Why Did a Bank BAN the Frisian Language?
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- Опубліковано 20 лют 2024
- The (West) Frisian language is the one of the most closely related languages to English, being spoken by Anglo-Saxons on the continent during the same time that others moved into Britain. Since then, Frisian has continued to be spoken in the North of the Netherlands and Germany. Today, Frisian (Frysk) is the second official language of the Netherlands alongside Dutch. However, this status is not always respected giving centuries of discrimination that has affected the way the language is perceived to this day.
Earlier this month it was made public that the ING Bank banned their staff members from speaking Frisian. Instead, they were forced to speak Dutch or English, even when their customers wished to speak Frisian. This has caused an outcry in the province with many Frisians shocked by the bank's policy and have called it discrimination against Frisian-speakers.
Praat Mar Frysk Music Video (feat. yours truly) - Sjoerd Ensa:
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What do you think? Should ING allow its staff to speak Frisian?
Tbh, no. It's a national call center. In the local bank (when you can find one) it can be done at the counter. It's what happens here in Limburg as well. But I'm probably biased as my dialect isn't an official "language" even though I can speak it in Cologne and ppl will understand me.
Indeed. Regional languages must be protected as a fundamental part of the identity of a region. It is outrageous that English can be spoken but not a native language of the country. The ubiquity of English appears to be having a detrimental impact on foreign cultures.
Frisian is an official language in the province of Friesland. Although non-governmental organisations aren't legally obliged to offer their services in Frisian I don't see why they wouldn't. Forbidding your employees to talk in Frisian with Frisian customers is rude and insane. In fact I am quite upset that in the rest of the country we haven't ever learned Frisian in school.
@@cjblablubIf it's a Dutch national call centre then surely they shouldn't be allowed to answer in English either.
Yes, issues arising from this are fairly easily solvable.
I am from the village where everything started. The 3 milkmen in our then completely frisian speaking village had written the frisian names for milk and buttermilk (Molke and sûpe instead of Melk and karnemelk) on the big vats they were selling these milk products from. This was deemed illegal by the law. They were protesting as none of the people in the village used those dutch names and ordered it anyways in frisian. This became a courtcase. Where their language supporters got beaten up by the police when protesting outside of the courthouse in Ljouwert, and hence was name Kneppelfreed afterwards.
One of the 3 milkmen was my old uncle.
I speak Afrikaans. Even though it's a daughter language of Dutch, I find it easier to understand more of someone speaking Frysk than someone speaking Dutch with an Amsterdam accent.
You’re not the only one. And I’m Dutch.
Just out of curiosity, when you mention the Amsterdam accent, do you mean the original local accent ‘Plat Amsterdams’ or the modern day ‘posh’ accent with the typical non rolling ‘r’.
I think frisian speek German. In Germany in the North we speak " Platt" Frisian is a Form of Platt.
@@menschin2 The Frisian languages are actually more closely related to English (and Scots if you consider it a separate language) than any other non-Frisian Germanic language.
@@marcustulliuscicero3987As another Afrikaans speaker, plat Amsterdams is hard to understand. I think because of TV the Randstad accent is way easier to understand.
It's a shame our native language isn't taken seriously. Although it's fine and actually good they allow the use of English, it now feels like adding insult to injury when you are not allowed to use an official languages of the Netherlands...
Also, lekker besich Hilbert!
Tige maat! Big shoutout to this man and his excellent work highlighting Frisian history - look out for a collab in the near future people!
ua-cam.com/video/knHiY3Ap7do/v-deo.html
@@historywithhilbert146 Tige tank foar de shout-out! Looking forward to it!
@@historywithhilbert146that collab will be legendary!!
I tried finding ressorces about the development of the frisian language (when it split from its common ancestor with anglo-saxon, grammar and vocabulary of this old frisian language, relationships to low-saxon/Platt and low-franconian/dutch, etc.) but i found little. Do you know a good source that, for example, explains reconstructed old frisian grammar + dictionary?
Even worse for the limburgers, who outnumber the frisians by far
Here in Montréal, my grand-mother wasnt allowed to speak french to other secretary when she first started working for the Royal Bank of Canada. Even if french was the language of the vast majority of people living in Montréal. The fight to speak a minority language is and always be an on going one.
My grandparents spoke Cajun French in Louisiana and would get punished if they spoke it in school.
@@CodyBrumfield1 Most provinces exept Québec use to have laws that prohibited the teaching of french and kids would get beated for speaking it too. The history of french in north america after 1763 is one of persecution. The acadians/cajun, the métis, the french-canadian imigrant in the north-east of the US. Even with it's majority Québec havent been spared. It's a shame what happend to your grandparents. Louisiana french is unique and beatifull, a language worth speaking.
My grandparents saw all Kazakh schools in the North Kazakhstan close except for a few (less than a dozen for 2 million Kazakhs in the northern Kazakhstan in 1989). They couldn't speak Kazakh in Kazakhstan because soviet government would consider that nationalism
@@Neversaand now northern kazakhstan is being populated by russians. russia is truly evil
Oh calm down , a Canadian show without subtitles because everyone is speaking French is rare almost .
Thank god Australia doesn't have a French province
"Pinta" a restaurant/bar chain in Kazakhstan were forbidding Kazakh songs from playing in their restaurants and were immediately cancelled and had to close a few restaurants. Same with "chocolife". Using their products is considered shame now
good
Be proud, Qazaqstan, of who you are, you'll be much stronger for it.
Be proud of Kazakh heritage. Rather than just another Russian speaking indistinguishable satellite.
