I haven't ever met Peter, but I feel as if I have. Last year I ventured into a new area, exploring just what went wrong in cases such as that of Trayvon Martin. Peter's wise counsel and wonderful scholarship opened up new scholarly doors for me, making me smarter and, hopefully, better. His comments were absolutely essential to get me properly focused on a variety of issues on which I was ignorant. I feel his loss personally. Michael G. Heyman, Professor, The John Marshall Law School (Chicago)
I am writing on behalf of the Fryske Akademy (Frisian Academy) in Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, where we all very much regret that Peter Tiersma is no more with us. In 1952 Peter was born in the Frisian village of Toppenhuzen and as a young boy he emigrated with his family to the USA. As a native speaker of Frisian he got his first university education in linguistics and since then he has done a lot for the study and maintenance of this minority language in the Netherlands. When he came to Europe with a Fulbright Scholarship in 1978 he did linguistic fieldwork in the village of Grou. There he studied particular phonological aspects of his mother tongue, the topic of his thesis. I had the privilege to meet him and to study together some of these problems. Later he wrote the book Frisian Reference Grammar (Fryske Akademy, 1985), which is still the best introduction to the Frisian language in the English speaking world. During his whole academic life he maintained strong ties with his native country and with his colleagues at the Fryske Akademy. In a certain sense his later work on Language and Law can be related to the legal aspects of minority languages. In Friesland we very much appreciated his broad interdisciplinary vision and his friendly approach to and interest in the work of the Fryske Akademy. His support was also stimulating for the editorial board and the editor of the Frysk-Ingelsk wurdboek (Frisian-English dictionary, 2000) and personally I enjoyed his co-operation and friendship when we published together on phonetic aspects of Frisian. It was a pleasure to meet him and Thea in the Netherlands and to experience their great hospitality during our stay in California. Peter can be considered as a symbol of all Frisians who emigrated to America for various reasons, which are expressed in one of our Frisian songs, the Lânferhuzerssang: Amearika, do lân fan dream en winsken…do hast my brea en wolfeart jûn (Emigrant’s song: America, you land of dream and wishes… you have given me bread and prosperity). Not only did Peter have a brilliant career in his new country, he also generously shared his wisdom and friendship with his old country. We are grateful for this and shall keep him in our memory. Tjeerd/Tseard de Graaf