This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Not totally sure where this should go so I've added here. With regards to the comment concerning the shape of the Armanen rune Gibor I quote the following from the main page
The shape of the Armanen runes as envisaged by Von List is substantially different to the form currently used. Who exactly it is that changed the shape of Gibor is open to debate, but it appeared in its 'new form' in the early 1930's. However, if one examines Von List's original documents one will find a somewhat different design, one that bares little resemblance to the 'Wolfsangel'. 90.204.30.249 ( talk) 00:49, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
What about the runes from the Lord of the Rings? The LOTR page links here . . . I think that it would make a nice addition. - Frazzydee 00:29, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
"They probably ought to have their own separate article, as Tolkien made them up himself and they did not exist historically." is not entirely true. Cirth (Pronounced 'Kerth') looks very much like the ancient runes on this page.
A few questions about the current content.
From the first sentence: "Celtic" doesn't belong here. In just about every sense, the Celtic peoples are not a subset of the Germanic peoples (a few confused Roman authors to the contrary). Also there is not a lot of evidence that Celtic people used runes. There are a few cases of English and Norwegian runes in Scotland (and maybe Ireland) and it's just concievable that Celtic people did these, but seems more plausible it was the English and Norwegians. That's about it. I think the Celtic connection with runes is very weak and not worth mentioning.
From the "Use of Runes" section: "It appears that runes may actually be much older. The rune for the sound æ, as in sAd, was not used in writing for at that time the Germanic Languages didn't have that sound. Yet, in every list of characters it always appeared. However, in Proto-West Germanic æ appears to have existed as a full-blown phoneme."
I am not sure about this. Are there some serious scholars pushing this view? It's entirely plausible that the runes are significantly older than 200AD, since many of them can't easily be dated, and the ones that are easiest to date are the ones in wood, which usually doesn't last that long. I have vague memories of a Roman author 1st century BC mentioning something that might have been runes, sorry, i can't remember any details now.
But this æ argument sounds a bit dubious to me. From your text, it looks like you are saying æ is in (constructed) proto-West-Germanic, but disappeared from West Germanic languages before 200AD. Old English is certainly a West Germanic language, and the æ letter occurs in Old English at dates much later than 200BC. On the continent, West Germanic languages are not written (except possible runic fragments, see below) until about 800AD, so it seems to me to be difficult to say if they had æ or not around 200AD.
Early runic inscriptions on the continent are mostly very short and difficult to follow. If they don't use æ in actual words it may be because the inscription is so short that that letter doesn't happen to be used. It is also difficult to identify the languages for most of these. Some might be Saxon, Friesian, and other West Germanic languages, but they could also be just about anything else.
For runes, West Germanic is not the only game in town. The Scandinavians used runes, and some of their languages have æ still today, i guess they probably did in runic times? There were also the East Germanic languages, and for all we know other lost Germanic branches, and they may well have used runes also.
This brings alternative hypotheses: Runic script could have been invented by Scandinavians or English, or some other language speakers who had æ and then most of the continental Germans who copied these runes had æ in their alphabet but never used it. Or maybe if the runes are based on Greek script as a few scholars think, æ could represent a Greek letter that turned out to be not very useful for some Germanic languages. Or maybe the continental West Germanic languages still had æ in 200AD but lost it sometime between then and 800AD.
I'm at best an interested outsider when it comes to runes, so i don't really want to jump in and attack this stuff. Do we have an expert who can evaluate it and fix if needed?
I hate to say it, but there are a number of mistakes in this article. For a start, runes were used to write several non-Germanic languages, such as Hungarian. Remote parts of northern Norway continued using the runes until the 20th century (or so I have read). Btw, the English can't have invented the runes - the runes existed before the English did.
I don't know what you want to make of it, but some interesting side factoids:
-- OlofE
CELTS AND RUNES
The above opinion on no Celtic connection with runes is short sighted. Tribes were often so mixed that separate racial terms often seem complete nonsense. The early scripts of the Celts are exactly runic in style and shape. Runes were used throughout Norse/Gaelic areas of Scotland and Ireland and even combined with ogam. It is difficult to attach any exclusive racial term to runes and rune use. The best we can say is that they were used by tribes of North European origin.
ThormodRaudhi ( talk) 11:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC) Thormod.
