Ottema has the following to say about this Old Frisian script and language
The language is ancient Frisian, even older and much purer than the language of the Frisian ‘Rjuchtboek’ (law book) or old Frisian laws, from which it differs in many forms and spellings, so that it reflects a completely unique dialect, which, according to the localities, must have been the language as it was spoken from the Vlie to the Scheldt.
The style is extremely simple, concise, with short sentences, a casual progression, just like everyday colloquial language, and free in the forms of words.
The spelling is also simple and convenient, so that reading the words does not require even the slightest effort: And yet, for all its regularity, it is so free that each of the different scribes who worked on the book have their own idiosyncratic styles due to the change in the pronunciation of vowels over long periods of time. This is indeed only natural, as the final section was penned five centuries after the first. This book, I believe I can say, is an ancient testimony to language and writing, unique in its kind.
The script itself gives rise to what might very well be an important remark:
The Greeks are aware and acknowledge that they did not invent their script. They attribute the introduction of writing to Kadmus, a Phoenician. The names of their oldest letters from alpha to tau correspond so completely with the names of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet – potentially a close relative to the Phoenician alphabet – that there can be no doubt as to the Phoenician origin of these names. But the form of their letters differs so completely and in all respects from the Phoenician and Hebrew scripts that any relationship must certainly be deemed inconceivable. So where did the Greeks acquire the form of their letters?
‘Thet bok thera adela folstar’ (‘The book of the followers of Adela’) teaches us that at the time when Kadmus must have lived, around 16 centuries before Christ, there was lively trade between the Fryas/Friesians and the Phoenicians, who called themselves ‘Kadhemar’ (‘coastal dwellers’). The name ‘Kadmus’ bears such a striking resemblance to the word ‘Kadhemar’ that we must conclude that Kadmus simply means a Phoenician.
We also read that around the same time a priestess from the castle at Walcheren, Minerva, also known as Nyhellenia, settled in Attica as the mistress of a Fryas colony, where she founded the castle of Athenja (Athens).
Frya’s standing script, Festa’s runic script and Godfried’s numrals (pages 46/47 as facsimile in Ottema 1872 & 1876)
Likewise, we learn from the reports inscribed on the walls of Waraburg that Finda's people also had their own script, but that it was very cumbersome and difficult to read and that the Tyrians and the Krekalanders therefore preferred to learn the script of Frya.
Everything becomes rather self-explanatory with this in mind, and it is evident what led to the outward similarity between the Greek and the Old Frisian script – a fact that Caesar also noticed among the Gauls; also how the Greeks acquired and maintained the name of Findas and the spelling of Frya's script at the same time.
The manner in which numerals are written is equally striking. Our numbers are usually called Arabic numerals, although they do not bear the slightest resemblance to them. The Arabs in Spain did not import their numerals from the East, because the Semitic peoples used the entire alphabet to write down numbers. The Arabs learnt how to express all numbers with 10 characters in the West, but chose characters that were somewhat similar to their own alphabet, and yet were written from left to right in the Western way. Our numerals here appear to originate from Old Frisian numerals; the way they are written comes from the same source as the alphabet and is derived from the lines of the ‘Jol’ (Julrad).’
Harm Menkens adds
‘This ancient Old Frisian was spoken in the early days and before the people mixed mixing with others from almost throughout Europe, most recently in the territory of the later German Empire including Holland and Denmark and southern England.’
At this point, of course, it is legitimate to ask on what paper Adela and her descendants wrote the three volumes that make up the book back then, between 559 and 50 BC the answer is as simple as it is astonishing: on writing felt! In those days, the women of the Fryas were highly skilled at fashioning felt from flax/linen. In fact, it was produced in such large quantities that for a time it became their main commodity, highly valued by sailors and merchants alike. So the Fryas made their own paper!
