Joost Halbertsma’s 1872 Lexicon Frisicum and the Relationship between Men and Women in Nineteenth-Century Friesland

Abstract

This article deals with the relationship between men and women as expressed in the Frisian–Latin Lexicon Frisicum (1872), compiled by Joost Hiddes Halbertsma (1789–1869). The article begins with a brief outline of the Frisian language, then introduces Halbertsma and his dictionary. The main part of the article tries to draw a picture of the relationship between men and women in nineteenth-century Friesland from sample sentences in the dictionary. As expected, we clearly recognize a male-dominated society, reflecting the social division of roles. Taking a broader view, the image that emerges from the various examples is often not as specifically Frisian as one might think at first glance. Although a dictionary can provide a time- and place-bound picture of gender relationships, we must be careful about drawing firm conclusions about the ideological and moral biases of the Lexicon Frisicum and its author. What makes such conclusions even more difficult is that the dictionary was not aimed at ordinary Frisians.

Notes

1 Most of them were male. There were female teachers in the Netherlands, but they were only given a permanent place in education when a new draft of the Primary Education Act, submitted on 2 March 1878, made plain needlework for girls a compulsory subject in the primary school curriculum. In addition, the law favoured teaching by female teachers in the lowest classes (Onderwijsgeschiedenis, van griffel tot iPad [History of education, from slate-pencil to iPad], http://www.onderwijsgeschiedenis.nl/Tijdvakken/Onderwijs-en-opvoeding-in-de-2e-helft-19e-eeuw/).

2 Dykstra (2011) provides a detailed analysis of the Lexicon Frisicum, its history, and Halbertsma’s lexicographical methodology. This dissertation also provides biographical data on Halbertsma, as well as an extensive bibliography containing an overview of the relevant existing literature on Halbertsma and the Lexicon Frisicum. One of its chapters deals with Halbertsma’s choice of Latin as metalanguage. An English version of the chapter on metalanguage can be found in Dykstra (2010).

Approximately 75% of the Lexicon Frisicum is available online at https://lexiconfrisicum.ivdnt.org. All Latin and Greek from the original has been translated into Frisian, and a large part also into Dutch. The online version is a work in progress. A complete copy of the Lexicon Frisicum (1876 edition) is available at https://archive.org/details/lexiconfrisicum01halbgoog/mode/1up.

3 Marvin Wiegand, PhD student at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, pers. comm., 2 June 2021.

4 The scholarly Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (Dictionary of the Frisian language), which describes the Frisian language from 1800 to 1975, gives this proverb from the Lexicon Frisicum under the headword eftIII.

5 ‘Notatu dignum est secundas nuptias, quantum uxores attinet, Frisiis veteribus despectui fuisse. Hindelopia, urbs maritima, non alios fovebat incolas praeter nautas, quorum cum multi perirent naufragio relictae viduae favore communi civium sibi sufficiebant neque indigebant secundo marito, qui eis earumque liberis vitam querebat. Illud fuit in causa quare haec urbs, morum avitorum caeteris tenacior, superiore adhucdum saeculo majore abundabat viduarum numero, quam ulla pars Frisiae’.

6 ‘Adde quod apud Frisios in genere, neque privignus in nomen et honorem patris mortui, neque noverca in amorem erga matrem mortuam succedat. Privigni privignaeque vitricum avunculi, novercam amitae nomine compellant, qui caeteris Neerlandis pater materque audiunt’.

7 In the Lexicon Frisicum, lemmata are given either in upper case or in lower case. The lemmata in capital letters determine the alphabetical order. The lemmata in lower case relate in some way to the preceding lemma in capitals.

8 Schipper also gives examples of widows whose mourning is of short duration: ‘A rich widow rejoices in the constant attention of the community she belongs to. Many proverbs comment on her. She is much better off than the poor widow, as she does not depend on other people’s charity. The more her husband has left behind for her, it is suggested, the more quickly she is inclined to forget him: “The favourite wife does not mourn her husband”, a Kundu proverb observes. The world tends to be ungrateful. In Europe and both Americas, the rich widow is presented as a person who is certainly not as desperate as others might wish her to be’ (Schipper 2006, 125).

9 Town Frisian is a mixed Dutch–Frisian dialect spoken in the towns in Friesland.

10 Based on a manuscript (ante 1836), where it reads: ‘Elck in boxe seijt iit wijf, in jae noam de heele broeck’.

11 Since Dutch vrijen has the same meaning as Frisian frije, this example does not specifically say anything about Frisian society.

12 In the Lexicon Frisicum there is no mention at all of homosexuality. In a letter to Jacob Grimm, Halbertsma spoke about the crimen nefandum, the unspeakable crime, by which he meant homosexuality—the ultimate abomination according to him. Homosexuality was a crime in the Netherlands until 1811, when the sodomy law was abolished. Halbertsma’s lexicographic principles entailed that obscene words are as good as any. Therefore, he should have included words and expressions referring to homosexuality. He must have known them. Apparently, homosexuality fell under a very strict taboo, even after 1811 and even for Halbertsma, who is known to have had a taste for the scabrous (see https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/1270391/93030_09.pdf).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne Dykstra

Anne Dykstra (1949), now retired, worked as a lexicographer at the Fryske Akademy (Frisian Academy), Leeuwarden, the Netherlands from 1985 to 2014. He obtained his doctorate in 2011 with a thesis on the Lexicon Frisicum and its author Joost Hiddes Halbertsma.