On the Negau helmet of 200BC we have the inscription harigastewa, a Germanic rendering. Accompanying it were several other helmets bearing name inscriptions in Celtic. The runic style script has been identified as North Etruscan, in the opinion of some the forerunner of the Elder Futhark. Celtiberian is also a runic style script. It is extremely unlikely that Celtic speakers did not carry knowledge and use of such letters into the Elder Futhark period, given the many mixed Germano-Celtic tribes sharing so much else. Little different from rune use among the Norse-Pictish-Gaelic population of the Viking Age. The Hunterston brooch AD700 bears the inscription Malbrithastilk (Melbrigda owns this brooch), which serves to show that words of Celtic derivation were inscribed in runic.
Thormod. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThormodRaudhi ( talk • contribs) 16:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I did not claim that the ogam was inspired by the Elder Futhark, only that it was sometimes used in combination with runic inscriptions in Gaelic areas during the Viking Age. Runes were referred to as ogam lochlannach (or foreigner ogam) by the Gael because ogam was a convenient and familiar term for runic letters, although the word RUN also existed in Scots and Irish Gaelic.
Thormod. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThormodRaudhi ( talk • contribs) 19:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Moved here from article:
Was the first article actually written for Nupedia or copied from a reference work? Do we know who wrote the original version? --LMS i WROTE THE FIRST ARTICLE. User:Wathiik
I think Larry is complaining (as am I) that the reference numbers are unclear. Please use footnotes that reference directly into the bibilography of the article itself, and mark page numbers as such. I've given one example that I think is correct, but you'd know better how to match up the references. --LDC
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeronimo ( talk • contribs) 06:46, 19 September 2002 (UTC)
A question that I did not find an answer for; "How were numbers written in runes?" Egil
I might like to see the alphabet in here as a PNG or GIF image. I can't seem to get my browser to work right with the UTF-8 or Unicode or whatever it is; all I see is squares with four hexadecimal digits squeezed into them. I have similar issues with a lot of the Japanese, Chinese, and other non-Roman alphabets, but it would be a bit much to want words in general changed into images, I know. But I think when the article is about the alphabet itself, it mightn't be too much to ask. -- John Owens 08:03 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)
Well, at least the pictures I uploaded was not copyviolated, since I made them myself. At not all the text either, I think. Den fjättrade ankan 21:32, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Nor were my pictures violations, I drew them myself and none of them appear on the referenced page. I also wrote a lot of text on this page, which is not violations. Nixdorf 05:35, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I am proposing soon to remove the explicit redirect from the topic rune since runes, in the true sense of the word as used, particularly in Norse Mythology, have only a passing relationship to the runic alphabet and it is my intention to fully deal with this topic at some very near point. I will however ensure that a link remains and resolve any links which need attention as a consequence. Sjc 19:23, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
What's the reason for separate articles Runic alphabet and Runic script? -- Pjacobi 00:34, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Living at Strängnäs, Sweden, I am surrounded by runestoens, usually dated from 'around 1050' on the little sign next to them. Over the last 10 years I have photographed and tried to read rune stones in Sörmland, Västmanland and Uppland. I do not recall any stone that uses any of the futharks depicted in the article. What you see seems to be a mixture of newer Swedish/Norwegian runes and Medieaval runes. Examples: in a:s and n:s, the side strokes cross the staffs, the R:s are rounded, the t:s have a little roof on top. Why does nobody publish the rumes as they were actually used? Klaus Fuisting -- 217.208.201.168 13:28, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In fact, I have problems viewing the glyphs, too. It doesn't show anything on my computer besides rectangular squares. Do you have Runic glyphs? // Rogper 10:11, 20 November 2004 (UTC)
Isn't this a script rather than an Alphabet? the characters do not represent sounds that can be broken down to pronounce something else, the characters represents full words, like the Chinese script, which should not be called an Alphabet either.
