Thanks Coco for the well researched and thought-out explanation. It's very interesting learning about the nuances of the language.
From your citations, it definitely seems like
FRYA.S,
FRYAS and
FRYA are used as demonyms in the original text. Unless it is a transcription error, the way that
"FRYAS" evolved to become used a demonym from
"FRYA.S" is essentially an idiom of the linguistic evolution over time.
As someone who's coming from the outside not heavily steeped in this text, the term "Fryas" seems like an imported idiom, not a transliteration to idiomatic English. As I understand it, based on what you've said, it's analogous to how we use the adjective "québécois" for someone from Quebec even though the "-ois" suffix is very unusual in English. It's also odd that "Fryas" and "Frya" are seemingly interchangeable; I can't think of any other examples in English where multiple demonyms are synonymous and acceptable. In the text, they seem to be referred to as "Frya's" the most, but Ott/Stafford seem to have translated that as "Frya" because it would be very unusual English to use the possessive like that.
I don't know that there's an absolutely correct answer to how
FRYA.S/
FRYAS/
FRYA must be transliterated to English. Newcomers to the text will have to learn the idioms about why "Fryas" and "Frya" refer to the people the way that they do. When I see the word "Frya", I think of the woman herself; to me, saying "Are you a true Frya?" sounds like Frya's folk consider themselves avatars or instantiations of Frya herself or something, even though the original text is more like "Are you a true Frya's [folk/child]?" (
"BIST EN ÀFTE FRYA.S.").
"Fryash" is interesting. It makes a bit more sense, even though it's not attested as much as the other forms. To the ear, it sounds a little unusual.
For the heck of it, I asked GPT-4 about this. Here's is what it said:
PROMPT
Let's say you were translating a text from an archaic proto-Germanic or proto-Frisian language into English. There is a group of people descended from a person named "Frya" and you have to create an English demonym for her descendants. What word would you choose?
RESPONSE
In English, demonyms are often formed by adding a suffix to the name of the place or ethnic group from which people originate. For descendants of a person named "Frya," one might look for a suffix that suits the transformation of a personal name into a demonym. Common suffixes include "-an," "-ian," "-ite," or "-er." Here are some options:
Fryan
Fryian
Fryite
Fryer (though this might be confusing as it's a common English word)
Among these, "Fryan" or "Fryian" would likely be the most typical formations for a demonym in English, echoing patterns seen in demonyms such as "Roman" from "Rome" or "Victorian" from "Victoria."
Of course, this is just an AI inference, so take it with a grain of salt.
The word "Fryanized" that Jan used is interesting because it shows how a more idiomatic English form could benefit from other English suffixes. For example, here are some random derivative neologisms that wouldn't work as well with "Fryas" (or "Frya" without an "n"):
- Fryanology
- Fryanification
- Fryanism
- Fryanhood
- Fryanly
- Fryanicity
- Un-Fryan
Ultimately, it's an editorial decision, and I'm not qualified to have any strong opinion either way. I'll use whatever y'all decide is official. I just wanted to understand the reasoning behind it.
