The intergenerational transmission of North Frisian: Promoting multilingual child-rearing and supporting (future) parents

Research team: principal investigator: Ruth Kircher (ECMI), collaborators: Pavlína Heinzová (ECMI), Katharina Jürgensen (ECMI), and Tineke Heck-Lemke (EUF)

Project description:

With an estimated 4,000-5,000 speakers in the district of Nordfriesland, North Frisian has been classified as a severely endangered minority language. Language policies and planning measures to protect and promote North Frisian focus primarily on language teaching at school. However, to date, there have been no concerted efforts to foster intergenerational minority language transmission in the home.

Intergenerational transmission in the home plays a crucial role in ensuring the maintenance and revitalisation of minority languages. Recent research in other contexts has revealed that intergenerational minority language transmission is affected by parents’ attitudes towards the minority language itself as well as by their attitudes towards childhood multilingualism. Moreover, recent research has highlighted the importance of parents’ access to resources that support them throughout the process of multilingual child-rearing, especially when minority languages are being transmitted. A distinction can be made between parent-directed resources (i.e. those providing parents with information about multilingual child-rearing) and child-directed resources (i.e. those promoting children’s multilingual development). Knowledge about parents’ language attitudes, their engagement with existing resources, and their desire for additional resources is thus crucial for the development of effective support measures for Frisian-speaking parents in Nordfriesland.

This project investigates these issues by means of a survey aimed at Frisian-speaking parents of young children. Notably, the project focuses on both: parents who decided to transmit Frisian to their children and parents who decided not to do so. A key aim of the project is to find out how parents can best be supported throughout the process of multilingual child-rearing and minority language transmission.

Project outputs:

Publications:

• Kircher, R., Dekker, S., Dijkstra, J., Heinzova, P., & Vellinga, M. (under review) Family language policies in Nordfriesland and Fryslân: A study of parental language attitudes and the intergenerational transmission of Frisian. Preprint: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/fg649_v1

Publications in preparation:

• Heinzova, P., Dekker, S., Dijkstra, J., Vellinga, M., & Kircher, R. (in preparation) Predictors of parental attitudes toward Frisian: A comparative study from Nordfriesland and Fryslân.
• Kircher, R., Dekker, S., Dijkstra, J., Heinzova, P., & Vellinga, M. (in preparation). The dimensionality and implications of parental attitudes towards childhood multilingualism in Nordfriesland and Fryslân.
• Heinzova, P., Dekker, S., Dijkstra, J., Vellinga, M., & Kircher, R. (in preparation). Predictors of parental attitudes toward childhood multilingualism: A comparative study from Nordfriesland and Fryslân.
• Kircher, R., Heinzova, P., Lew-Williams, C., & Byers-Heinlein, K. (in preparation). Parental attitudes towards childhood multilingualism: New insights from North America and Nordfriesland.
• Quirk, E., Litty, S., Heinzova, P., & Kircher, R. (in preparation). Raising the next generation of trilinguals in Nordfriesland: Family language policies among parents who are transmitting High German, Low German, and North Frisian.

Presentations:

• Kircher, R. (2026, April) “Raising children with more than one language: The dimensionality, nature, and consequences of parents’ attitudes towards childhood multilingualism.” Keynote given at the 11th Annual Spring Research Conference on Multilingual Acquisition; Barcelona, Spain.
• Heinzová, P., Vellinga, M., Dijkstra, J., Dekker, S., Scarse, Y., Heck-Lemke, T., Jürgensen, K., & Kircher, R. (2026, April) “Predictors of parental attitudes to childhood multilingualism: A comparative study from Nordfriesland and Fryslân.” Presentation given at the Bilingualism Matters Symposium; Milan, Italy.
• Kircher, R. (2026, February) “Parental language attitudes and (heritage) language transmission across generations and geographies.” Keynote given at the It Takes a Diaspora to Raise a Language Conference; Los Angeles, United States.
• Heinzová, P., Vellinga, M., Dijkstra, J., Dekker, S., Scarse, Y., Heck-Lemke, T., Jürgensen, K., & Kircher, R. (2025, November) “Predictors of parental attitudes to Frisian: A comparative study from Fryslân and Nordfriesland.” Presentation given at the Conference on Frisian Humanities; Ljouwert, Netherlands.
• Heinzová, P., Vellinga, M., Dijkstra, J., Dekker, S., Scarse, Y., Heck-Lemke, T., Jürgensen, K., & Kircher, R. (2025, November) “Two contexts, one question: How do parents in Nordfriesland and Fryslân see Frisian?” Presentation given at the Interdisciplinary Centre for European Studies – Europa-Universität Flensburg; Flensburg, Germany.

Upcoming presentations:

• Kircher, R., Dekker, S., Heinzová, P., Vellinga, M., Dijkstra, J., Jürgensen, K., Heck-Lemke, T., & Scarse, Y. (2026, October) “Parental attitudes towards childhood multilingualism in Nordfriesland and Fryslân.” Presentation to be given at the Second International Symposium on Language Ideologies and Attitudes; Lleida, Spain.
• Kircher, R., Dekker, S., Heinzová, P., Vellinga, M., Dijkstra, J., Scarse, Y., Jürgensen, K., & Heck-Lemke, T. (2026, June) “Official and family language policies in Nordfriesland and Fryslân.” Presentation to be given at the Multidisciplinary Approaches in Language Policy and Planning Conference; Ottawa, Canada.
• Kircher, R., Heinzová, P., Moore, C., Jürgensen, K., Lew-Williams, C., & Byers-Heinlein, K. (2026, June) “Language beliefs amongst parents raising bilingual children with different language constellations.” Presentation to be given (as part of a special panel entitled "Family Language Policy: Questions and Actions", chaired by Nikolay Slavkov) at the Multidisciplinary Approaches in Language Policy and Planning Conference; Ottawa, Canada.

Master’s thesis:

Tineke Heck-Lemke (EUF) wrote her Master’s thesis Die intergenerationale Weitergabe des nordfriesischen Dialekts Sölring based on the Sylt data from this project, which she collected. Her thesis was supervised by Nils Langer (EUF) and Ruth Kircher (ECMI). A blog post based on her thesis is in preparation and will be linked here once it is published.

Research report:

More information about the research report based on this project will be provided soon.

Event:

On 30th November 2026, an event based on the Intergenerational transmission of North Frisian and Intergenerational transmission of West Frisian projects. It will take place at the Dansk Centralbibliotek for Sydslesvig in Flensburg. More information about this event will be provided soon.

The intergenerational transmission of West Frisian:

North Frisian is closely related to West Frisian, which is spoken in the province of Fryslân (Netherlands). In parallel to this study of the intergenerational transmission of North Frisian, Ruth Kircher and her colleagues from Afûk and the Fryske Akademy are conducting a study of the intergenerational transmission of West Frisian. This will allow for a comparison of the two Frisian-speaking contexts, and it will yield overarching results that are pertinent for the maintenance and revitalisation of Frisian on both sides of the Dutch-German border. More information about the West Frisian study can be found here.