Transcript* of video fragments from Oera Linda interview at "V for Valentine" podcast of 4 September (Dutch spoken,with English, German and Dutch subtitles).
(* based on English subtitles — note: these may be edited and improved later)
B = host Boris van de Ven, J = Jan Ott
(More illustrations, links and notes may be added later.)
[01] Breakthrough
B: That was the first thing I saw: your podcast with Catherine Austin Fitts. I thought: This is a wonderful story. Then I searched but found so little. So I wondered: How can something with so much impact be discussed so very little online? How is that possible? Two YouTube channels where I found something about it. Your site "oeralinda.org" should be mentioned. You have some videos on your YouTube channel and of course you talk about it yourself. But there is so very little. The impact of this book, of this story, of these texts is disproportionate to the attention given to them. That's bizarre.
You — because it's your project... You are on the cusp of a breakthrough. Rightly so, because this deserves it, no matter how old it is. It deserves to get more attention. We need it so badly, in this time in which all people are searching. Everyone is lost in some way. We are redefining who we are.
J: Identity crisis.
B: Exactly that, and then people can be horribly abused. And this is exactly... Religion is disappearing. People are decreasingly religious. That always kept people grounded. Regardless of what you think of that particular religion. That helped people to not lose it. I think those things are being replaced by this kind of history.
[02] Historical Awareness
J: As a teenager I once came to Muiden, in the Muiden Castle. At the time, there was a list of all the counts of Holland and for Willem II (1227-1256), it said: "Murdered in cowardly fashion by the Westfrisians."
B: "Cowardly" even, interesting judgment.
J: I knew he came there to make war, fell through the ice and was clubbed to death. They didn't know who he was, but he was an attacker. He thought he could occupy the land and it took another 100 years or so, before those Counts of Holland succeeded in subjugating Westfriesland (or 50 years). They had been trying that for a long time. The Westfrisians did not want to pay taxes, they also had their freedom. So it's not just the Frisians in the current province of Friesland. In East Frisia in Germany you often see this even larger than here: "better dead than slave", in the local dialect (language). That showed me how partisan history is.
B: When it comes to history: I'm willing to assume that the history we learned in school has all gone through some political lens. That we have been presented a politically correct narrative, which completely serves the interests of the current elite. But that doesn't mean it's true.
J: No, and what strikes me — in the podcasts on freedom... in the Netherlands and abroad — is that people do dare to revise September 11, and maybe sometimes the moon landings, or a little further, but, if you go even further and all the way to the beginning, as far as possible, it becomes much clearer. Then you also see how it has come this far, not just in the last 20 years.
Speaking of truth — On my way here, I thought: I know Christians, whom I respect. They are lovely people. Then I thought about confession of faith. I know from my genealogy that this was a thing one had to do to be accepted. You have to say a fixed formula, stating your beliefs, and then you become a member.
B: It's almost the same in other religions.
J: Many people will have just said that, having memorized it, or maybe they convinced themselves that they really believed it, but in many cases they didn't. Then you learn from a young age to lie about something important. And the effect of this book, I hear that from readers, especially abroad so far... I get comments like: "This really turned my whole life upside down and enriched it so much." Even some who, until recently, were active and convinced Christians. They say: "I still keep the good things, which are there, but some of the things that I never really understood, or never really liked, I can now let go of more easily and put something better in its place.
[03] FryaslandB: So we could say: We descend from, or the Frisians descend from... I keep saying "we", but from the perspective of this book, all of the Netherlands is... We were all Frisians. We all have Frisian blood, and why this resonates...
J: "Fryas", actually.
B: Fryas yes. Frya was the primeval mother, wasn't she?
J: Yes, and that also means "free", freedom, the free. So Friesland is Fryasland. They named themselves "the Free" or "Frya's children".