I'm glad Kazakhstan is protecting its culture. It's a gery beautiful and chill place
As a Dutch person from outside of Friesland, I don't particularly think about the Frisian language when in a work setting. But if there is a customer that would like to speak Frisian over the phone and I know I have a colleague that can speak Frisian, why not simply have that colleague help them further? I do wonder what would have been the nicest possible action to take if a customer wants to speak Frisian and the company does not have a Frisian speaker stand-by.
I do not understand the argument that sometimes calls need to be listened to in case of an issue and that can only be done in Dutch or English for some reason, sounds like fake news to me.
I assume they just don't want to bother hiring and paying people who can speak Frisian for the people monitoring calls. A lot of the time, discrimination like this is due to greed and apathy, rather than actual bigotry or hatred - although bigotry and hatred certainly happens as well tbc
@heboi6519 I think in the case of the Netherlands it's just a big case of ignorance really. People in the Netherlands who did not grow up speaking Frisian, Low Saxon or Limburgish have a very hard time grasping the concept of what it's like to grow up in one of those languages. They really think it's just a variant of Dutch - or even worse, an accent - and that everyone is perfectly able to speak Dutch and therefore, in a work environment, should speak "professionally".
They just cannot understand that people growing up in Frisian, Low Saxon or Limburgish grew up speaking that language and not being spoken to in Dutch before the age of 4 when they would go to school. Yes, the Dutch language is extremely similar to these three (regional) languages, but that doesn't mean that they're interchangeable. As a Limburgish speaker myself, I have a way easier time expressing myself in that language. I have real difficuly in pronouncing certain Dutch words and if I could communicate with someone in Limburgish, I'd 100% prefer doing that. It's weird how as a "civilized" country discrimination against the (other/regional) languages in the Netherlands is such a big thing. It's super common to see signs in English, German, Polish or Arabic in official institutions but for some reason not our own languages.
And don't get me started on how many people genuinely think Limburgish/Low Saxon/Frisian evolved from Dutch or that they're dialects OF Dutch rather than that most of them evolved from a common ancestor (or an entirely different one in the case for Frisian).
That's not fake news. That's a customer service issue that a supervisor or someone higher up has to resolve, and the bank is saying "we don't have enough high-ranking dispute settlers who are fluent in Frisian, so everything needs to be in English or Dutch, because the relevant employees speak those languages. The employees involved in dispute resolution are likely scattered around many countries in a giant bank.
My mum actually works for the office in Ljouwert, she speaks frisian with some of her coworkers aswell, i think it's strange that they wouldn't simply redirect frisian customers there. Then again, in her experience the bank doesn't have the best policies all round, even for the benefit of it's own employees. Fryslân Boppe!
Usually customer support is done by third party companies that specialize in customer support. So in this case the cuatomer support agent probably doesn't even work for the bank.
They most likely don't have a call center in Friesland. I remember they have one in Amsterdam, Limburg and in Berlin. It's not unreasonable to say that these people don't speak frysian. It is unreasonable to expect them to open a call center in Friesland for only a small segment of the population. These people have the freedom to close their accounts and choose a bank that does have customer support in frysian and there is no law that says that ING (that is a private entity) should offer customer support in frysian. It would also be unreasonable to make a law saying that private entities should as it would run up the costs for small businesses to an almost impossible level just to offer frysian customer support.
@@hectorquinones5579 They can't do that for a bank. bank information is confidential, third parties aren't permitted to handle those kinds of calls. My mum works from home sometimes, we aren't allowed near where she calls from because of this.
@@danielwilke7574 Well then i have some questions about where my mum is going during the week since she works at the office in Ljouwert, Fryslân.
Schandalig. Gedeeld en hopelijk wordt dit snel teruggedraaid. Discriminatie pur sang.
Always interesting hearing about the West Frisian perspective and their struggle for recognition. We have a law since 2004 that makes North Frisian an official language in Sleeswig-Holstiin, but it didn't really do much to stop the language from dying out. There are only fewer than 3000 speaker of Insular North Frisian left anymore.
Gröötnisen fan Nuurdfriislön
Greetings from North Frisia (SH)
Support to Frisia from Catalonia❤
No one asked where you're from
i am glad they did, else i wouldn't have thought of the parallels between Friesland and Catalunya
@@aiocafea I spoke with a Catelonian once who was saying Friesland is like the Catalonia of the Netherlands.
@@aiocafeaexecpt in Catalonia there's a majority of schools where you can't study in standard Spanish at all.
4:05 .... soooooo speaking a foreign language is ok but speaking a local language is a nono? BRUH
95% of the population speaks the "foreign" language, 0.002% of the population speaks the "native" language.
As a business, I would spend absolutely zero resources on accommodating 0.002% of my customers, and would spend those resources accommodating the 95% instead.
@@fcadcock 2.5% in reality. Way higher in that province. it’s one thing to loose business by acomodating. It’s another to go out of your way to waste your effort and money banning that (made up 0.002%) which in really is spoken by over 55% the province and by 500,000 across Europe.
Not at all like your made up scenario
@@yucol5661 fcadcock just doesn't seem to really know what he is talking about, in another comment he thought North Frisian with 8000 to 10.000 speakers was spoken in the Netherlands instead of West Frisian with 440.000 speakers.
if the foreign language is understood more than the local language, this can certainly make sense. In this case, when telephone calls in a call centre are recorded for training purposes and other analyses, this surely only makes sense when those employees who are responsible for training, supervision or otherwise should analyse these recordings, can understand the conversation.
Apparently the assumption here is that almost all relevant employees of that call center can understand English sufficiently - but how many of the employees in a Dutch (not specifically Frisian) call center understand Frisian?
