What relevance does that have? I'd say it's more important to acknowledge the fact that there are zero Irish speakers who don't also speak English. Including it as an official EU language is an ideological project rather than a pragmatic one.

Because there is a cause to revert the intentional damage done to Irish by the former rulers of the land. With Frisian there was no resistance to it. I think official language status helps provide resources to conservationists of various languages. And trying to conserve a language most of the speakers don't care about us a lot different than trying to conserve a language people do care about but we're forced to suppress for many years so have less ability to conserve it

Nothing against Irish as a language at all - I am just pointing out far more people learn Frisian as their mother tongue.

Whereas Irish seems to be heavily promoted but for whatever reason precious few people learn it as their mother tongue, and those who do so are primarily in an area where it’s always been that way. For better or worse, people are preferring to use English at home and Irish is treated like a luxury good.

> Frisian is not an official language of the Netherlands to the best of my knowledge

Sorry, but it is.

Correct. Frisia (or Fryslân) is a bilingual province. Frisian is an official language of the Netherlands. Someone called in front of a judge in the north of the Netherlands has the right to be heard in Frisian, for example.

Fun fact: villages, towns, and cities in Frisia often have names which differ in Frisian and Dutch. In those cases the signs at the place limits will have both names listed; the official one on top (which in some cases is the Dutch name (e.g., Leeuwarden/Ljouwert) and in some cases the Frisian (e.g., Gytsjerk/Giekerk)).

I really like that the intercom announcement voice in our trains (and also buses?) is bilingual.

And huh interesting, I didn't know that for some places with bilingual names, the Dutch name is official and for others the Frysian is? Who gets to decide that, the municipality?

Yep, the municipality decides on such matters. Places do still occasionally have their names changed (rarely of course, because it involves a lot of work including updating addresses), usually aligning with local use. In the case of De Westereen a name from the local dialect replaced both the Dutch and Frisian names (Zwaagwesteinde and Westerein, respectively).

In a number of cases originally Frisian names actually supplanted older Dutch names (e.g., Burgum, Grou, Eastermar, etc.), so those places have just one name in both languages (except on the Dutch language Wikipedia because of weird reasoning about allowable sources and apparently a hatred of Frisianised Dutch names).

Incorrect.

This is like saying German is an official language of Italy. It is officially recognized in specific bilingual provinces, not nation-wide.

I dunno about the situation with the languages of Italy, from a cursory glance at Wikipedia it seems a _lot_ more complicated than Frysian/Dutch in NL, so I really don't think it's anything "like saying" that.

But "official" means exactly what it means, and when I'm saying "Frysian is an official language of the Netherlands", it means that it's recognized as an official language of Netherlands, by the Dutch government. And if it was up to the provinces I dunno, but it's not. Frysian is the one that's considered one of the official languages of the Netherlands.

I also don't think comparing to Italy makes sense at all because countries are different and decide what are their official languages for very different historical reasons. For instance you can look up what Dutch government body is responsible for deciding the Frysian language is an official one in the Netherlands and why, and you will very likely find no Italian equivalent of that.

It's not really that difficult, an official language OF a country is recognized at a national level. Thus all official government communication must be issued in that language. In the Netherlands, only Dutch has that level of recognition. Same in Italy for Italian

Then there are other, regionally-rocognized language that local governments use alongside the national one (West Frysian in Friesland, German in South Tyrol, etc.), and may even enjoy a majority of speakers within those regions, but they are not "an official language OF" the wider country.

Wikipedia says it's an official language in the region, as English also is regionally, but only Dutch is an official language nationally.

Which is exactly what it says for German in Italy, mutatis mutandis.

in response to: “what language is the Constitution of the Netherlands written in?”

Deepseek answers with, “The Constitution of the Netherlands is written in Dutch.

    Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands and the language used for all primary government and legal documents, including the Constitution (Grondwet).

Key Context:

    Official Language: Dutch is the sole official language for national governance.

    The Kingdom of the Netherlands: It's worth noting that the Kingdom of the Netherlands also includes the Caribbean countries of Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten. While they have their own official languages (Papiamento and English), the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which governs the relationship between these countries, is also originally written in Dutch.

    No Multilingual Version: Unlike some countries (e.g., Canada, Belgium, or Switzerland), the Netherlands does not have an official, legally equivalent version of its Constitution in any other language.

    Therefore, the authoritative and legally binding text of the Constitution exists only in Dutch.”

Frisian may be an official regional language but you're not going to convince me that it's an official language of the Netherlands. Love that I'm getting downvotes about this.

The Constitution of Ireland is written in Irish and English and to the best of my knowledge where differences arise the Irish one takes precedence.

Sorry, but it isn't.