B: Yes, because that is... I am also obsessed with freedom. I think that's one of the most important concepts and I'm amazed that there are very few people who understand what that means. Freedom and personal responsibility cannot be separated from each other. From page one, this principle keeps coming back, as it starts with a clear description of customs. I think that in the first half of the book — the name escapes me... There is the book of this and of that... In the first part, the emphasis is on "How do we deal with..." and then various situations follow: How is governance arranged, what consequences are there when dealing with corrupt governance? I get that, indeed if you are inclined to totalitarianism, it's kind of terrifying because you just ended up being banned or you'd be killed for taking advantage of your position.
J: If these people had had Amsterdam's coat of arms with its three crosses, those three crosses would have stood for Freedom, Truth and Justice. And one of the basic truths that every sane person understands is that power shouldn't be inherited. For a good king may have a son who is very bad. That theme alone in the 19th century was, and still is... Those Oranges are still here, as well as the people who always kept them in the saddle and who benefit from the scheme. It's not only the Orange family, of course. Yes, Truth... Freedom: What is true freedom? What you said and as Oera Linda says: Frya, the personification of their primeval mother — wether historical or not — would first have taught her children the importance of freedom. And what is that? To be your own master. Not only self-restraint, self-control, but also to motivating yourself. To hold one's own reins, as in Plato's metaphor. Then you don't need a master and you don't want to have one either. The opposite of that, what they called "slaves" or people with a slave mentality: these find it comfortable to be told what to do, what to believe, and what is forbidden.
[04] Subverted HistoryB: If it is indeed the case that several thousand or hundreds of years BC there was a people living in the Netherlands, which was a seafaring people who traded all over the world, how does that fit within history as we know it today? It's so far from what I learned in school, and yet there are enough clues that it could be true.
J: I can explain that. Especially in the last two years we saw how truth and history can be manipulated by people in power. When a people are conquered, you pretend that they were insignificant, that it's just better that they're no longer there, or have a new dominion. What do we ourselves know? I myself have done archival research up to the 17th century: notarial deeds, jurisdiction, etc. I know about the French Period... In 1813 the House of Orange came back here, so the people who had favored the Batavian Revolution, they were treated in a similar way as the National Socialists after WW2. There's little more left of their stories than if you go back further in time. We had the Reformation. We all know how "great" that was, and in some ways it may indeed have been good. But again, a lot has been destroyed. Because you can hardly find any sources — parish registers, for example — from before the Reformation. All of that has been burned. Burned or just allowed to perish or it's in secret archives, of the Vatican for example. Go back even further, to the Christianization here... You can already see that in the [Christian] texts themselves: you're not allowed to question them. Within those [Christian] movements there were also conflicts: Who had the right doctrine and who should be in charge. In reality that was simply about politics, about power. So the people who had been conquered [christianized], and probably even before that, you always find them back under different nicknames. Because if you keep using the same name, then the reader sees: "Oh, there's that people again, and still that people: that's an old people!" Victors don't want that. I think the that term "Batavians", for example, which became well known in the
Batavian Revolution and we still have Batavia [City], that probably just means "boat-having", "boat-owners", "people with boats". If you have defeated such a people... If you as a Roman refer to them, then you don't use the ubiquitous name that they really are, which should no longer be used.
B: Exactly, why we say 'Krauts,' for example. You try to reduce their significance.
J: A term is then used that roughly describes the defeated people, or a name of a tiny part of the whole group. Only the insider will know what it's about. So there are many different references, causing... If you only know, study and trust that official history, you see snippets everywhere, but you don't see the big picture. [You can see it] if you do have a broader view of the lost civilizations, and of the similarities [in archaeology] between the different continents, and also of things that were not known at all in the 19th century, or not imaginable even. In the last few decades, the last 100 to 150 years, more and more of that has become plausible.
B: One of the main things you immediately run into is the discussion between historians and linguists about "is this authentic or not?"
J: There hardly is any discussion.
B: Because it is so unknown?
J: It just seems that way. If you look on Wikipedia where it says, "academia agrees that it is..." They all parrot each other. Goffe Jensma who wrote a dissertation, he did do a lot of research, well funded. But that's pretty much all there is. There are a few who have written occasional articles, very few. I can't find any good evidence why this could not be authentic, at least the content. Usually it comes down to them saying: "I can't imagine this to be true, so it cannot be." Exactly that, yes. Or, "Scholars don't take it seriously, so it can't be real." "It's never been on television, so..." "Experts say it's not real".