@@tobyk.4911 Well, if i remember correctly the call was made to a callcenter from ING that's located within the province of Friesland (so not in a majority Dutch speaking province) where the majority of people speak Frisian. I would assume that a callcenter located in Friesland where the majority of the people speak Frisian also have a majority of employees working there who at the very least can understand the language.
In the Philippines we have only 2 official languages, Filipino and English. However laws are only written in English, some forms are bilingual, other signs are in Filipino. It’s honestly quite a mess. Unfortunately, there’s 180+ more languages here in the Philippines and services are not officially available in these languages.
In ANY??? That’s terrible for most people
Here in Maine, three different, or four kinda, french speaking ethnicities existed here for many many years before the state government banned our language and pretty much successfully scattered our community. We don't really exist anymore and there was so much fear about your kids being caught speaking french by inspectors, that all the parents basically refused to let their kids know anything other than english.
It sucks. I miss hearing my grandmother speaking french.
Thats extremely sad to hear, I empathize very much with you my friend. The struggle for francophones in America will always be ongoing.
If you want to connect a bit more with you linguistic heritage feel free to visit Quebec or Acadia we’re always quite happy to meet with people like you.
Salutations du Québec!
Acadian?
@@ferretyluv Acadian and Breyon and Quebecois and Madawaskan. A bunch of different french speaking ethnicitys all came together in Maine, only to have our language banned.
There is currently some debate on the use of English on the Netherlands, as there is quite a significant number of expats living in Dutch cities. Even in my home city of Eindhoven there are some stores, cafés and such in which no one speaks Dutch and you are forced to use English.
Fuck em. If you come to a country you should lean the language spoke there.
I would hate to see that in my Country ngl.
Like if you come to a diffrent country and stay there for multiple years, you should start learning the languages or even the basics.
I did not grew up for exemple with german and had to learn it in school but even I undstood early on that I should learn the language and respect it.
And even in this country some politicans spoke about making english an official language but we had luck and there were to much of an uphroar so they ditched the idea.
Btw. it remindes me of the story our teacher told us.
He went to the netherlands to practice his dutch but the workers in the shops only spoke english and german xd
he was pretty mad
Having Dutch-speakers switch to English as soon as they hear an accent (even a Flemish one) doesn’t help, esp. expats who really do want to learn and practice Dutch.
Meanwhile I'm crying in Dutch Lowersaxon. Our language, which is certainly of the Netherlands, doesn't have any legal standing. It is very different from Dutch. But not so much feom friesian as i could understand everything in this video perfectly, so lacking an official Ne'ersaksisch, i might as well learn Frissian in the mean time! You made some good arguments
Now lemme see how much i understand of frisian singing
My grandmother's native languege was suppressed for many years and she was hit in school for using it and there was no way she would use it in a bank.
I have no idea of how this could be applied to your channel format, but it would be fun to see you talk about the dialectal/cultural dispute in Scania (Skåne) in southern Scandinavia
I am living in Skåne as a language learner, and would be quite interested in a video on this topic as well.
Heh. You mean mini-Danish? :P Just joking around - I'm from central Sweden. Around here we call Skåne and your dialect halvdanska. When I had eye surgery, my surgeon was from there, and I couldn't understand him. T_T I could understand the Norwegian nurses though. Weird moment there.
Fact of the matter is that Scanian is just a dialect of Swedish, pure as. I speak a bit of Ljusdalsmål from Hälsingland, but my parents are from southern-ish Sweden (Småland and Uppland). Just like Scanian, I speak with a slight accent, only sometimes adding in a local dialectal word.
@@joelthorstensson2772 Det där är ju dock en fråga om plats och generation. Jag vet själv att vi från mindre samhällen har en generation eller två ovanför oss som inte riktigt greppar eller vill använda standardsvenskan till fullo. Sen är uppländska kanske inte riktigt att jämföra i denna situationen. :)
@@quetaquenya6418 Nej, naturligtvis. Jag pratar ju mer "lokalt" med vänner eller andra som också pratar dialekt. Hemma pratar jag ju typ "Ljusdals-standardsvenska" lol
I did some call center work for them a couple of years ago around the start of COVID. If I remember correctly Dutch, English, German and French were allowed. I don't remember if Frisian was.
I left after a few months because they were so focused on doing everything with the app and scaling down the call center and office part in favor of chat and chatbots whilst every customer I got on the phone was yearning for personal contact. By the looks of it they are staying on that trajectory.
Catalan, with close to 10 million speakers (more than half the EU official languages, a status Catalan doesn’t have), is certainly not a “minority” language, but a “minoritized” (marginalized by the Spanish and French states) one. So, while being a middle-sized language (such as Czech), its political status actually puts it in the same very precarious position as much smaller stateless languages. What really makes the difference is not the number of speakers but mainly the legal status: Slovenian, for example, with 2 million speakers but a state behind (and not against) it, is as snug as a bug in a rug. Catalan suffers the kind of situations described in this video (and worse ones) morning, noon and night.
Would it be fair to say that given that is in spoken in mainly Catalonia and possibly Valencia (depending on your views on wether Valencian is a dialect or a language), that all it needs is regional status? I live by the coast (which is the furthest part of the region from the Castillian centre of Madrid), so i may be biased, but i see Catalan quite a bit in comparison to Spanish, and it does seem to be quite a main language!
@@56independent42 Sorry, but it’s basically no to all your points.
First off, the issue of whether Valencian and Catalan (and Balearic) are dialects of the same language (they are) or separate languages does most definitely not exist in academia or everyday exchanges, only in ignorant, manipulative politics.
