In the whole of Europe there almost doesn't exist a more colourful mix of languages, as in Nordfriesland.
A unity that only since the 1970's exists as a separate district.
Of the 160.000 inhabitants, only about 10.000 speak one of the nine Nordfrisian dialects,
of the islands, or of the coastal region.
Have you silaged already?
We have just finished, there lies the heap.
That big one there. We finished yesterday.
How many tons, or how do you call that?
How many däämde, you mean?
Is it called that?
Up and around 70 däämde. That is 35 hectares.
Can you feed the cattle like that for the whole winter?
Yes, we mow two, three times.
First, second, third cut we call it.
That is the first, that the second and there comes the third.
And then we also have corn. 17 hectares.
Every year it went worse with Frisian.
Especially the last few years. But now it has stabilised.
Maybe it even gets better now.
But they are countable on the fingers of one hand,
the kids that still speak Frisian.
But there are coming more the last years.
Can you still speak Frisian anywhere you want to?
Here in the village you can. At the bank you can speak Frisian.
When you go to the store, you can speak Frisian.
In many places you can. At the bank and such.
And at the townhall. There they all speak Frisian.
There you can use it. And i do so very consciously.
When i first came here, everything was in Frisian.
You have to call the animals, the dogs, in Frisian.
When you want to play with the children, you have to speak Frisian.
Grandfather and grandmother here also speak Frisian of course.
So you don't hear German for weeks.
That is something else.
Have you learned a lot here?
I don't even know how long i was here, two months?
Six weeks? The first time six weeks.
When i went again, i could speak Frisian quite well.
After a few more times, it becomes very normal to speak.
There also always were a lot of contacts with the Dutch Fryslân.
A library with all kinds of literature from the Frisian lands, was founded by Frederik Paulsen.
The Ferring Stiftung, that runs the library now,
supports research and Frisians from the three Frisian lands have meetings here.
I think we are less of a unity here than you in West-Frisia.
We also don't really have a centre here, that could have made us feel like a unity as Nord Frisians.
The Nord Frisian movement has to work on that. Then it will come.
Because of the existance of the Nordfriisk Instituut in Bredstedt...
... it is clear we belong together as Nordfrisians.
We as Nordfrisians shouldn't cut ourselves off from our common roots.
Do you speak Frisian? Not so much.
We spoke High-German at home. At my grandfathers' they did speak Frisian.
But we are from another generation, aren't we.
They still learn it at school.
I am Frisian. That is just a part of us.
But i don't really practise it much.
My wife speaks High- and Low-German.
My son said something in Frisian, but she didn't understand that.
With my wife Low-German, with my children Frisian and with my dog High-German.
What kind of language is this?
This is the Nordfrisian dialect 'Süder goesharder'.
It became extinct in the 80's. Nobody still speaks it.
We try to reconstruct it by use of old recordings.
This language doesn't exist anymore?
The last speaker has past away. It was spoken in Schöbull and Hattstedt.
In Schöbull it died out in the 60's and in Hattstedt in the 80's.
The last speaker past away in 86'.
With such recordings from the 50's, you amusingly hear...
...that the ordinary people didn't have false teeth yet.
You already can not understand it very well, because the dialect has gone extinct.
With the teeth out, you only hear mumble, mumble.
It is almost impossible to follow what they say.
When the recordings get digitalized, the quality will be much better.
It is difficult to understand right now.
We want to reconstruct the grammar and words from this dialect.
Because it is a shame that such a language disappears from the face of the earth, just like that.
When science would say: your language has no chance of survival...
... then we could say to the media:
All Nordfrisians go to Heligoland and jump in the sea.
That would be a spectacle. Fine to broadcast on television:
The great end of 'The drama of the Nordfrisian'.
But we are not like that. We go on with what lives in us.
Things we don't want to do, we don't do.
We live our lifes as we are.