[05] FolksmothersJ: We've had a tradition of free-thinking and of course relative religious freedom. It really should stay that way. People must come to see that the current predominant doctrine is actually also a religious, unquestionable truth, with its rituals, its heretics, and so on. That's quite a leap already, if it's made. And then, the periods in Dutch history without monarchy: First and Second Stadtholderless Period. Then the provinces really tried to cooperate. Of course, it was the local elites that gathered in The Hague. But the idea of having no family with heritable power... And of course, they were wealthy families whose sons would also be rich. It wasn't ideal at all, but compared to the rest of Europe it was a bastion of independence. And of course, when the Oranges came back because of all the puppeteers who were responsible for that, who also operated in other countries, that independence was suppressed again. But the real spirit that is passed on mostly from mother to child... You are also a father. That is why there were Folksmothers: Education of young children, especially the first few years, is done by the mother. If she can impress good things in the minds...
B: Mothers must read the Oera Linda.
J: Yes, daughters too.
B: Daughters too: very important.
J: Aunts and grandmothers, especially. Understand that culture is passed on by mothers. It makes sense biologically. Because men go to sea, to the fields, or trade etc. They don't take care of the little ones.
B: What was that quote again? "Educate a man and he becomes wise, educate a woman and you educate the whole family"? Something like that, yeah.
[06] Not MatriarchyB: What struck me about it, and I really like this: it is a matriarchal society.
J: I wouldn't use that term. Because those mothers — Folksmother and burg mothers — had no real power. They did have influence.
B: They had a monopoly on wisdom.
J: Well, a monopoly...
B: That's a bit of a misnomer, but you know what I mean.
J: If you want to have a people together — people who all consider themselves children of Frya... brothers and sisters, as the Christians would later say... If you all have the same father, you all have different mothers. It is the mothers who raise someone. And if you all have the same mother and the same morals — "motherals", "mood": mindset... That (folk) mother is like a mother to all members of that society. Also for the sailors at sea, far away from their wives, or from their mothers. So there was a tradition that the burgs... there was a burg mother, chosen from the burgmaidens she had around her, similar to the Vestal Virgins, later in Rome, and then there was a Folksmother at the main burg on Texland or Texel. So there were burg mothers and the Folksmother, but they could be deposed if they were not good, and punished severely.
B: If they were demonstrably corrupt.
J: Or if they had deliberately given bad advice, for example favored someone. The knowledge was kept in those burgs and they also had an eternal flame, just like in Zoroastrianism.
B: How do the men relate then, because I think women and Frya too...
J: There were sea kings who commanded an entire fleet. There were kings in times of war, so if there really was a need to defend, someone was chosen to lead such an army. He was never allowed to hold that position for more than a certain period, and none of his relatives was allowed to succeed him.
B: And they weren't allowed to be politically active, right?
J: All to prevent that power from corrupting. But that power was... the real power lay... There were reeves or "grevetmen": each district had a male chief, who was in charge of everything. So real power like in a matriarchy, that also in everyday life women are always in charge, as in some cultures — it wasn't like that.
[07] Blue-eyedB: What is interesting: those Fryas were covertly attacked. They were not afraid of being conquered militarily, but of being culturally poisoned.
J: Trickery and deceit.
B: Yes, and that indeed happened: Beautiful and seductive women were sent. The king and the men were tempted, and that's how their high-quality morality was gradually subverted.
J: That was the only way to conquer these people, because they were much stronger physically. Advantage was taken of their weaknesses: Being greedily ambitious, or gullible.
B: Were they naive?
J: Overly trusting.
In Germany... I've lived in Germany where the term "blauäugig" (blue-eyed) is used for naive, gullible. If you have blue eyes...
B: Really?