About your question, Catalan does have regional status (technically, it’s co-official along with Spanish in the 3 aforementioned regions), but this doesn’t prevent its social presence from free-falling (I’m old enough to have witnessed a very big change). Why? Basically because bilingualism is never a stable situation, but a mere stage in a process of language replacement. When a language is mandatory (as stated in the Spanish constitution) and the other one is not, it’s only a matter of time before the former eats up the latter. There are countless historical and current examples.
Same with Occitan
Boycott companies and schools that do this.
How about international schools which allow every language at breaktime but enforce a mandatory lingua franca, say, English (even in regions like the Basque Region or Friseland), during lessons for communication reasons? A lot of international schools happen to have incredibly diverse alumni meaning that any given language that is not the lingua franca nor the local languages may not be understood (say, Russian, which is spoken by half of the students at my school desipte it being on the other side of the continent from the Slavic regions of Europe)
Speaking of the Netherlands -- weren't the Guilders back in the day officially called "Florins" or at least carry an FL in memory of being earlier so called?
I would love to see a video on Canadaian Gaelic cause i think you'd do a reallt good analysis
You should make a video on Limburgs, and that struggle to gain legal recognition
If a bank in my country told me I cant speak my native language to it and can instead only speak in 2 foreign languages I would withdraw all my money and close my account. The gaul of these outlanders...
I wish people could appreciate more the distinct cultures inside their own country. Here in Brazil, believe it or not, no one really speaks other language than Portuguese. Yes. A continental country, ~200 million people, and pretty much 99% of it only speak Portuguese. Most of people who speak other languages are usually young teens who attend private schools (mostly just learn English), or immigrants, or really elder people which still speak their ancestors tongue (usually farmers in the southern regions or relatives of them). A huge chunk of those people are descendants of european migrants (German, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian) from the 1880s, 1910s and 1940s, which in Brazilian dictatorship were forbidden to speak a language other than Portuguese, and you could get imprisiond, or even tortured/killed for it. Although nowadays recognised as minority languages, most of them don't really get funded by the government and rely on passionate people that don't wanna lose this important piece of history and culture. Speakers of Hunsrückisch, Talian or Pomeranian mostly depend on themselves to maintain them alive, even though together they have around 3 to 4 million speakers. Hell, even indigenous languages aren't really appreciated like Tupi and Guaraní. What is really more sad is sometimes when they implement the teaching of one of the minority languages, they usually use the official language of the countries they immigrated from, like "Oh you speak Talian? So we will make you learn Italian, even though Talian is based on Venetian dialects" "You speak Hunsrückisch (based on Mitteldeutsch)? So you'll learn German (Hochdeutsch)", or how some ignorant people will think you're either a "mutt" (in Brazil it can be used as insult to people who are ashamed of being Brazilian) or supremacist because, you don't partake on this idea of "Brazilian is a mixed country, you're mixed so you can't enjoy a single 'foreign' culture"
Bela vechio!
Mi son veneto.
Quanti sieu in Brasil che parlé ancora la nostra lengua?
Go vardà dei video de brasiliani che li parla el "talian" e go da dir che più vechi che li xe, megio che li lo parla.
Spero che el "talian" posa soraviver anca in fuduro.
Purtropo anca a Venezia ghe xe sempre manco zente che parla el dialeto, e soratuto che ghe lo insegna ai so' fioli. Si 'ndemo 'vanti cussì, tra pochi ani no ghe sarà nisuni in grao de capir questa lengua meravegiosa.
Some wise words from Pyt Byt in the end, she’s pulling a lot of students through with her infinite wisdom
Can you talk about the koreans in the former USSSR?
AFAIK there are a number living in Birobijan Republic, their children are going to school in Yiddish.
@@NorthernChimp Cursed
?@@_blank-_
the russians made an alphabet for them, it failed tho
koryeo-saram?
Imagine banning a language that has been part of the netherlands for its entire history but let foreign languages be spoken (English for example)
I do like hearing about the closest relative of English. But watching this i couldn't help thinking..WTF happened to Eddie Izzard.
Good question
Arguably the second closest 🙂 after Scots
Hilbert, can you please make a video on the separatist conflict in southern Thailand. You already made a video on the separatist conflict in the southern Philippines, but not the separatist conflict in southern Thailand. Thank you very much.
*unionist, since they want to join Malaysia
As a Low Saxon speaker, I am quite jealous of the Frisians, even though they still have to fight for their language every day. I think the only solution is to make Fryslân, the Saxon provinces, and Limburg autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, just like Curaçao, Aruba and St. Maarten. That's the only way to ensure the survival of our languages, cultures, and ways of life as more and more Hollanders move to the North and the East and settle our land while they stigmatise and belittle our languages, culture, traditions and even our accents when we speak Standard Dutch.
It would also help to put the correct nationality in our passport. Now, Dutch passports say that we belong to the Dutch nation, even though we belong to the Saxon or Frisian nations. This type of visibility may change the Hollanders' mentality towards the minorities and may empower the minority language speakers in a way that makes them better preserve their heritage.
I'm crossing my fingers for your cause. Sadly, over here in Germany Low German will probably die out within the next generation.
Wie mot'n veur de Neddersassiske språke 'n standardskryvwyse hebben (1 die se nu aan 't måken bin is de Nyssassiske Skryvwyse, vind ik mooi doan). Zodat oe kan skryven in dat Neddersassisk, en nieuwssites so as de RTV Oost/Dreanthe/Noord/Tubantia/Stentor dat kan bruuk'n veur artikelen.
