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Runes

lastmod 2023-06-02created 2023-06-028 edits

Runes are a family of related alphabets used in various Germanic languages before they were replaced by the Latin alphabet, and for special purposes. The Scandinavian variant is the futhark (fuþark), and the Anglo-Saxon variant is the futhorc (fuþorc). Runology is the field that studies runic alphabets, runic inscriptions, runestones (Runestone), and their history.

The earliest runic inscriptions are estimated to date from around AD 150. With Christianization, the letters were almost entirely replaced by the Latin alphabet, around AD 700 in Central Europe and around 1100 in Northern Europe. However, runes continued to be used in Northern Europe for special purposes. Until the early 20th century, runes were still used in Sweden for decoration, and in Dalarna for runic calendars.

The three best-known runic alphabets are the Elder Futhark (c. AD 150–800), the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (AD 400–1100), and the Younger Futhark (AD 800–1100).

Like an alphabet, runes have an order, and writing the first six letters in that order (in modern spelling) gives Futhark or Futhorc. They are divided into types by region and period, and the number of letters also differs.

Runes influenced the Gothic alphabet, Icelandic script, Old English script, and others, and are found on the surfaces of stone monuments and artifacts. Runes also influenced Tolkien's works. The runes appearing in the opening of The Hobbit are in fact Anglo-Saxon runes.

Namuwiki description

English: Runes, Runic alphabet

A phonetic script widely used by the Germanic peoples before they adopted the Latin alphabet. Named after its first six letters F, U, Þ, A, R, K, it is also called 'futhark (fuþark/futhark)'.

It originally had 24 letters, but its order differs markedly from the Greek and Latin alphabets. It survives mainly in inscriptions from the 3rd century onward, and weapons, silver coins, stone crosses, and other objects carved with runes have been found over a wide area centered on Northern Europe, stretching from Greenland to the Balkan Peninsula. Well-known examples include the early 8th-century stone cross in the church at Ruthwell in southern Scotland, and a small box made of whalebone kept in the British Museum, the so-called <Franks Casket>.

The languages written in runes are Proto-Germanic and the early successor languages of the Germanic branch that split off from Proto-Germanic. A representative example is Old Norse, and Old English, although a West Germanic language, is very closely related to Old Norse and also used runes adapted to its own language.

When runes were actually in use, the writing direction was not fixed. They were written left to right, right to left, and sometimes boustrophedon. Because the letterforms were mirrored depending on the direction of writing, you can tell which direction to read just from the shape of the letters. Modern materials on runes naturally present the letterforms as written left to right, following modern conventions, as the default.

Runes are defined in Unicode in the U+16A0 ~ U+16FF block, so if you have a font that can display runes, they can be displayed directly in a UTF-8 web environment. They display well on stock Android 8.0, and below that it depends on the device. Note that support varies by font.

Scholars studying the Germanic languages often transliterate runes into the Latin alphabet for use in papers and elsewhere. But even this has regional variation, and reportedly there is no single standard accepted across Germanic studies.

Because of the name 'rune language', some people mistake it for a language, but rune is clearly the name of a script. It is easy to understand if you think of the relationship between the Latin alphabet and English, or Chinese characters and Chinese. In places such as Denmark and the United States there is Runology, which specializes in studying texts recorded in runes, and it belongs to a subcategory of Germanic linguistics.

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