J: You come from a culture where trust is much more natural, so it's hard to imagine someone lying. I had recently... A very nice example: I also have little children to whom I read fairy tales. There was a book of fairy tales from around the world. They love fairy tales. There was one fairy tale about a merchant on a horse somewhere. He sold something by terribly lying about it, by presenting it as much nicer than it was. He made much profit with that and was a real hero in that story. Then my children all said: "But that wasn't fair!" So there are cultures where it's great when you can manage with trickery and deceit... especially if you don't stay in one place. Then it doesn't matter how you're talked about, because then you're gone already. But for peoples who are more in one place, deeply rooted... They do take care that the fame of the "Famna", the burg maidens... — That's
Pheme in Greek mythology, for the people who know about that — These would sound the trumpet: You should never trust that guy again and we'd better banish him.
B: This is in our DNA, these standards and values: You don't lie. You speak the truth. You are responsible for yourself, for the people around you and for your community. That goes directly against the dredge we've had over the past two years.
J: Yes, and those were all old tricks they've used, in a new way. Just like having children vaccinated, or even that neonatal heel prick, as a kind of baptism into the new religion of (medical) science. Baptism with water is relatively harmless. Although they often had to go out to church with a newborn baby, the current variety is more harmful, I think.
[08] RemigrationB: What is your favorite, what are your favorite passages? Or texts? Or topics that come up in the Oera Linda?
J: On the way here in the car, I suddenly had a kind of epiphany, which often happens when working on this. Right now — because it varies so much over the years — you can also see on my weblog that I have from eighteen... or 1911, I mean 2011, there I translated all kinds of word studies and topics, and also Dutch texts into English, but at this time: 300 before our era, when there was probably a cataclysm here, a great flood, lost land and so on. At that time, just after Alexander the Great, a whole fleet of people of this descent migrated back here from Northwest India and from Athens and the Ionian Islands, and that's also reflected in the Saxon Chronicle from the 16th century, which says that the Saxons actually came from Alexander the Great's army. So that's known from other sources as well, which you never hear anything about. In those texts, there are people known from the other sources: Nearchus, Antigonus, Demetrius, Alexander himself, of course, and Friso, who is known from the so-called “fantasy” Frisian historiography. That could be a very nice text to... both archaeologically and with that revision of the timeline ... that 600 BC was not 2600 years ago, but maybe only 1700 years. So you have geological evidence to confirm that, other sources, genetics now, that seems like a very nice text to figure out as a researcher, which I don't have time for myself for now.
[09] YulescriptB: You transcribed these texts anew — and again, it’s not a 'runic' script, as I called it, but it's not a script that...
J: You can say 'Yulescript'. It's based on the wheel, or 'Yule'. In Scandinavian languages, the word for 'wheel' is still 'hjul'. For Christmas, we say Yule — also in English, but it's based on the six-spoke wheel. That's what all the letters are based on, and the numbers.
B: Did you spend much time to be able to read, or at least understand...
J: I started in 2009 and spent the first few years studying, and yes, of course, I found the script one of the most fascinating things. So I've got that whole original... Can I show it?
B: Yes, of course.
J: So this is the edition that for the first time has the whole manuscript included, almost full size, in HD.
B: I will hold it up for the camera.
J: That has the letters on it too — the most famous pages. See that's what the text looks like.
B: It looks impressive when you first start working with it.
J: Yes. I made a new transliteration, converted all those letters into normal writing. That had been done before, but I really wanted to do it myself, and also get it right, as there were mistakes in the existing one.
B: How did you get hold of the text?
J: There was already a version, in lower resolution, on the Internet. I Downloaded and used it, and recently I got this new HD version from Tresoar in Leeuwarden, Friesland.
B: Did you photograph that yourself?
J: No, they gave it to me. So I wanted... because I had discussed it on a forum in English both with detractors and people who take it more seriously. There was one English translation from 1876, which was a translation of the first Dutch translation from 1872.
B: I didn't even know that existed...
J: But it has so many mistakes. I was always correcting and changing things, and then I thought: I just have to have a good new English translation, and one which allows easy comparing of the translation with the original text.