Ik vind 't verdomd swoor om in dat Neddersassisk te skryven, dat moet oe kunnen leer'n in skool mit 'n standardskryvwyse.
Your ability to switch between Dutch, Frisian and English and remain fluid in all three is incredible. 👍
6:55 This mistake you left in was the only pointer that I was in fact listening to a human and not some highly sophisticated AI haha.
I am from Fryslân and I was with Rabobank since I was 12, so I never had this issue. Would be a crime against Frisian people if they too rejected Frisian.
P.S. Coincidentally I have a family member who's also called Fedde Dijkstra, I doubt it's the same guy, but that's funny.
Der is mar in antwurd. Stimmen mei de fuotten. De bankrekken by ING opsizze
I don't know why in Glasgow where I am from there are public notices in English and Scottish Gaelic, but sadly there is nothing signposted in Scots.
This is a true crime of a minority language: Scots has no formal representation although the nation has 1.5 million native speakers
Goodness, here in Texas, if you call a bank or just about any other organization, you'll hear "Press 1 for English, 2 para espanol". It's been so for years.
This ING policy may have a rather technical background. As many companies record all phone calls automatically (with or without announcement), these recordings are more and more being analyzed by automated systems using voice recognition. Minority languages like Frisian are less available for those systems so they more expensive to implement and get the same level of accuracy.
Of course, this is just speculating and even if it were true, ING may or may not confirm this scenario. But if this really is the reason behind the ING policy, it might inspire enthusiasts to develop such a model for the Frisian language (or other languages), perhaps with funding from the province of Fryslân.
And they're less available on those systems to begin with because....?
If those automated systems are as bad as the automated caption system on UA-cam then while having these technologies is useful I wouldn't put any trust in them for transcribing anything to do with contracts or financials.
Begripe actually has a cognate in danish. 'Begribe' which still carries the meaning of 'understanding'. I believe it's a borrowing from either low German or Frisian. I love this content shedding light on lesser known still spoken languages
Keep up the good work, such great heritage is just not something to gloss over.
My first encounter with Frysk was when Slimme Schemer & Tido released their parodysong Jelle (Eminem & Dido - Stan, for those who forgot).
Seeing more and more how much in common Frysk and English have, I'm very much inclined to learn it myself as English is my second first language.
My family originates from the mideastern part of Stellingwerf at around 1350 AD (a bunch of lake fishermen) and over the centuries they gradually moved through Westerkwartier towards Groningen-Stad, where they settled and never really did prevail, even to this day, haha. 😆
Although, apparently my greatgrandfather was a famous producer of icecream in the 20th century, but his factory was eventually swallowed by Campina somewhere in the sixties, I believe.
I work in a call center in the US and we have rule like that with Spanish. If you can speak Spanish you still need to get an interpreter to translate the customer, because the supervisors need to review your call and what you said.
Frisian being a part of Dutch culture ought to be allowed by financials like ING.. they have the resources, so use them.
I'm Catalan and I don't need to watch this video because I live it every day.
Damn. ING screwed ,me claiming I could volunteer in Ukraine and continue to use my Dutch bank account, and then closed the account and kept my money with no advance notice. hearing this BS gives me a second reason to be glad when I get back to Nederland I'll be opening a new account with ABN-AMRO.
Wow as an English speaker reading frisian it is so incredibly similar to English. Infact the second translation of frisian to English seems somewhat in accurate as "in part" to partially would translate exactly the same into English at least American English and.be better understood and more how a speaker would say that phrase.
As a Frisian I work for an insurance company outside of Friesland. When I'm (at the office) on a telephone call and someone speaks clearly with a Frisian accent I usually switch to Frisian. Sometimes I get a (funny meant) remark from a colleague about the fact he cannot understand what I'm talking about. However most colleagues find it interesting and amusing and don't have any problem with it, nor does the company, as long as I don't put a Frisian flag on the wall😁. I kind of consider it to be an extra service to Frisian customers. They can almost always appreciate talking in their own language.
I can see why they permit English because ING does a lot of business in the UK so in this case I don't think that part of it is anti-Netherlands or a presumption of English as the default global language, but clearly they should allow customers to speak with them in Frisian too.
Great video, fully agree. I did want to note that there are exceptions to the requirement for schools in Fryslan to provide Frisian as a subject. For example in the historically non-Frisian speaking areas of Fryslan like de Stellingwerven.
Oh hey, the general frisian research commission has the same name for what i say when i look at my life 😭
But also nice getting that music video shenanigans! You ended up getting me into Baldrs Draumr (pls more of Pete also)
This story reminds me of the scene on the series "No Béarla" which showed the challenges Irish language speakers face when interacting with Irish society. There were cases where translations or services got offered in multiple languages but not in the alleged first language of the country.
I'd honestly love to know how that can be legal
Hope the Province of Friesland gets a language commission set up that can fine businesses for this (especially ones like banks, supermarkets and other major businesses that someone would depend on for day-to-day living)
Why should that be a legal thing to make private entities perform customer service in a different language. There is no law that states in what language you should give customer service in. They can choose to do it all in English or even in french if they really wanted to. It would be extremely unprofitable for them to open a call center in Friesland just so a few customers have customers service. On top of that it would be discrimination against Dutch speakers as every co pant would have to pen theirs in Friesland and as such will not be opening it in other places in NL. On top of that small to middle business will not be able to afford hiring customer service agents specifically for Friesland. A lot of these companies do it themselves and don't even speak frysian even if they serve the whole of the Netherlands. Would it be reasonable for a small mechanic workshop to speak frysian even if they are based in the Hague just because they have some frysian customers? What about a one person webshop based in Amsterdam? Or an artist who sells trough social media in Limburg? They all serve the whole of NL but non of them could afford to hire a person specifically to speak frysian. On top of that would cut down on the amount of Dutch only speaking workers just so a tiny segment of the population can have their customer service in frysian. These jobs would no longer be available to non frysian speakers at that point which is discrimination.
