The Runic Alphabet 8/29/07

1 History and use

Germanic peoples used runic alphabets from ca. c1 to the Middle Ages. Gothic rūna can translate Lat. mystērium ‘mystery; secret’, and OE rūn has a range of meanings, including ‘mystery; counsel; discussion; word’. Early runic rūn meant ‘message; text’ (Antonsen 1990: 314). The original meaning had to do with scratching (Morris 1985). The mystery and magic associations were products of specialized knowledge in an illiterate society. Also, from c–6 to the Middle Ages mystical power was associated with correct recitation of the abecedarium. There are extant some 5000 runic inscriptions, some 3000 in Sweden alone, about 1100 in Norway, some 700 in Denmark, and about 60 in England. The farther south one goes, the rarer runic inscriptions become. From southeastern Europe, there are three inscriptions (or four, if Kowel is included) from the third to the fifth century, associated with the Goths who settled in the Black Sea area. Of the roughly 250 early Germanic inscriptions in the older runic alphabet, only a little over fifty have more than two identifiable words. Most have only one or two words. One of the oldest runic inscriptions is the Øvra Stabu spearhead, Oppland, Norway [150– 200] (Kr. 31, ORI 1):

The inscription reads raunijaz ‘(the) tester’. Compare OIce reynir ‘tester’, agentive to reyna ‘to test, try’. Another very early spearhead is that from Kowel, West Ukraine [ca.200–50] (Kr. 33, ORI 96):

t

The inscription reads tilarīds ‘attacker’, ‘goal-pursuer’, or the like (cf. OE tilian ‘to attain’, OIce ríða ‘to ride’). Only some ten percent of the old runic texts have more than two identifiable words; cf. bracteate 1 from Skåne, Sweden [ca.500–50] (ORI 85):

lᚨQᚢlᚨᚢᴧ ᛉ ᛫ X ᴧ ᛉ ᚨ l ᚢ laþū laukaz ᛫ gakaz alu ‘invitation leek cuckoo? magic’

Compare OE laðu ‘summons’, OIce laukr ‘leek’, OE ealu ‘ale, beer’. The third word is unclear. If it is a misspelling for gaukaz ‘cuckoo’, cf. OIce gaukr ‘id.’. The Runic Alphabet 2

The older Fuþark had 24 letters, arranged in three sets of eight (OIce ǽttir ‘rows of eight’), as on the Vadstena bracteate, Östergötland, Sweden [500–50] (ORI 90):

ᛞ ᛟ ᛜ ᛐ ᛗ ᛖ ᛁ ᛏ : ᛘ ᛁ ᛇ ᛁ æ ᛁ ᛁ : ¢ ᚷ % ᛐ ô Ü ™ d o ŋ l m e b t s z p æ y i n h w g k r a þ u f

The three sets of eight were probably rhythmic subdivisions for recitation. Compare the 7–9–7 division of the English alphabet jingle:

A B C D E F G || H I J K L M N O P || Q R S T U & V …

The main difference between the Vadstena bracteate and the slightly earlier Kylver stone from Gotland, Sweden [350–475] (ORI 30), is that the latter has /p/ before /æ/ and reverses the final two runes. Its order is left-to-right.

2 Runic vowel letters

The runic alphabet had six letters for vowels:

i /i/ <11> U /u/ <2> < I (?) <13> e /e/ <19> a /a/ <4> o /o/ <24> or <23>

The mysterious thirteenth rune is much disputed. In later use, it is a variant of i /i/ which, at the time of its creation would have been entirely unmotivated and exceptional. However, it is not difficult to ascertain the nature of the thirteenth rune. Early Germanic had eight vowels, and long and short /ī/ – /i/, /ū/ – /u/, etc., were not distinguished in any ancient script. Matching Early Germanic vowels and runic letters yields the following distribution:

short long i /i/ <11> U /u/ <2> < i /ī/ <11> U /ū/ <2> < e /e/ <19> a /a/ <4> I /ǣ/ <13> o /ō/ <24>/<23>

By process of elimination, the thirteenth rune had to be /ǣ/ (Antonsen 1975; 2002). This is confirmed by a rather unexpected source. The oldest runic inscription in Old English is on a roe-deer’s ankle bone from Caistor-by-Norwich [ca.400]:

raᛇhan ‘roe(deer)’

The Runic Alphabet 3

The etymology of roe is *roi-ko-Hon- > Gmc. *raiχōn (HGE 295) > OE rā(ha). Around 400, /ai/ was in the process of being monophthongized, which presupposes lowering of the glide, viz. /ai/ > [aæ], with a value very close to the postulated value of the thirteenth rune. Consequently, my reading of the Caistor-by-Norwich inscription is raæhan ‘roe’ (Miller 1994: 70). The runes I and O originally represented only long vowels /ǣ/, /ō/. Subsequent loss of Germanic /ǣ/ rendered the thirteenth rune useless. The introduction of short /o/, as in *hurną > runic horna ‘horn’, entailed the extension of o to short /o/, on the model of other letters used for both long and short vowels. With the later loss of initial */y/ in North Germanic, the rune Y jāra and its variants, which evolved to H, was now pronounced āra, and could be used for /ā/ and /a/. This was advantageous because the old ansuz rune a was by this time pronounced as nasal /ą/, allowing for a contrast between h /a, ā/ and a /ą/ (cf. Moltke 1985: 139). For the new h rune, customarily transcribed A, note the name Hariwolf ‘armywolf’ on the Stentoften stone, Blekinge, Sweden [600–50] (ORI 119):

Hh 5 i 1 ᛟ l h F Y h A r i w o l A f z

Inverted Y often represents rhotacized /R/, as possibly here. The second A h in the name is epenthetic, whence it has been concluded that the rune also has the value [ə] (Schulte 2003: 393f.).