B: Yes, I find that very interesting. That is what you did. You have each line in original text, and below it the translation. And that's nice, because if you read that for a while... At first you think, “How awkward this reads”, but at a certain point you just start reading the original text more and more. It's like subtitles on TV. That's how I learned English.
J: I wanted that very consciously. I want people to make their own judgments about it. Let the book speak for itself. Predecessors of mine who believed in the authenticity, they trotted out all kinds of theories and speculations. I want people to make up their own minds and even... Even if you read it as 19th century fiction, it is still so unique and so special.
B: Absolutely, that has to be said: Even if it's not “authentic”, it's still fantastic.
You started with the English version. Wouldn't it make sense to make a Dutch one first? This is where your target audience is, right?
J: Mostly because there was only one English translation, and there were mistakes in it that made me cringe. Also through that forum, I needed it for myself too, to be able to have that discussion. And because I knew that here in the Netherlands it was such a taboo, and I thought: if it would become big in the Netherlands first, then it would have been more likely that I would have been ridiculed right away or fought in some way, with money, promises or threats, something like that. Now it is much better known outside the Netherlands than here, especially in America.
B: In a podcast you said you even sold a copy to a library in Alaska...
J: Even to countries I had never heard of.
[10] Wodin was a MortalB: I think the way in which Dutch history is suggested... What I find so fascinating about it, is that it doesn't show up in old texts that we have, say from the Vikings. There are several poems, I think, and stories, that also must have been medieval or pre-medieval. But what is indeed well known, is that the Vikings respected the Frisians, that they spared them and avoided conflicts, which is not explained in any way. Nobody talks about that either, but the Frisians owe much of their medieval power to the fact that Frisia was a kind of buffer zone between the Vikings, who happily went south to make life impossible for the Catholics there and plunder, even as far as Paris — because they conquered Paris at some point... But not the Frisians. How do you see that? What do you think... What is the link between the Vikings...
J: Part of the answer is given in Oera Linda. Although they mostly had the same blood, the Vikings had been influenced from the east; which is in agreement with an old theory about Wodan, Wodin, the Aesir and the Vanir.
B: What were they exactly?
J: Some of the gods were of the Aesir and those of Freya were of the Vanir. These were two different tribes that would have joined. Anyway, to make a long story short: If it is true that in the north Odin, Freya and Thor were worshiped as gods... In Oera Linda it is suggested that Wodan, for example, or "Wodin" — which is different from "Odin" — that he was once an army commander, around 2000 BCE, who was bribed there by the ruler — Magyar or magus — and he was promised all kinds of things he married the magus' daughter and after that he was 'disappeared'; and then he was deified. So his son, who was half-blood, suddenly was the son of someone very important... A whole dynasty has arisen, a whole mythology around that Wodin, who then was considered a god, while they say here: It was just someone who actually betrayed us. And Freya, goddess of love, wasn't she? Before I started this I also thought: Nice, I'd like to know more about her! But she was actually the imagined primal mother of the white race, with 'freedom' in her own name as one of the most important qualities.
[11] Neph-TunisJ: Why is there a wheel on the back?
B: I will show it. Here, printed in gold.
J: That had an important role. Time was seen as cyclical or better: a spiral. Not that there would always be progress. There had been a cataclysm, a global disaster, in which the Atland or 'ald land' — the old land, had sunk. It's not entirely clear where that was.
B: ... where the Atland-is.
J: Perhaps it was the old world they were referring to. Then one more is described, which may have been the end of Roman times. It is dated here to 300 BC, the time of Alexander the Great, but that may have been about the same time. It is unclear how long ago that was exactly. That wheel was also the symbol for the beginning of consciousness, of God or 'Uralda', the over-old or most ancient, as they called it: 'Wralda', world. That it's written in a language in which — I myself knew German, English, Dutch, Swedish, Ancient Greek — in which you recognize so much and in which so many things fall into place... As a mathematician, I probably see that differently than someone who studies Dutch or Old Frisian: He or she is then immediately trained in a specific model. I saw ever more and had so many aha-moments, not only about time, but also about how people thought and how things came from that.