For a moment I thought you meant "West Fries", which is a dialect in the north of Noord-Holland, rather than Frisian.
No in English "West Frisian" usually refers to the Frisian language from across the Vlie rather than the dialect. I've got a series no the varieties of Frisian coming soon which will have a dedicated episode about the Hollandic dialect as well.
Ohh sjug es oan, dat is ljow ik wol een kreas filmpke sjog er nij ut groetjes ut de walden@@historywithhilbert146
@@historywithhilbert146 Looking forward to it! My grandparents come from Texel, though sadly they mostly speak ABN (with the occasional flurish). Sometimes I do luckily get them to speak the way they used to when they were younger, as I am quite fond of it.
@@historywithhilbert146look forward that too. Just interested a lot lately, and couldn’t find a lot about it. Especially people speaking it. It’s a kind of mystery language, you hear nothing about it.
The less worthy reminds me of Low German being pushed away by Standard German in the 20th century. Anyway, this is very interesting to watch because I like to learn literally everything about Fryslân. Because I have a Frisian bf and I am a huge fan of Baldrs Draumar. Sjoerd Ensa is great too. 😁
So i have worked in both customer support and in banking. This is due to liability issues. Nost of the customer support is putsourced to a different company spmetimes even outside of the country. They have people who listen back to calls to check if all the policies are being adhered to. In banking this is especially important as it could bring legal liability which can even end up with ciminal liability. These managers usually dont speak other languages and as such can only make the quality tests in english or Futch. Due to this its necessary for them to obly speak in languages the checkers can understand. As ING is a private entity and not a government one they also do not need to adhere to that policy. They do t even have to allow english if they do t want to, or make it so they only accept english.
I think there's a small mistake in the translation at 4:00. Afaik "dat sil de ING wol oanstean" should be translated as "which the ING would like" (instead of "which will really affect the ING"), referring to the use of an English idiom. Anyways noflike fideo wer!
P.s. If you don't know him yet I can heartily recommend any video with Boer Frans, peak Frisian culture, search for "Man bijt hond Frans Anders Zwaagstra en Henkie Kwaak aflevering 02-10-2009" and you'll find one of the greatest.
I was walking around a kringloopwinkel in Groningen the other day and I saw a biscuit tin that had all the continental province wapens/coat of arms on it.
They got them all correct, apart from Friesland and Groningen which they mixed up.
The designer probably saw the Pompeblêd that is incorporated into the Groningen one and thought immediately that it was Friesland. And the two lions were attributed to Groningen.
Something similar happened on a weather broadcast last year (or maybe 2022), they keep mixing us up 😂
Oh I meant to also say, I think the situation with the bank is ridiculous.
I can understand, to an extent, where they are coming from with English and Dutch. But Fries is an official language and therefore should be allowed and accommodated for official matters.
It sounds so cool
Too bad Dutch bankers don't have any problem speaking 2.51%APRrisian...
As a native English speaker with no English heritage I agree, do not give up ur language... expect Catalans speak Castilian god dammit
Everything dies, even languages.
@@TheDanEdwardsand so do people and species. Doesn’t mean we can’t have resons and rewards for delaying or managing that death
Are you sure you're a native? If that's the case yikes, I'm sorry
@@ZACCAZACZThank the Chicago public school system ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I work for a large financial company with call centers. It’s because their legal team has to approve all disclosures they say in any language and it’s bad practice to have disclosure not match the language of the conversation. Not only that but it has to be monitored by a team which needs to understand that language and if they use speech analytics that adds a whole other level of complication for auditing purposes. Using a third party interpreter for other languages vs building it into your business adds a level of legal protection without all the extra work.
Thanks for your take on this and for sharing your experience. It still comes across as an insult when a foreign language has been factored in but not one of the official languages of the country that is the native of language of 55% of the province. Given that other banks do not have such a rule of only using Dutch and English, this must be doable.
@@historywithhilbert146 completely agree.
@@historywithhilbert146are you sure that this is the case, did somebody check this?
@@historywithhilbert146 you forget that there are more people who use English as daily communication in the Netherlands then Fries. You say 55% of the province but there is less then half a million people living there.
Here in Norway, we have a situatian that is somewat similar but also very different. Because of historic (400 years under Denmark) and geographic / topgraphic (fjords and mountains), we have two official written forms of Norwegian language, but we do not have any official form of spoken Notwegian. The two written forms are now considdered as two different languages, one belonging to the west norse branch, the other to the east norse, while the spoken dialects are spread all over, and sometimes mutually difficult to understand. Everybody has to learn both written forms in school, and all officials has to write back in the written form they got a question, but they are free to use their own dialect always. Some dialects use cases, some does not. Sounds may be different. Grammer vary. This makes us able to unedrstand each other and our scandinavian neighbours, as well as some frisian and dutch and other norse-related languages :)
Yeah i wish we would do more to revive low-german and east-frisian here in the north of Germany more. At least they recognize low-german now as an individual language with dialects, rather than just a dialect of German now. Not that this effectively changes anything.
So if someone has to listen to a recorded conversation they cannot just get a Frisian speaker to do so?
Not only did i not know that there is an international day for your mother's language, i also did not know that "bad versions of the national language", as you put it, could be taken seriously by administration. Here in austria, a majority speaks bavarian or allemanic dialects, but the thought of official recognition in law is completely outside the Overton window.
