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Runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes that were formerly used to write Germanic languages, mainly in Scandinavia, and the British Isles. In all its varieties, they may be considered to be an ancient writing system in Northern Europe. The earliest runic inscriptions date from circa 200, and runic alphabets were used continuously for the next 1400 years, last being attested as used in 17th century rural Sweden. The three best known runic alphabets are the elder futhark, the younger futhark, and the Anglo-Saxon futhorc. The most likely candidate for the origins of runic scripts are 5th to 1st century BC Lepontic, Rhaetic and Venetic alphabets from northern Italy, all closely related to each other and descended from Etruscan. These scripts bear a remarkable resemblance to the futhark in many regards. For a graphic representation of the Etruscan script for comparative purposes, see the Omniglot Etruscan site (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/etruscan.htm)
Background
The elder futhark script (named after the initial phoneme of the first seven rune names in the following list, which are in bold font) consists of twenty four runes, often arranged in three rows of eight. The first row consists of fehu, urûz, Þurisaz (thurisaz), ansuz, raidô, kaunan, gebô, and wunjô. The second row consists of haglaz, naudiz, îsaz, jera, îwaz, perþô, algiz, and sôwilô. The third row consists of tîwaz, berkanan, ehwaz, mannaz, laukaz, ingwaz, dagaz, and finally ôþalan.
The name of each rune is a meaningful word in Proto-Germanic, chosen to represent the sounds of the rune itself. Fehu, for example, means cattle. Most rune names stood for their rune because of the first phoneme in the name, with a few exceptions. Algiz, elk, for example, was used because the last "z" sound in the word (believed to be similar to the ř sound known to English speakers from the name of the famous composer Dvořák) was the sound of the rune, which sound was never used in a word-initial position.
No distinction is made in surviving runic inscriptions between long and short vowels, although such a distinction was certainly present in the spoken languages of the time. As Proto-Germanic evolved into its later language groups, the words assigned to the runes and the sounds represented by the runes themselves began to diverge somewhat, and each culture would either create new runes, rename or rearrange its rune names slightly or even stop using obsolete runes completely to accommodate those changes. Thus, the Anglo-Saxons had several specialty runes to represent diphthongs unique to (or at least prevalent in) their dialect. Scholars also therefore believe that the reason the younger futhark used by the Vikings usually has sixteen runes, while the elder futhark used by much earlier Germanic tribes in contact with the Roman Empire is usually described as having twenty four, is that the reduction dramatically reflects six hundred years of sound changes in the North Germanic language group.
Runes have been been used for divination in modern times, based on often symbolic interpretations of these names. If one drew fehu from a bag of runes, for example, it might be interpreted as meaning that one was destined to encounter not a herd of cattle, but rather money (mobile wealth).
Although Norse literature is full of references to runes, it nowhere contains specific instruction on divination or magic. There are two sources on divination which are rather vague descriptions and may not refer to runes. The first one appears in Tacitus' Germania, which describes "signs" chosen in groups of three. The second one appears in Rimbert where he describes how a renegade Swedish king Anund Uppsale first brings a Danish fleet to Birka, but then changes his mind and asks the Danes to draw lots. This drawing of lots was quite informative in telling them that attacking Birka would bring bad luck and that they should attack a Slavic town.
This has not stopped modern authors from extrapolating from what little specifics exist into entire systems of divination. Perhaps the most popular rune author is Ralph Blum, whose Book of Runes comes with a set of runes on ceramic tiles which is loosely based on the runes of the elder futhark. Another author is Edred Thorsson, whose best known books are Futhark, Runelore and Runecaster's Handbook (The Well of the Wyrd). But there are, however, some inscriptions containing clues, such as the Franks Casket (AD 700) panel.
The Havamal describes the god Odin receiving runes by hanging himself as a self-sacrifice:
- I hung on that windy tree for nine nights wounded by my own spear.
- I hung to that tree, and no one knows where it is rooted.
- None gave me food. None gave me drink. Into the abyss I stared
- Until I spied the runes. I seized them up, and, howling, fell.
There are also some rune-like symbols used by Uralic peoples and besides Hungarian runes (Székely Rovįsķrįs), those are not abbreviated "rune"; neither are any of them classified as runes. (The reason is simply due to categorisation and nothing else.) Lappic tribes called such signs rim in present, presumably meaning "rime", "hoarfrost", or alternative, "prim". An interesting distinction in its creation is that Khant peoples belived Thor gave peoples their scripts by stroke of lightning (and hence showed the way both spiritual and practical as how to mark woodland paths or posessions,) countrary to Odin. However, neither Saami (ca. 17th century), nor Khants (ca. 1970s) knew their origin. Mysteriously, rune-like symbols are also found in ancient Native American monuments, erroneously taken to be "runes" (proto-Nordic texts.)
Old Fužark
Sometimes called proto-Nordic (urnordiska). Artefacts with Old Futhark scripts are found from the Southern Europe up to Lappland but with highest concentrations in Denmark. They are usually inscriptions in weapons and arms and found in graves or bogs.
Anglo-Saxon Fužorc
Extended alphabet with 28 characters, later expanded to 33 characters. Used probably from 5th century and forward, later spread to England. Is found on e.g. Thames scramasax, Vienna Codex, Cotton MS Otho B (†) and Ruthwell Cross.
Note 1: Feoh, žorn, and sigel stood for [f], [ž], and [s] in most environments, but voiced to [v], [š], and [z] between vowels or voiced consonants.
Note 2: Giefu and wynn stood for the letters [yogh] and [wynn] which became [g] and [w] in Middle English.
Gothic runes
It was by some held that all runes derived from Gothic runes, but the few findings don't support this theory. They were later replaced with the Gothic alphabet.
Younger Fužark
Younger fužark, also called Scandinavian fužark, is a reduced form of the Futhark-24 and contains only 16 characters (but combinations of them make 24 letters). Found in Scandinavia and from old Norse settlements, used probably from 9th c. and forward.
Danish Fužąrk (long-branch runes)
Swedish-Norwegian Fužąrk (short-twig runes)
Norwegian Mixed Fužąrk
Middle Age Runes
Hälsinge Runes (staveless runes)
Hälsinge runes are found in the Hälsingland region of Sweden, used between the 10th and 12th centuries. The runes seems to be a simplification of the Swedish–Norwegian runes and lack vertical strokes, hence the name staveless.
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Scandinavian Pointed Runic Alphabet (dotted runes)
Unicode
Runic alphabets are assigned Unicode range 16A0–16FF. This block is intended to encode all shapes of runic letters. Each letter is encoded only once, regardless of the number of alphabets in which it occurrs.
The block contains 81 symbols: 75 runic letters (16A0–16EA), three punctuation marks
(Runic Single Punctuation 16EB ᛫, Runic Multiple Punctuation 16EC ᛬ and Runic Cross Punctuation 16ED ᛭), and three runic symbols that are used in mediaeval calendar staves ("Golden number Runes", Runic Arlaug Symbol 16EE ᛮ, Runic Tvimadur Symbol 16EF ᛯ and Runic Belgthor Symbol 16F0 ᛰ). Characters 16F1–16FF are presently (as of Unicode Version 4.0) unassigned.
See also
Reference
- Orrin W. Robinson Old English and its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages Stanford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0804714541
External link
- Code2000.ttf (http://home.att.net/~jameskass/), a font containing nearly 35,000 glyphs (shareware) by James Kass
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