B: Can you give some examples?
J: "Socrates", for example. The Arabs say "Suqrat" with a Q: s-u-q-r-a-t. In this [Fryas] language, his name means 'philosopher'. SOK-RAT: ratio, reason, counsel: 'Seek-Reason'.
B: It is fascinating, indeed.
J: It could be a coincidence.
B: But you give an example, and as I respond now, my laughing... I've come across many examples thinking: "No, that... It's almost too mundane..." But these kinds of major figures, places, people, names of peoples, names of places... The Himalayas are mentioned. To trace that name back to old Dutch... That means that Dutch, or the Frisians, or these people were at the basis of our modern civilization. That would be the conclusion and that's, that's...
J: I would like to go even further, because the people who settled here after that great flood, in this fertile area where you have the Rhine, other rivers, fresh water, a beautiful coast, you can go all the way inland, to Germany all the way to Switzerland, they might have come from somewhere else and maybe... See, because time is cyclical, civilizations have been lost and gradually rebuilt. It can be the same with language. So what we know as the cabin dwellers or the hunter-gatherers, that may exist after such a flood, that at first they had nothing at all. And then there were people who had preserved some knowledge and tradition, who were not necessarily busy surviving, from which it all may have emerged again, anew.
B: One of the reasons why they labeled it a mystification or a parody is that there are, and you just gave an example of Socrates... There are many terms or names or places that are traced to Dutch, and the critics always use Neptune, who in Oera Linda would be named Neph(ew)-Tony. And I have to tell you, Neph-Tony, it does sound hilarious.
J: Just wait.
B: But hadn't you... let me put it this way: I'm at the point where I think... There are a number of things like that: Himalaya would be derived from the mountain being so high, it "caresses the sky", in Dutch: "hemel-aaie"?
J: No, that's also often repeated, but not true at all. It doesn't say that. It says "TO THA HIMEL LÀJA."
B: heaven-layer?
 |
"Triumph of Neptune", mid-third century,
Archaeological Museum Sousse, Tunesia |
J: Nor does any of the translations say 'aaien' (caress). "Leading to the sky" or "lying in the sky" — both are possible translations according to Old Frisian. "Caress the sky" is such a typical joke: Oh, haha. But it does not say that... isn't true at all... And about Neph-Tunis: "Neph(ew)" is not only Dutch and Frisian. If you look at the ancient languages, it's a word used not only for what we call 'nephew' or 'cousin', but also 'kinsman' — someone of the same ethnicity or group. And 'Tunis'. Why are there such beautiful mosaics of Neptune in Tunisia? Then you already split Neptune into 'Tunis' and a prefix. "Nepotism", favoring one's own family, comes from the same word. So it was someone... the people who talked about him, who used that name, indicated with that "neph" or "NÉF" that he was one of theirs, originally. And he is said to have migrated with a fleet, as far back as 2000 BCE, to the Mediterranean because they were no longer welcome here, for good reason. So it's not that surprising, and there was also a tradition in Zeeland where they called him 'Nephtunis', much earlier. So when you say "our Frisian nephew Tony", but no, that's not true at all. 'Neph' is a very old word that means the same thing in many languages.
[12] Implausible Hoax DoctrineJ: We hardly talked about that hoax theory, but it is so far-fetched and implausible. There are variations in style and spelling between the texts. How many people back then will have read and studied the original language? Was it worth the effort? It contains words that only survived in particular Scandinavian dialects. Those are just a few examples.
B: Are there any texts in this language besides the Oera Linda?
J: The well-known Old Frisian laws that have been officially accepted, it is similar to a large extent, but those all have varieties, and they were probably written by people who had learned to read and write in Latin. Then they try to write down the vernacular, which didn't always work out very well. Also, they are laws, very different kinds of texts. Oera Linda has more colloquial language. Thus, when you first read it and you assume a linear development of language, then our oldest texts, like "hebban olla vogala" etc... Older texts then must be even more incomprehensible, you see? Instead of when it's cyclical, then there was this language, which they will have tried to eradicate in a cultural genocide, during Christianization and so on. Then everything had to be hidden, disappeared, will also sometimes have been used to make fire, to survive. Paper falls apart, one has to actively copy texts so that's what was done in 1255 or (also) thereafter.
