LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN THE NETHERLANDS

 

      Leeuwarden ( Ljouwert ) will precede Romania (Cluj-Napoca ?) as European Capital of Culture in 2018. In contrary to Romania, language rights of  autonomous people are respected.

 

      The Dutch national minority is free to write in Frisian with public authorities. Frisians are  allowed to write contracts in the Frisian language and it is possible to write a contact at the notary in frisian, besides  this monolingual frisian language signs are allowed.

 

      Also Frisian people are free to  broadcast in Frisian without any kind of government interference. The Frisian people are free to nurture their culture and they are freely allowed to use their national symbols such as the Frisian flag.  Almost all police men in Fryslan speak Frisian.  Forced assimilation is unknown. It goes without saying that Frisians are allowed to become judges, policemen, or prosecutors. In contrary to Romania they are not  shamefully underrepresented as ethnic Hungarians are.

 

      There are no Dutch nationalists who intimidate  Frisians  because they practice Frisian national sports such as fierljeppen  (more info here )or Skûtsjesilen  ( More info here ) or they search for ljip eggs (more info here )  It is very strange to realise that  over 1 million autonomous ethnic Hungarians are not allowed to use the same rights as Frisians have in the Netherlands.

 

      Well the outrageous thing is that  Romania ratified treaties (European Charta of Regional Languages, Strassbourg Treaty etc. ) which protect the rights of it’s ethnic inhabitants. Ratifying these treaties was a hard condition for becoming member of the European Union. However these treaties are simply structuraly violated.  Clicking on the images below you read about the language rights of Frisians in the Netherlands. ( Hungarian, Dutch and Romanian version is available )