3 Runic class/manner projections

On a sequential projection from f1 to d24, the letters all fall in place as natural classes with respect to their major category features. The odd letter æ, conspicuously bearing the number <13>, forms a kind of dividing line.

continu.: f1 þ3 χ/h9 z15 s16 syllabic: u2 a4 i11 æ13 e19 o23 sonorant: r5 w8 n10 y12 m20 l21 ŋ22 stop: vcl.: k6 p14 t17

vcd.: g7 b18 d24

The continuants to the left of CENTER are arranged front to back; the most strident (sibilants) stand alone on the right. The vowels to the left of center occur in two clusters, back /u/ /a/ before front /i/ /æ/, which in turn subdivide into high before low. The mid vowels /e/ /o/ occur (mirror image) front before back to the right of center. The Runic Alphabet 4

As the resonants stand, there is a curious interspersing. The placeless /r/ stands alone, followed by front to back /w/ /n/ /y/ (glide-nasal-glide) on the left and /m/ /l/ /ŋ/ (nasal-lateral-nasal) on the right. Following the pattern of the ancient Canaanite scripts, similar and dissimilar classes are alternated (Miller 1994: 73ff., w. lit). The stops subdivide very naturally into voiced and voiceless, and in both cases, the order is velar > labial > dental, conforming to the Sonority Hierarchy and / or indpendent feature geometry. Moreover, dentals also come last in the Canaanite matrices. Hence the conflict between some fuþarks ending in /d/ (e.g. the Vadstena and Grumpan bracteates) and others (e.g. the Kylver stone) ending in /o/ ᛟ (from Ω omega), following the Greek tradition.

4 Source(s) of the runic letters

As in all ancient scripts, letters face the direction of writing. All letters have at least two alternants, which modern fonts do not readily accommodate. Therefore the list below has fewer variant forms than occur in the earliest runic inscriptions. Also, in some sense, the forms are idealized since many other variations also occur. For details and discussion, see Morris (1988), Miller (1994, ch. 5), Antonsen (2002). f ™ /f/ = variant of F, as in the Latin alphabet uþ ᚢ /u/ = Italic V inverted T ᚧ /þ/ = D ‘d’ or a variant of Gk. Δ ‘delta’ or invented ‘thorn’ a ᛐ ᛡ /a/ = frequent ancient variant of ᚥ = A r % /r/ = variant of Gk. Ρ ‘rho’ found in several areas, e.g. Taras/Tarentum ᚲ ᛎ > /k/ = NW Semitic or * Ó without the stave, hence the small ᚲ g /g/ = regular + backward Γ ‘gamma’ (reduplicated) w ¢ /w/ = cf. Proto-Sinaitic ¢ ‘waw’ h N и /h/ = variant of H n ᛅ /n/ = variant of ᛚ → Ú ~ ᛅ (more stylized) i /i/ = /i/ y /y/ = regular < + retrograde > (cf. Venetic ᚲᚲ, |ᚲ = ii, like uu > w) I /æ/ = ᛚ ‘a’ + crossbar of Σ ᛖ ‘e’ p /p/ = variant on Gk. Π ‘pi’ (stylized) z ᛦ /z/ = cf. Proto-Sinaitic M ‘ṣa(d)’ (many East Greek variants, all sibilants) s ᛊ /s/ = variants of ancient Gk. ᛊ Σ ‘sigma’ t /t/ = old variant of Τ ‘tau’ b Ç /b/ = reduplicated from NW Semitic / archaic Gk. W / ¢ ~ B / Ç e Π /e/ = rotated Σ = E The Runic Alphabet 5 m /m/ = stylized M l t /l/ = standard archaic Greek variant of Λ ‘lambda’ N /ŋ/ = regular + retrograde Γ ‘gamma’: Gk./Goth. convention gg = [ŋ(g)] o /o/ = Gk. Ω ‘omega’ d /d/ = reduplicated Δ ‘delta’

It is of some interest that all of the voiced stops are formally reduplicated (cf. Griffiths 1999).

Select references ANTONSEN, ELMER H. (2002). Runes and Germanic Linguistics. Mouton: Walter de Gruyter. ______(1990). Review of Elliott (1989). German Studies Review 13: 313–15. ELLIOTT, RALPH W. V. (1989). Runes: An Introduction. 2nd edn. New York: St. Martin’s. GRIFFITHS, ALAN (1999). ‘The Fuþark (and Ogam): Order as a Key to Origin’. Indogermanische Forschungen 104: 164–210. MILLER, D. GARY (1994). Ancient Scripts and Phonological Knowledge (ch. 5 ‘The Runic Alphabet’). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. MOLTKE, ERIK (1985). Runes and Their Origin, Denmark and Elsewhere. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark. MORRIS, RICHARD L. (1985). ‘The Etymology of NwG rūnō-’. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 107: 344–358. ______(1988). Runic and Mediterranean Epigraphy. NOWELE Suppl. 4. Odense: Odense University Press. Runic inscriptions (photographs): http://home.no.net/ahruner/ SCHULTE, MICHAEL (2003). ‘Early Nordic Language History and Modern Runology: With Particular Reference to Reduction and Prefix Loss’. In Historical Linguistics 2001 …, ed. by Barry J. Blake and Kate Burridge, with Jo Taylor, 391–402. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (2003).