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In the whole of Europe there almost doesn't exist a more colourful mix of languages, as in Nordfriesland.

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A unity that only since the 1970's exists as a separate district.

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Of the 160.000 inhabitants, only about 10.000 speak one of the nine Nordfrisian dialects,

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of the islands, or of the coastal region.

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Have you silaged already?

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We have just finished, there lies the heap.

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That big one there. We finished yesterday.

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How many tons, or how do you call that?

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How many däämde, you mean?

10
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Is it called that?

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Up and around 70 däämde.
That is 35 hectares.

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Can you feed the cattle like that for the whole winter?

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Yes, we mow two, three times.

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First, second, third cut we call it.

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That is the first, that the second and there comes the third.

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And then we also have corn. 17 hectares.

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Every year it went worse with Frisian.

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Especially the last few years. But now it has stabilised.

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Maybe it even gets better now.

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But they are countable on the fingers of one hand,

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the kids that still speak Frisian.

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But there are coming more the last years.

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Can you still speak Frisian anywhere you want to?

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Here in the village you can. At the bank you can speak Frisian.

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When you go to the store, you can speak Frisian.

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In many places you can. At the bank and such.

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And at the townhall. There they all speak Frisian.

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There you can use it. And i do so very consciously.

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When i first came here, everything was in Frisian.

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You have to call the animals, the dogs, in Frisian.

31
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When you want to play with the children, you have to speak Frisian.

32
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Grandfather and grandmother here also speak Frisian of course.

33
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So you don't hear German for weeks.

34
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That is something else.

35
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Have you learned a lot here?

36
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I don't even know how long i was here, two months?

37
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Six weeks? The first time six weeks.

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When i went again, i could speak Frisian quite well.

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After a few more times, it becomes very normal to speak.

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There also always were a lot of contacts with the Dutch Fryslân.

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A library with all kinds of literature from the Frisian lands, was founded by Frederik Paulsen.

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The Ferring Stiftung, that runs the library now,

43
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supports research and Frisians from the three Frisian lands have meetings here.

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I think we are less of a unity here than you in West-Frisia.

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We also don't really have a centre here, that could have made us feel like a unity as Nord Frisians.

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The Nord Frisian movement has to work on that. Then it will come.

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Because of the existance of the Nordfriisk Instituut in Bredstedt...

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... it is clear we belong together as Nordfrisians.

49
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We as Nordfrisians shouldn't cut ourselves off from our common roots.

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Do you speak Frisian?
Not so much.

51
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We spoke High-German at home. At my grandfathers' they did speak Frisian.

52
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But we are from another generation, aren't we.

53
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They still learn it at school.

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I am Frisian. That is just a part of us.

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But i don't really practise it much.

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My wife speaks High- and Low-German.

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My son said something in Frisian, but she didn't understand that.

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With my wife Low-German, with my children Frisian and with my dog High-German.

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What kind of language is this?

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This is the Nordfrisian dialect 'Süder goesharder'.

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It became extinct in the 80's. Nobody still speaks it.

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We try to reconstruct it by use of old recordings.

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This language doesn't exist anymore?

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The last speaker has past away. It was spoken in Schöbull and Hattstedt.

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In Schöbull it died out in the 60's and in Hattstedt in the 80's.

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The last speaker past away in 86'.

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With such recordings from the 50's, you amusingly hear...

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...that the ordinary people didn't have false teeth yet.

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You already can not understand it very well, because the dialect has gone extinct.

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With the teeth out, you only hear mumble, mumble.

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It is almost impossible to follow what they say.

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When the recordings get digitalized, the quality will be much better.

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It is difficult to understand right now.

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We want to reconstruct the grammar and words from this dialect.

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Because it is a shame that such a language disappears from the face of the earth, just like that.

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When science would say: your language has no chance of survival...

77
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... then we could say to the media:

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All Nordfrisians go to Heligoland and jump in the sea.

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That would be a spectacle. Fine to broadcast on television:

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The great end of 'The drama of the Nordfrisian'.

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But we are not like that. We go on with what lives in us.

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Things we don't want to do, we don't do.

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We live our lifes as we are.