Fryske Akademy honoured with visit from King Willem-Alexander

King Willem-Alexander paid a working visit to the Fryske Akademy today. In the presence of Commissioner of the King Arno Brok and member of the Provincial Executive Eke Folkerts, the king held talks with managing-director Dr Nelleke IJssennagger-van der Pluijm and five members of our scientific staff. Dr Anne Merkuur (linguist), Dr Han Nijdam (historian), Dr Jelske Dykstra (Mercator project manager), Dr Hindrik Sijens (lexicographer) and PhD student Martijn Kingma told the king about their research in the field of frisistics.

Managing-director Dr Nelleke IJssennagger-van der Pluijm thought it was very special. ‘The king was well versed, he was curious about what we were all doing and he was also interested in the position of Frisian compared to other minority languages in Europe.’ It was a very nice conversation, IJssennagger-van der Pluijm felt. ‘The king asked good questions and also came up with examples himself. Everyone at the table was able to give something to the king from his or her own expertise and it flowed together very organically.’

An animated conversation

Linguist Anne Merkuur enjoyed being able to tell the king how we at the Fryske Akademy use the Frisian case to answer larger scientific questions. ‘We talked about language change, whether one language changes more than another, about when spelling changes. It was an animated conversation.’ The king's focus on Frisian, and how Frisian functions today, is what lexicographer Hindrik Sijens is keen to point out. ‘What we do for that and the research we do, we were able to explain that very well to the king.’ The digital Frisian Rhyme Dictionary on Frysker.nl also came up for discussion. ‘That way we could show how technology is of service in promoting Frisian.’

Curious

Jelske Dijkstra was pleased to be able to share the full story of the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning. ‘There was plenty of room for that in the conversation. I was able to point out our partners abroad and our international cooperation, and the king found it interesting to hear how we operate within Europe.’ Sijens adds: ‘The king also touched a bit on Papiamentu, because we will have guests from Curaçao this afternoon. And he mentioned Welsh as an example, because he himself studied in Wales.’

Martijn Kingma talked about his research and its application for the future. ‘I also said that the fundamental research that happens here is very important. Like the research we do, on how Frisian works in schools, for example, and then you see bilingual and trilingual education reflected in the BFTK. It was good to see the king paying attention to that as well.’

Knowledge infrastructure

After the visit to the Fryske Akademy, the king and his entourage crossed the street to visit our knowledge partners, the historical and literary centre Tresoar and training institute and publishing house Afûk. IJssennagger-van der Pluijm: ‘When we heard that the king was visiting all three of us, we naturally discussed it with the institutes. Each institute had a slightly different mission to show to the king, but I think that just fits in very nicely with how we already work together anyway and how the knowledge infrastructure works here.’

A photo report by Marieke Balk will follow soon.