This has several reasons (it's a non-standartised continuum of dialects often incomprehensible to each other, there is no orthography, it's overly present in pop culture, so there seems to be no reason to protect something that is seemingly doing well on its own etc.) but the most aggravating one is, that it is not considered a real language, but "rustic and low-class german". It is considered extremly impolite to use it in official situations and teachers can get in trouble for speaking too much of it in class or kindergarten.
Since it is constantly waning and mingled with german, many variants became so intercomprehensible with german that the notion of "it's just wrong german" became kind of a self-fullfilling prophecy. Only UNESCO considers it as a separate language.
Don't get me wrong, my dialect is not as endangered as other languages,i don't want to get my doctor's note in bavarian or something like that, i just don't want to get treated like a hillbilly for speaking it, or that i need to defend myself for speaking it in front of others.
In the US, this can be argued to be discrimination in court and has been so successfully on a federal level. I’m surprised this isn’t the case in the EU/Netherlands.
I wish more people would also start caring about preserving Low Saxon, which is another minority language spoken in The Netherlands, but I fear that might already be too late...
Languages change by domains. A domain is a particular area of life--for example, the religious domain, the business domain, etc. With the collapse of Frisian political unity in the early 1500s, each one of these domains was threatened, and it's interesting how long Frisian hung on thereafter. The last generation to have learned it at home on the East Frisian Peninsula in what is now Germany seems to have been born in the early 1700s. Pockets of Frisian survived around Varel until the 1950s (Wangerooge Frisian) and in the Saterland (Saterfrisian, the last truly competent speaker of which died a few years back). These two varieties remained mutually intelligible and sounded remarkably like Hindeloopen Frisian in the Netherlands, another isolate. Considering the domain pressure Westerlauwersk Frysk has been subjected to over the centuries, it's amazing it still exists, though that pressure seems to have affected the phonology and vocabulary to a certain extent. For example, East Frisian Low Saxon spoken in Germany retains a large amount of Old Frisian words that have disappeared from Westerlauwersk Frysk. The aforementioned isolates of Hindeloopen, Wangerooge and Saterfrisian sound more like each other than Westerlauwersk Frysk, and this is probably attributable to the phonological influence of Dutch on Westerlauwersk Frysk.
Would it not be simpler to get a different account?
Eastern Frisian is considered highly endangered as it has like less than 10,000 speakers in Schleswig Holstein and Lower Saxony. Part of my ancestors were Platt speakers and I wouldn’t be surprised if some were Frisians too. I do find Frisian an interesting language as an Anglophone who also speaks German but I find all Germanic languages cool.
Also my Dutch best friend has a the middle name Sjoerd and his fathers side of the family are all Frisians so I’ve heard that name for.
I had to laugh at "algemiene fryske underrjocht kommisje" until I read the English translation and realized that underrjocht means research. In German "unterjocht" means subjugated (a Joch being a yoke, i.e. the thing put onto oxen so they can pull a cart or a plough), so I expected it to be the 'general Frisian subjugation commitee'.
I guess underrjocht is probably more related to the German Unterricht which depending on the context means lesson or more broadly schooling or education.
Thus, unterjocht > underrjocht > underyoked ≈ subjugated. Wild!
One can only imagine what our modern Anglish tongue would sound like nowadays, if Hastings 1066 never happened!
@@bkark0935 I think you misunderstood my comment. I don't think the word underrjocht and unterjocht are related. The meaning is totally different. As I said it seems to be related to German Unter-richt and I would assume its syllables in Frisian are under-rjocht (whereas unter-jocht does not have an r at the start of the second syllable), maybe you can see the similarities from that.
Hello Hilbert. Keep speaking up for your language and identity lad.
However, since you grew up a Geordie too, remember to keep pointing out that UK is not one, but four countries that chose to be a union, one way or another and how things are now, it is up to Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish folk to decide their policies.
I often comment about how there are more folk in Yorkshire than those countries, mostly out of jealousy that there seems no concept of identity for English regions, such as my county or Cornwall, which have, as you mentioned in your Geordie video, historical reasons for being different. There is also no English Parliament. It seemed ironic that English is accepted by IMG.
Hoe komt it dat dyn fryske útspraak sa goed is? Binne dyn âlders Frysk of wennest yn Fryslân ofsa?
I’m goin have to say “hot item” more.
Highly respect those who speak minority languages and teach them to kids .
I'll have my grandmother teach my language to my kids becaude it skipped a generation (my mother's)
I was born in Wales and learnt Welsh in primary school (but i don't remember to which level; i think i was at least conversational), but when we moved to England (and mind you, a country on the border with Wales), i forgot it (well, i still remember some words, like hŵl and tŷ, but it's not enough) as i didn't use it at all. I hate the fact i was so insistent on the fact it was a "useless language" when i was younger. This wasn't helped by the fact English and Russian (i can barely speak Russian though, for some reason) are my mother tongues and everything was easier done in English.
I now live on the Northeastern coast of Spain, close to the French border, so i'm learning Spanish and Catalan (which is actually far easier than Welsh as the languages are almost mutually intelligible).
I think that alongside learning minority languages, children should also be taught _why_ they're important, too. Because without that, they don't see any see much use in it. Actually, well, i've just realised adults too should be taught why, it seems!
This feel like something that would have happened in the 18th century, not the 21st.
It’s crazy how similar the social attitudes against minority languages are everywhere. In certain regions of Switzerland people have to learn up to 5 languages in school while many are not allowed to speak their first language at these same schools.
