's parents were both born in Minnesota 50 years after their families had immigrated and neither one spoke a word of English until they were 7 or 8. What"s even more interesting is the case of Milwaukee, a much, much larger city where school was taught in both German and English until just before the first world war. The Milwaukee Central Library still has a massive German language collection preserved in the basement that goes all the way back to the 1850s.
As a Frisian I really love this! Never knew about Fryslân in Wisconsin, but it sounds really legit! This is really cool. Grutsk! Tige tank!
Fascinating! I've been living in Wisconsin for seven years now and I'm always surprised by how idiosyncratic the early immigrant population to this state was and how those idiosyncrasies continue to shape the culture of the state to this day. My girlfriend's family is originally from Steven's Point in Portage County, which has the largest concentration of Kashubians anywhere in the western hemisphere. They are counted as Polish in the census, making Portage County the county with the highest proportion of ethnic Poles in the United States.
My grandfather, now deceased, grew up on a farm and lived all his life in or near Frisland/Randolph Wisconsin. He was a Frisian speaker. Though he was born in the USA, he spoke only Frisian (no English) when he started school. As an elderly man, he would visit with other Frisian speakers at a coffee shop in Randolph. We believe he was interviewed by the researchers cited in this video.
My grandfather's first language was West Frisian. He was born in Osceola County, Iowa in 1930. If you look at the Sibley, IA white pages you'll find plenty of Frisian surnames.
I feel like there’s been at least one town or neighborhood for most European ethnicities in the US at some point
I live a few miles from Friesland in west Michigan. I remember taking my grandmother to Frieslan church services when i was young, three of my Grandparents were born in Friesland. A lot of people here have names ending in stra, ma, and nga. Although the first settlers in the 1840s were Dutch speaking, when they founded Holland Michigan.
There's also Door county in Wisconsin that was Waloon-speaking.
Could you do more on Wisconsin languages? The story of Amish Dutch, Swiss and other religiously isolated immigrants of the Midwest is fascinating
I next door Minnesota their are two hamlets named Friesland and Groningen. Went to visit them, but they are so small I passed them before realizing I had reached them.
Another interesting enclave in the US are the Czech Texans! There's actually a town in Texas called Praha which is of course Czech for Prague! Large scale Czech immigration to Texas began after the Revolutions of 1848 changed the political climate in Central Europe. Tejanos don't just have Spanish ancestry, but also Czech! Tejano music very much has Czech and German influence! Germans and Czechs brought with them the accordion, polkas music and dance, thus their music influenced the Tejanos. Besides Czech Texans and German Texans, there are even Texan Polish SILESIANS! Panna Maria, Texas is considered the oldest Polish settlement in the whole country! These groups have since developed their own Texan dialects.
A viedo about my home state? As a native Wisconsinite this is probably the most interesting thing about our state
As a Dutch/Frisian woman with a dad named Randolf this is very confusing and funny hahaha
As a Wisconsinite, I have never heard of this place, but awesome to hear about a place in my home state
When I did a study of Norwegian and dialects in America (mainly Iowa and Wisconsin) I found the dominant dialect of a given area could be spoken and understood by all, but at home they still spoke their "home" dialect. My Danish family from Schleswig also spoke of speaking German, Low German and Friesian (North) in Iowa when they first came...many from Schleswig settled in Clinton Iowa. Grandma's low german (probably her third language) was solid enough to keep secrets with my grandpa who spoke Westphalian German
Wisconsin mentioned let's go 💪💪💪
Mono Dutch here, but with a Frisian dad, and a German mom. This seems like heaven.
It's odd that the churches didn't use Frisian - here in Cleveland, to this day you can attend church services in German, Latvian, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Slovenian, Slovak, Croatian, etc. with no trouble finding a church offering them. My Slovenian roommate attends Mass in Slovenian at least 2x a month and the church is always full. As for the longer continued use of Frisian... remember, in the US, World Wars 1 and 2 made speaking German either severely unpopular or downright taboo - so there would have been no push from the government or non-Frisian communities to suppress the use of the language. Great video! Ek woon nou in die VSA, maar my eerste taal is Jiddisj - en dit is die eerste taal van my kinders. Hier skryf ek in (arm) Afrikaans, soos ek dit geleer het toe ons 'n rukkie daar gewoon het. Goed vir julle, Frieslanders!
This is so interesting to me! I grew up and live now just 40min away from this town and had no idea. Thank you for this great video