Kay
Displays fine for me, but isn't test.wikipedia on UTF-8? Then no problem is expected. You can also use the better looking link:
For fonts always start seeking at Alan's: http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/fonts.html
Pjacobi 10:09, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Runic script should behas been made into a redirect to this page.
dab
(T) 10:33, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Same with Elder_futhark_script. Also created Category:Runes. dab (T) 15:18, 9 December 2004 (UTC)
The Older Futhark section approaches full article length and may be exported to a separate article (with only the description of the alphabet remaining here) dab (ᛏ) 09:32, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
sigh. it seems 'Elder Futhark' is much more common than 'Older' or 'Old Futhark'. Anynone who wants to clean up the article for consistency is welcome to it. dab (ᛏ) 14:49, 17 December 2004 (UTC)
The Category:Runic alphabets uses incorrect terminology since it includes Cirth and Orkhon script -- only the Nordic and Saxon ones could be "Runic alphabets" per se. It should be changed to Category:Runiform scripts. Can someone do this? I don't know how. Evertype 09:44, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)
We do need this correction. "Runiform" means 'shaped like Runes'. Runes per se are quintessentially the Germanic Runes. Not Orkhon, not Old Hungarian, and not Cirth. Cirth may look like Runes, but the relation of its glyphs to their meanings are based on a different system, more closely related to Tengwar than the Germanic Runes. Cirth is, then, runiform. To be correct, this Category should be either Runiform scripts or Runiform alphabets. But Runic alphabets is an error. Evertype 15:55, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)
Runiform is most certainly a word. It means "like a rune", particularly in shape, and refers precisely to the straight-incised shapes of things which we tend to call "runic" though they are not really Runes. Runiform alphabets are Runes, Orkhon, Old Hungarian, and Cirth. If you take the last three out, then there's no point in having Runic alphabets as a category at all. But if we are to have it, it should be correct, and that means it should be Runiform alphabets. Get it right, or delete the category. Evertype 11:34, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)
No, Runiform alphabets/scripts is the superordinate category. It comprises Runes (including the different Runic alphabets), Orkhon, Old Hungarian, and Cirth. Evertype 00:02, 2005 Mar 2 (UTC)
We seem to be having terminological difficulties here, and I'd like to try to get that sorted out. The term alphabet is problematic, as is script. In this age of Unicode, there is a tendency -- also here on the Wikipedia -- to use script to indicate a "writing system" and alphabet as a subset of that. If we can do this more effectively accross the Wikipedia, it will be be possible for users to learn about letters, alphabets, and scripts more easily. Evertype 17:15, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)
We seem to be having terminological difficulties here, and I'd like to try to get that sorted out. The term alphabet is problematic, as is script. In this age of Unicode, there is a tendency -- also here on the Wikipedia -- to use script to indicate a "writing system" and alphabet as a subset of that. If we can do this more effectively accross the Wikipedia, it will be be possible for users to learn about letters, alphabets, and scripts more easily. Evertype 17:15, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)
Category:Alphabetic writing systems is certainly one of the appropriate categories. The terminological problem otherwise has to do with the original use of the word rune in English. Runes refers to individual runic letters as well as to the entire runic script. Runic alphabets refers to the specific traditions (English, Older and Younger Futhark, Proto-Germanic) which are subsets of the runic script. In addition, there are a number of other scripts which, because they look like runes, have been called runic: Old Hungarian runes, Old Turkic runes, and Tolkien's runes are probably the only real representatives of this set. The term runiform script is, properly, a superset of these three, but also includes the Runes themselves, since they are the standard by which the others are judged. I don't believe that Etruscan or Latin can properly be referred to as runiform (nor do I believe that anyone has ever done so). Ogham is sometimes called Ogham runes but this is not because they are runiform; it is an error made by people who really don't know the terminology very well. I'm going to save this now so you can have a look at it, while I formulate what I hope to be an acceptable recommendation. Evertype 17:41, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)