I do wonder, what is your opinion on limbourgisch?
Don't use ING Diba. When they don't allow the usage of an legal language at home, what other laws will they break abroad?
Is this a recent story or did it occur a while back...?
Sounds like a simliar rule my workplace has. That everyone must always speak in English when talking to clients.. and no one in the background is ever allowed to speak another language at work... even while working at home.
Like I only speak English... but thought it was a bit strange considering if you are not from an English speaking background you have a much higher chance of getting a job with them.
check out what they're doing in Quebec. it's very strongly banning non-french languages without actually promoting French
11:20 IDK if I'd Call Baldrs Draumar metal but they definitely have good music!
their album Magnus for example is metal but they have acoustic music aswell.
Just replace Friesland and Frisian with Wales and Welsh, and you've got a grasp of the state of the language here. Like, idk how many times I've read some news story like this here.
'Oh, but they all speak English/Dutch anyway, just use that'. Some people are better at expressing themselves in the first languages of the areas in which they live and deserve the right to access public services like shops, banks, advice centers, courts, etc. In the language that they feel most comfortable expressing themselves in.
Cefnogaeth i siaradwyr Ffrisieg o Gymru.
You speaking in Frisian sounded like someone speaking Swedish funnily enough :D
In the meantime Brabants and Limburgs don’t even get that minimal smidge of national recognition
Is Gronings considered a dialect of Frisian or a separate language?
I had to go listen to them sing
11:52 i talked to this guy irl i think, on terschelling
i genuinly don't know why there isn't a law mandating all official languages be accomodated.
like it really isn't hard to just have one supervisor from a language in a massive corporation, especially since they already have them for the foreign language of english.
i already take issues with the idea of a nation state, lead to a lotta fascism and isolated minorities from their home country ect. the country should work to support its population, and even if you think the opposite how can people support their country if there's a language barrier to banking how can they contribute? it's just needlessly oppressive for no good reason.
Well, what do they speak in Nuggetsland?
I suppose _Old_ English would be OK? right?
Why? Of woarom in t grunnegs.
Illegal or not, the bank banning Friesian instead of just hiring some Friesian-speaking data center employees is a damned despicable act of corporate cheapness!
"The system being prioritized over the client" is a very good way to describe it, and I would apply that it's an attitude that is epidemic in businesses worldwide...
In fact, I'll expand on that: if the policy was "please speak this language for the purpose of record keeping during the month or two that it takes us to recruit enough fluent speakers of your language", that should be acceptable, but either a blanket ban like this Bank appears to have enacted, or taking longer to recruit fluent speakers, is unacceptably insulting.
I say this as a person who can only carry a full conversation in English.
Primarily, this is cultural abuse. The fact that it is by a corporation - not the (a) state entity - should be noted in a wider context.
3:26 As a Norwegian with fair experience in German and germanic-nordic linguistics, I understood 9/10 of the text. Of course, with voice only, probably less than 1/2, but the main context would still be clear.
Very contrafactual, I wonder how this language group would have survived without all the European conflicts between say 1300-1800? With a broad mutual understanding, the later national borders - and nationalism itself - could have ended up quite different, I guess…
Takk for en flott formidling av språk- og kulturhistorie, hilsen fra 🇳🇴… 👍
It is unfortunate that there is no foreign language, from my understanding, which is mutually intelligible with English. Fresian may be linguistically the closest language to English but, despite its obvious similarities, it is not comprehensible.
Idk maybe Scots?
@@_blank-_ It's not a foreign language. Anyway, it is considered by some to be a dialect.
@@noahbrock349 Let Scotland get its independance and it'll be.
Just a note : country and nation aren't the same thing. So it was confusing at times when you mixed the two together. The Frisians are a nation, the Dutch are a nation with a nation-state/country to represent them.
I feel so bad that West Frisian is the closest language to English and yet I couldn’t understand a word of it. It just sounded like Dutch to me.
Question: How hard would you think it is to learn Frisian as a native (American) English speaker? I've been struggling with Spanish for a couple years now and I think maybe pivoting to another language might help me learn new strategies to learn a language.
I don't know much about Frisian, but keep in mind that the availability of resources is super important for learning a language. I suspect that Spanish would be easier to learn than Frisian for that reason despite being more distantly related. But if you take an interest in Frisian, don't let this dissuade you! Passion for a language makes it easier to study consistently, and that's also very important.
@@Aster-152 That is a good point. I just feel hopeless at picking up Spanish -- my partner's first language and much of her family's primary language. I've been trying for 4 years and while I know a lot of words, I can't string together anything more than a simple sentence and I can only pick out the occasional word out of a sentence if someone is speaking it.
Having personal connections with native speakers of a target language is a priceless resource - make sure to take advantage of that! This could be speaking practice, watching childrens' shows in Spanish together, or anything along those lines. It could also be that your private study technique needs to be changed. Since you said that your main strength is vocab, I'd guess that you're exclusively using something like flashcards, and that can only get you so far. You could try textbooks, in-person classes, podcasts, online tutoring, watching Spanish movies, reading Spanish books, etc. Studying something for 4 years without any success would be a problem with a learning strategy rather than the learner themself. Just make sure to do *something* for at least a half hour daily; binges are notoriously ineffective. And again, your partner and her family are the single greatest resource anybody could have. Don't wait until you've already learned the language to involve them. Best of luck from a fellow Spanish learner; I'm rooting for you!
5:37 Actually Englush is spoken in parts of (Caribian) Netherlands, namely Saba and St, Eustatius.
Ien gebed foar der fryske taal 😔
Just say we're speaking Old English.