B: That is also called for in those texts.
J: Yes, because they had become wet and began to decay. But I digress.
B: It was about the effort they must have made, if it was...
J: See, a pastor in the 1860s when this must have been made, who was about to get married, who moved from a North-Frisian village to Den Helder, a congregation together with other pastors of nine thousand members. He had to baptize, bury, marry, write sermons. He was about to get married and will have had other things on his mind. Then he moved to Schiedam, wrote a few poems under pseudonym. But then, together with Over de Linden, whom he must have met by chance, because the latter was a generation older and didn't go to church, was also about to remarry as a widower, and together with this linguist in Leeuwarden, over the mail because of then great distances. All that in just a few years... The pastor would have created its narrative, the linguist its old language, and the shipbuilder would have been the scribe. Also, the risk they took with that, because especially the linguist, who initially declared it of value and authentic. He asked for money from the government — Eelco Verwijs — to purchase it and have it translated. If that theory is correct: that they had intended it to initially seem real and then soon thereafter an obvious persiflage, and not just any persiflage but one in which the royal house might be severely compromised, its existence, its right to exist. That man could have not only forfeited his entire career but also could have been sentenced to a severe penalty in those days. Just imagine: King William III (1817-1890) would not have been amused.
[13] PotentialB: Is it that typical Dutch inferiority complex: "that cannot really be possible, let's just act normal, we're not a people who populated the whole world." Is it that, typically Dutch?
J: In part it will be. It's too good to be true. For another part, it's easier to put it aside because once you start thinking about whether it can be real, so many thoughts and ideas come to mind. We both do like that, but for many people it's complicated: "I can no longer sleep, am thinking about it all the time." And: "Oh well, it's fake, now I can put it away." That's part of it, too, but there certainly were motives in the 19th century and maybe still are — certainly still are — for the group that controls the media and that has the authority, the power, to say: "this I subsidize and that I don't" and: "this you can write and that you can't." So there has been an aggressive policy since the 1870s to ridicule or make people suspicious or put them in a bad light, a very deterrent function to people who might want to investigate it as a historian or as a linguist. To question it has actually been taboo, for quite a long time.
B: That is the problem of this time: Everything has to be politically correct. And if your story — no matter what it is — doesn't fit the narrative, then you can forget about it in mainstream media. That's a shame because you're missing out on a piece of folklore, history, whatever it is; Dutch myths and sagas, a history book; it can be everything, it can be all at the same time. I think for that matter, for me it's... That's what I find interesting: I read it and it's the beginning of a fascination about something I didn't know I had. I've never considered myself Frisian... I'm not Frisian, I'm a born-bred Amsterdammer.
J: Where do you think the Amsterdam dialects...?
B: Exactly, we are all Frisians, that's the thing.
J: Fryas, I would say.
B: We are all Fryas, maybe that's it. We are all Fryas.
For anyone who is willing to ask questions, Oera Linda is the starting point for many questions that you're going to ask. I've read it and I am... that's where it starts, it's not that reading this you'll know everything. You will have questions because these are ancient texts that are difficult to put into a certain context. These conversations are important, because you've been at it so long, so you have more context. I think, when you say you'll make a wiki-like page: that context... I was missing that. Not that it should be in the book, which I think should stand on its own, but I crave knowledge of Frisian culture and history when I read this. Where can I go? I don't have such sources at home.
J: If this goes viral, also in the Netherlands, then a flood of interesting texts will come up. I would like to do more podcasts, because I'd rather talk about it. I'm not much of a writer myself.
B: This has so much potential.
J: Yes, and well beyond the borders, too.
B: Yeah, I understand, because it puts the whole history of the world in a different perspective.
