The West Frisian Dialect

Wervershoof 30-05-1913. Mrs Maartje Hooijveld-Mantel sends a postcard to her niece who lives in the neighboring village of Andijk:

~

"Efrouw!

Hiermede bericht ik u dat a.s. zondag P.B. komt, dus verwacht ik later bericht van u. Warm wéér te schoonmaken Ant! maar op bloote benen in de klompen

Nahartelijke groete

M. Mantel-Hooijveld"

~

 In English:

~

"Efrouw!

Herewith I let you know that P.B. will visit me this Sunday, so I expect you to inform me soon. Warm weather to do cleaning Ant!, on bare feet (legs) in our wooden shoes it is then.

Wit kind regards,

M . Mantel-Hooijveld"

 ~

The postcard is somewhat stained, so the true reason I bought this was the message it contains. Especially the last 'cleaning'- sentence sparked my interest:

"Warm wéér te schoonmaken Ant! maar op bloote benen in de klompen"It is written in 'pseudo' West Frisian, to be precise the dialect variant of the Dutch language, not the one labelled as language and which is spoken in the province of Friesland across the IJsselmeer.

A short piece on this dialect can be consulted on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Frisian_Dutch but alas there is no grammar available for English readers, so I will show you a couple of linguistic phenomena typical of West Frisian from the handbook "Hé, is dat Westfries?" by the great H. Langedijk:

Different conjugation of irregular verbs

Dutch: helpen, hielp, geholpen
West Frisian: helpe, holp, holpen
English: help, helped, helped

A peculiarity of West Frisian is the absence of the 'ge'-prefix for the present perfect: so, "holpen" instead of "geholpen"

Another one:
Dutch: hangen, hing, gehangen
West Frisian: hange, hong, hongen
English: hang, hung, hung

Different auxiliary verbs

Dutch: Jij bent niet mee geweest.
West Frisian: Jij hewwe niet mee weest.
English: You haven't come/'been' (with us).

In West Frisian the auxiliary verb of 'to be' = a form of 'hebben' (hewwe) and not 'zijn' (bent) as in Dutch. It sounds very odd if you're not from West Frisia and would be the equivalent of replacing the English 'haven't' with 'wasn't': 'You wasn't come with us'...

The real surprise, if you have been paying close attention, is the fact that English uses the auxiliary verb 'to have' for the present perfect 'been' as in West Frisian but unlike the Dutch 'to be'.

Vocabulary

Enough grammar for now, since the real reason why West Frisian is such a fun language to learn results from its vocabulary and proverbs. It is well-known Frisian is more closely related to English than Dutch and therefore West Frisian has some conspicuous anglophone words as well which are non-existent in Dutch: e.g.
Dutch: Schemerig
West Frisian: Tweilichtig
English: Twilit / dusky

Other wonderful West Frisian expressions (some derive from older Dutch or French words, but other are definitely 'original' and very creative):

Dutch: 't Is mistig.
West Frisian: 't Is moordenaarsweer.
English: It is foggy [murders' weather].

Dutch: Dat was een welkome verrassing.
West Frisian: Dat was in de emmer.
English: That was a pleasant surprise [That was in the bucket].

Dutch: Hij keek erg teleurgesteld.
West Frisian: Z'n lip hong op 't onderste knoupsgat.
English: He looked very disappointed [His lip had fallen to his undermost buttonhole].

Dutch: Daar komen van die hooghartige dames aan.
West Frisian: Deer komme van die grooske tieten an.
English: Those arrogant women are approaching [those arrogant tits are approaching].

Now the grand finale: a proverb which is said of lazy and/or tired people:

West Frisian: 'Louf? Louf ken lang an: eer je biene bai je kniese of benne kèn je nag zestien jaar te wortelewuden nei de Langedoik.
English: Tired? Fatigue can take a long time: before your legs have been worn up to your knees, you're still able to weed amid the carrots in Langedijk for sixteen years.

There you have it: a small introduction to West Frisian because of Maartje Mantel's:


"Warm wéér te schoonmaken Ant! maar op bloote benen in de klompen"
Although she tried to make her West Frisian more Dutch, she made one mistake: to place the essential subordinating conjugation 'om' before the 'te': het is warm weer om te schoonmaken'. But overall, she did a good job: she didn't wrote 'skoonmaken' instead of the Dutch schoonmaken (to clean) and she didn't wrote 'biene' for the Dutch 'benen' (legs).

Large round postmark of Wervershoof on a ¢2½ Vürtheim stamp

The decline

Already in 1913 West Frisians seemingly wanted to speak and write as 'normal' Dutch (whatever that means...). After WWII when the Netherlands prospered and West Frisians could afford study and travel, they tried even harder to ban West Frisian because you made yourself look ridiculous in company of more decent people (from Haarlem, The Hague, Utrecht etc.). The rise of television didn't help much either to preserve the language.
Nowadays you could still hear some reminders of the West Frisian dialect in people's tongue. Especially the melodious aspect of it and the 'wrong' pronunciation of the sch- as in Schaatsen (Ice-skating) which becomes 'Skaatsen' is something difficult to get rid of. But the true soul of the language: the vocabulary, typical expressions and grammar have sadly all become something of the past.