I think we basically agree. I added Category:Runes to Category:Letters by alphabet, since, as this category was intended to parallel Category:Greek letters etc. There is Category:Runology that can hold anything related to the futhark, but I object to the idea that "runiform" is a superset of "runic". Already "runic" is an adjective "like runes", and runiform is simply a ridiculous term, coined apparently because some people insisted that the Hungarians are entitled to have "runes" of their own, probably because of the connotations of the term due to runic mysticism and what not. Can you find me a definition of "runiform"? Who coined the term? Obviously, it is intended to mean "formed like runes", but what would stop us to e.g. exclude Linear B, or, as you say, Ogham? It is too vague to be appropriate as a category. We can add these associations to the articles in question, but I see no reason for a category that would include futhark, orkhon and cirth (other than Category:Alphabetic writing systems, because that's what they all are). Categories categorize without comment, and we should beware of lumping together things that would need qualification. dab (ᛏ) 10:26, 6 March 2005 (UTC)
I feel the article is reasonably cleaned up now, and I'd like to hear criticism from WP:FAC. dab (ᛏ) 16:02, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree - Ogham does not belong in this category. Cbdorsett 18:42, 6 March 2005 (UTC)
What about the recent runic discoveries in Italy? Etrusc writings ar at lest 3 to 4 hundred years older than any of the mentioned in this article. Etrusc runes are not new, they are derivates from much older times, mostly agglutinative languages of the past. Beppo on the new theories. [[[User:65.45.172.48]]]
A friend of mine suggested this page, http://www.sunnyway.com/runes/meanings.html, with lengthier descriptions of what the runes mean. I am not sure if this is authentic or new age, but it may be useful to incorporate that information. Radiant _* 11:29, 30 March 2005 (UTC)
Someone may want to check the Japanese version of this article where they seem to have found images of all of the runes stamped onto some sort of little metal planchets... We might want to consider using them. -- Dante Alighieri | Talk 19:46, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
The "West Germanic hypothesis" assumes an introduction by West Germanic tribes. This hypothesis is based on the earliest inscriptions of ca. 200, found in bogs and graves around Jutland, which exhibit West Germanic name forms, e. g. wagnija, niþijo, and harija, possibly names of tribes located in the Rhineland.
Could someone provide references for this one? My work of reference says that these forms are Proto-Norse. Should it be rewritten or deleted?-- Wiglaf 18:02, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Runes are found in the northern hemisphere of the planet because a mucousal oracle bead is concealed [not congealed] and well-protected underneath a roadside limestone chapel in the state of Pennsylvania. The mucousal oracle bead holds a tiny voice strip struck within, and the sight of the voice strip has inspired manual applications of its appearance upon such materials as bark, stone, and clay. Directly from the voice strip itself we can postulate that cuneiforms were the first manual attempt to bring the bead contents to light; and that the runes [rheum, rue, room, roam, run] have resulted from highly opinionated attempts to countermand the effects of the oracle-maker's [o-m] creation. Analogous artifacts include the oracle bones of China, with some acknowledgment of the similar-ity of bone to mucous as a primary physiological secretion. It is a colloquialism to say that someone's nose is "running" or "runny" when the brain mass is discharging mucous during the grief process. Beadtot 22:18, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
there is also a rune tradition in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal due to Viking explorers and settlers. Althought the tradition of the use of Runes are now declining (due to education, people dont need to use runes no more and decline of fishing activity), after (I believe) 1000 yrs of use.- Pedro 20:28, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hello folks, I cleaned up some sections in the "modern use" section to better organize the mass of information and references there. I did not remove any information but reworded some of it a bit to reflect their moves. The "Military use" is of particular interest, which is something we added to the odal page, reflecting the fact that the modern German military uses the odal rune in a variety of ways. Does anyone know if any other modern Scandinavian or Germanic military use runes similiary? -- Bloodofox 08:59, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
so there is a linear design on Bundeswehr shoulderpads that looks like the Odal rune. That doesn't mean much, it's just a simple angular hoop. Unless there is some reference that the Bundeswehr actually said that the design is meant to represent a rune, I don't think there can be any claim that the design is 'runic'. After all, you could go and claim every straight line you see is the "Isaz" rune, and every angle the "Kaunaz" rune. That's silly. Of course, if you have information that the Bundeswehr does describe the design as runic, by all means quote it. Nazi use of runes goes well beyond the "military", and deserves its proper section. dab (ᛏ) 09:02, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Hello, I've removed the Thor Steinar from the article, which was previously under the Third Reich section. Thor Steinar have repeatedly stated they are not a Neo-Nazi company, that their use of runes derives from Norwegian use of the wolfshook, for example. Placing them in this portion only furthers this misconception, which is disputed by the company itself. Their official