Frisian is a legally protected language. It has official status in the province of Friesland. Schools are required to teach it. The provincial government funds programs for it. And yet, year by year, fewer children grow up speaking it naturally.

How does a language die while protected? The answer is management. When a language is managed rather than lived, it becomes a subject on a timetable rather than a tool for thought. Children learn that Frisian is something you do in one hour on Thursday, not something you use to argue, joke, flirt, or think.

The structural pressures are clear. Dutch-speaking parents move into the province and send their children to Dutch-track schools. Teachers who are not native speakers teach Frisian from textbooks. The media ecosystem is small, Omrop Fryslân does good work, but it cannot compete with the full weight of Dutch and English entertainment that a 12-year-old consumes every day.

What Frisian actually needs is cultural confidence, not curriculum hours. It needs to be the language of something cool, something contemporary, something that young people choose rather than endure.

The clock is running. Another generation raised on Dutch television and English social media will make the question academic.