Typenrader arrival 'Langebalk' postmark of the neighbouring village of Andijk 

Sluis & Groot - Seed trade and an insolvable postal rate

Seed

The devastating consequences of the rinderpest which caused many farmers to loose their livestock during the 18th century, made some affected farmer force to change their way of livelihood. In West Frisia some of them opted for a more stable profession in the seed-cultivation. Better drainage systems improved the (already) very fertile grounds in the region and the first generation of market gardeners / agriculturalists grabbed this opportunity not only to generate and cultivate seeds for their own usage, but for sale as well. At first these West Frisian entrepreneurs combined seed-cultivation and trade in one company, but in the industrial 19th century the (inter)national demand for good quality seed increased so strongly that the businesses of old had to be split in seed-cultivation and trade only companies respectively. To this day seed-cultivation remains one of the biggest industries in West Frisia. 

Trust

One of the most essential elements in the 'seed industry' is the trust between seed-cultivator-trader and trader/supplier-customer/agriculturalist. Whereas a greengrocer judges the crops he buys by checking the freshness of the foliage and the colour, a crop farmer who buys the seeds for these products cannot judge for himself if a particular batch of seeds will produce healthy crops. He has to trust his trader in good faith.

Sluis & Groot

It goes without saying that some traders had more reliable contacts in the seed industry than others, which made customers opt for the best-quality traders. The early start of seed-cultivation and trade in West Frisia wouldn't do the reliable dealers any economic harm in the increased international trade of the 19th century. On the contrary: some of the them became fabulously successful. One of them was Nanne Janszoon Groot (1771-1855) who lived in the small village of Andijk. After his death his sons Pieter and Simon continued the business. In 1867 Nanne's grandchildren Nanne Sluis and Nanne Groot formed the company Sluis & Groot and two brothers of Nanne Sluis, Jacob and Pieter began a company called the Sluis Brothers (later on called Royal Sluis). Both companies became part of large multinationals recently (Syngenta, Seminis, now Monsanto).

Sluis & Groot company in Enkhuizen. Shows the room where all seeds were assembled and prepared for being sent away.

Enkhuizen and the world

At the end of the 19th century both companies moved to Enkhuizen due to better means of transport over water and from 1885 the rail connection with Amsterdam. Already in 1855 certain international contacts were established when the company was still stationed in Andijk (seed traders as Vilmorin-Andrieux in Paris and Ernst Benary in Erfurt). After 1855 the international trade exploded due to the trustful relationship and personal contact between Sluis & Groot and the Sluis Brothers with their customers. They even visited their customers and inspected the quality of the grounds and climate in situ to judge how their seeds would grow there and which seeds would perform better. This research was also in the interest of the seed industry in West Frisia as the companies could inform the cultivators to which standards their seeds should comply. A real win-win situation.

Seed and administrative boom 

It should be no surprise that with such expertise the companies rocketed: in 1905 Dutch seed firms exported a 'mere' 750.000 kilos in seed abroad, but already in 1925 they exported a staggering figure of 5.000.000 kilos to every country in the world. Together with the increased interest in Dutch seeds, both companies had to manage their contacts by means of a large administrative office. In the posts on this blog to follow I will often refer to this one as we'll see many postcards, envelopes, bills etc. addressed to and sent by seed traders, agriculturalists etc. The first example is shown below:

Cover (front only) from Sluis & Groot to a crop farmer (landbouwer) in Avereest in the Dutch province of Overijssel. 22th of August 1905. 

The cover above was registered and weighted 30 grams. It was sent registered and insured since an amount of ƒ210,00 was enclosed. The rate was made up as follows: 10c for a domestic destination (2nd weight class 15-50 grams) + a 10c registered fee + 3 times 2,5c for insurance. Per ƒ100 it would have cost the company 2,5c. So that would be (10 + 10 + 7,5 = 27,5) 27,5c.... 27,5c? Yes, according to the handbook by W.S. da Costa on Dutch rates, but why is there a Wilhelmina fur-collar stamp of only 22,5c attached to the cover?

Wilhelmina fur collar 22,5c stamp

The reason why there could be a 22,5c stamp on this cover could have resulted from a (for the PTT) unprofitable arrangement. Until the first of March 1921 the registration fee was (partially) included in the assurance fee. So, Sluis & Groot only had to pay a 2,5c registration fee on top of  the 7,5c insurance costs. Then the sum should tally: 10c 2nd weight class + 7,5c + 2,5 = 20c.......... Ooopsss....

Maybe the postal clerk forgot to charge the 2nd weight class of 10c: the first weight class which goes up to 15 grams needed a 5c stamp in 1905. 5 + 10 + 7,5 = 22,5. However, it is odd to forget such a basic rule and moreover he completely forgot the registration fee inclusion as well.

I cannot believe though that I've more knowledge than a 1905 postal clerk. The rate has to be right, but the difficulty remains: how was is composed?