site contains no mention of anything remotely 'neo-nazi.' [14] Even if the brand is popular with right wingers, it is also popular with subcultural crowds and sometimes pagans, due to the use of runes. The Wikipedia article about it is also wrong, it unfairly places the company under the 'Neo-Nazi' tag solely because of some of their consumers and the fact that they use, oh dear, runes. I can think of a few polo shirt manufacturers that have had problems alike it in the past. -- Bloodofox 21:02, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I can't seem to find Thor Steinar's old disclaimer. Checkout the German Wikipedia Thor Steinar article for more info: [15] -- Bloodofox 21:37, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Should this article have a section regarding the runic usage of colons? For example, :OFTEN:RUNIC:INSCRIPTIONS:APPEAR:LIKE:THIS: on rune stones, plus the colon practice has even survived to this day in some Germanic countries, where sometimes you will find words framed with colons in a similar way. What about bindrunes? Maybe bindrunes deserve their own article, or perhaps not, but it'd be good to see a complete history of the bindrunes. I know that they were also used during the middle ages, as well as commonly as bomarke which later spread to Portugal, as someone mentioned here. -- Bloodofox 21:56, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
we need to branch out a "pc" article soon, we cannot mention every videogame or fantasy novel with a rune in it here. dab (ᛏ) 09:56, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
I wonder about the section of the Björketorp runestone, the word "argiu" links to " Ergi", while the translation gives the modern Scandinavian meaning "anger", maybe someone with better knowledge of Old Norse could check it out and provide a good translation. 惑乱 分からん 01:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I am considering adding tables to the individual rune articles, along the lines of those we did for the Phoenician/Canaanite letters, e.g. Gimel. The problem is that nobody has uploaded images of the Futhorc/Younger Futhark glyphs, so I am dumping them on this talkpage for now; help is welcome. dab (ᛏ) 10:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Fehu | Feoh | Fé | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚠ U+16A0
| |||
transliteration | f | |||
IPA | [f] | |||
Position: | 1 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Ûruz/Ûram | Ur/Yr | Úr | ||
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚢ U+16A2
|
ᚢ ᚣ U+16A2 U+16A3
|
ᚢ U+16A2
| |
transliteration | u | u y | u | |
IPA | [u] | [u] [y] | [u] | |
Position: | 2 | 2 27 | 2 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Þurisaz | Þorn | Þurs | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚦ U+16A6
| |||
transliteration | þ | |||
IPA | [θ] | |||
Position: | 3 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Ansuz | Os/Ac/Æsc | Óss | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚨ U+16A8
|
ᚩ ᚪ ᚫ U+16A9 U+16AA U+16AB
|
ᚬ U+16AC
|
ᚭ U+16AD
|
transliteration | a | o a æ | ą | |
IPA | [a] | [o] [a] [æ] | [o] | |
Position: | 4 | 4 25 26 | 4 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Raidô | Rad | Ræið | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚱ U+16B1
| |||
transliteration | r | |||
IPA | [r] | |||
Position: | 5 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Kaunan | Cen | Kaun | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚲ U+16B4
|
ᚳ U+16B3
|
ᚴ U+16B4
| |
transliteration | k | |||
IPA | [k] | |||
Position: | 6 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Tiwaz | Tir | Týr | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᛏ U+16CF
|
ᛐ U+16D0
| ||
transliteration | t | |||
IPA | [t] | |||
Position: | 17 | 12 |
we have dozens of images of important runic artefacts, and we feature an image of some cheap "fortune telling" runes as an image illustrating "Elder Futhark"? Quite apart . from the dubious merit of generic clip art, modern systems of divination belong to the "modern uses" section. Nobody saw it necessary to give any details about these. There can easily be an article on Runic divination, discussing whatever divination systems people have come up with, and I suppose the image could be used to illustrate that, even though it will not be useful for illustrating the article unless it is explained what is going on in the image (I see two index fingers pointing at an o rune flanked by l and b runes, incised on oval wooden or plastic chips). dab (ᛏ) 15:01, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
The dalrunes in the article are wrong. In fact, the runes claimed to be dalrunes are actually medieval runes (i.e. post Viking age but before c:a 1500AD). The dalrunes were evolved from the medieval runes in the 16th century when the runes were not commonly used anymore in other parts of Scandinavia, so there's a clear connection though. But to claim the general scandinavian medieval runes to be dalrunes is somewhat anachronistic.
Here's a link to how the dalrunes actually looked like: http://www.angelfire.com/on/Wodensharrow/images/dalrunor.gif
This also means that there's no discussion concerning the extremely important medieval runes in the article. (These are probably the runes which were most widely used ever between 200AD and 1900AD.) The time period 1100AD to 1500AD is simply lost, somehow.
