kroade, wheelbarrow, kruiwagen: Taalbeheersing van Friese emigranten en hun kinderen. (Frisian)

This article gives an insight into the language proficiency of trilingual Frisian emigrants and their children. More specifically answers were sought to the following two questions: to what extent do Frisian emigrants and their children have command of the Frisian language? And related to this: how can this be compared to the language proficiency in the other two languages Frisian emigrants may use: Dutch and the 'national language' of the country of emigration? A large group of participants on a written questionnaire were asked to make self-assessments of their language skills (understanding, speaking, reading, and writing). A smaller group was personally interviewed during the event Simmer 2000 in Friesland. They were asked to rate their own language proficiency, and compare their command of one language to another. During the in-depth interview two language proficiency tests were administered. The results of the language tests are in accordance with the self-ratings, in that the first generation emigrants maintain a high level of competence in speaking and understanding Frisian, but reading and writing Frisian lags behind. The participants of the second generation, especially the children born in the country of emigration, have a significantly worse command of Frisian. The social network of the emigrant plays an important role in the language proficiency in Frisian. In comparing the proficiency in Frisian with the competence in the other two languages, it becomes clear that this differs for the four emigrant groups. It depends on factors like age upon migration and time since migration whether the Frisian language or the national language takes first or second place, Dutch comes in third. Whether or not the actual Frisian spoken is of high quality, remains to be seen. Further linguistic research will have to address this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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