Jens Persson ( 130.242.128.85 17:15, 4 May 2006 (UTC))
I have now traced the guilty edit for this relabelling of the Middle Age runes to "Dalecarlian Runic script" (which later became "Dalrunes", which BTW sounds strange in my ears). Here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Runic_alphabet&diff=8265225&oldid=8265221 . So, the guilty guy is some Dbachmann. I wonder what he was thinking about here. And more seriously, why didn't anyone notice during two years this mistake in the article? i mean, the Middle Age runes were extremely important, maybe the most important runes ever used since they were more widely used than the earlier Runic scripts.
Jens Persson ( 130.242.128.85 19:18, 4 May 2006 (UTC))
your belligerence is completely unnecessary. Your link [16] seems to rather confirm that our "Middle Age Runes" are Dalrunes. Obviously, I can spot the variants. So instead of all the fuss, you could discuss how some letters like o and q developed variants in the time leading up to 1900. From what point do we talk of "Dalrunes", and if the "Middle Age Runes" are not "Dalrunes", what are they? What are our sources for verifying this? Do we have to travel to Sweden and talk to old folks, or has anybody discussed Dalrunes in published literature? What is required to make a given inscription "Dalrunic"? I know that the defining feature of Futhorc is the ōs rune. What exactly are the variants that need to be present for a script to be "Dalecarlian"? I wouldn't call two scripts "completely different" if the later evolves out of the earlier by introducing a few letter variants. Otherwise we could hardly claim to be using the "Latin" alphabet right now. dab (ᛏ) 06:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
The runes displayed under "Dalrunes" are a generic medieval Scandanavian runic alphabet, with the usual suffling around of c, s, and z (which were apparently fairly interchangable). Try as I might, I can't find a single non-Wikipedia source that ties these specifically to Dalarna.
However, I've found three sources which show Dalarna runes as a mix of medieval Scandanavian runes and modified Latin letters. Starting with The allrunes Font and Package, by Carl-Gustav Werner (2004/01/06, p. 6):
Werner has a pretty extensive bibliography of academic literature on runes, so I'm inclined to credit him as a reasonable source. (He also has an excellent section on medieval Scandanavian runes in general.)
In addition to this article, I've found several websites which display Dalarna runes:
So far, I can't find any non-Wikipedia source which claims that the Dalarna runes are identical to the medieval Scandanavian alphabets (and if they are, why do they have their own section?).
Unless somebody else has a good citation, I'm going to remove the Unicode examples of "Dalrunes" (which are fairly misleading), and add a note about the frequent mixing of Dalarna runes with Latin letters. The rest of the section seems consistent with the other sources I've found. Thoughts? emk 16:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Here's the second paragraph, which was interesting, but can't be reconciled with any source that I can find, nor with the material we have at Kensington Runestone.
In particular, the Edward-script looks like a slightly modified Younger Futhark, and certainly not like any of the pictures of the Dalecarlian or medieval Scandanavian runes we currently have in the article. Also, the Kensington article assumes that the Edward manuscript is of uncertain relation to runic practice in Scandanavia. So I'm not confident enough about this material to leave it in, and I'm moving it to the Talk page (as per WP:CITE).
Please, if you have sources for this content, cite them and move it back to the main page. emk 12:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
"Runestones: As some people started making runestones in modern times they had a problem with that some modern characters were missing from the older rune alphabeths so an updated version using ruffed runes was created.[1]"
I don't see what the depicted runes associated with this text has to do with modern runestones. The depicted runes look like the runes reanimated in the early 17th century by Johannes Bureus (Svenska ABC boken medh runor (1612), see http://ds.kb.se/?mapp=3&fil=Abc1612-1 ), and they were not meant to be used for runestones but rather to be written on paper like the latin characters. Actually, due to nationalistic felings, there were serious thoughts on introducing the runes as being the official script for writing Swedish back then, and Burues book was one attempt to standardise these runes.
Jens Persson ( 130.242.128.85 18:45, 4 May 2006 (UTC))
I started this from many works I have on runes. I don't have pictures of the runes specifically and don't even have the proper font to display the ones in the article, so bear with me. The first set is my attempted transliteration of the Runic names into Proto-Indo-European in the order of the Futhark, the second set is the order of the futhark and the alternate names in different Germanic languages. (Gmc is Germanic/Proto-Germanic. OE is Anglo-Saxon/Old English, OFris is Old Frisian, ODu is Old Low Franconian/Old Dutch, Go is Gothic, ON is Old Norse, OS is Old Saxon etc.). I attempted very much to make the alternate spellings in the same language and transliteration of each language to be as historically attested as possible. Maybe someone with enough time on their hands can properly incorporate this information into the article, it's been sitting on my computer as a text file for years. If the name has a different root, such as 'sôwilô' "the sun" & 'sigiz' "victory", but is the same rune; I put each instance of the alternate example in brackets. Otherwise, the other examples in brackets are simply unattested forms as far as my sources go. Nagelfar 23:13, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
...
a reconstructed language-root of the futhark rune-names
The futhark in the different teutonic languages
Old Frisian runes
early alternate runes not in the futhark
later alternate runes not in the futhark
More various examples from forms appearing; The following is a list I did at another time from forms appearing in different works, with the Mod. English form which probably isn't always correct and less concern about alternate etymologies.
I wrote Bülach fibula (for the first time inserting "penis penis penis" in a Wikipedia article :P I only hope Tawkerbot will let that pass...) to account for the "leek" meaning. I think that in the current mainstream opinion, people's imagination ran wild here, and I suppose laguz is a safer reconstruction. I suggest we move Laukaz to Laguz. dab (ᛏ) 09:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I have never seen the word used outside this article (even after searching for it with Google). Most English-speakers would say either "Dalecarlian runes" or "runes from/in Dalarna". ISNorden 15:57, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I have read at least six interpretations of that rune's name in different books (some scholarly, some occult). For the sake of NPOV, I recommend labeling the translation of Perthro "[unknown/disputed]", and linking to the name theories in the article about that specific rune. -- ISNorden 21:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Pure conjecture, but was there any connection to the romance rooted word "port", as in a seaport? Place to stow a sea faring vessel, i.e. longship..? Nagelfar 04:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Congratulations to Emk for adding a runic literacy category to the new writing-systems template! So far, he and I are the only listed users; if any of you can decipher runes tolerably well, feel free to update your own userpages now. -- Ingeborg S. Nordén 17:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
The following material appears to be derived from the TITUS page on the history of the Runic alphabet:
Unfortunately, the version of the Raetic alphabet on the TITUS page differs significantly from that in Schumacher's "Die Rätischen Inschriften". This is a widely-cited catalog of Raetic inscriptions. The alphabet it describes generally matches the alphabet on the Negau helmet and the images found on this page).
In particular, I can't find another source that agrees with the transliteration of the Raetic ᛞ as "d" (all the other sources transliterate this as "š"), and several other forms in the TITUS table do not appear in any of the inscriptions I can find.
Does anyone have another source which confirms the TITUS table? If we can't find one, it might be more accurate to cut the history section down to "a northern Italic alphabet" and not get into specific details like "only five Elder Futhark runes ( ᛖ e, ᛇ ï, ᛃ j, ᛜ ŋ, ᛈ p) [have] no counterpart in the Bolzano alphabet". But if someone's got a second source, one which traces the TITUS forms to specific artifacts, we can use it to update the appropriate sections of Old Italic alphabet.
See Talk:Old Italic alphabet for more discussion. emk 00:24, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Hello again! A question about the following passage:
I don't know of any unambiguous references to runic divination. But there's a series of verses in Sigrdrífumál which sound like instructions for runic magic, the most specific of which is:
Lee Hollandar translates this in much the same fashion in The Poetic Edda, and Gordon defines rísta as "to cut (runes)" in his Introduction to Old Norse. Cleasby and Vigfusson translate the last line as, "and mark (the character) Naud on one's nail," in their dictionary.
Given the relative consensus around this stanza, and the less explicit instructions in the the surrounding stanzas, I'm uncomfortable with the blanket statement, "[The Norse literature] nowhere contains specific instructions on ... [runic] magic."
I think there may also be something about the use of ᚦ in curses in one of the sagas, too, but I've never tracked it down. So I'm going to strike the "and magic" from the main page. If you disagree, please feel free to put it back. - emk 23:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
That does seem to be the advice in the Sigrdrífumál, but in the Hávamál, Odin suggests that persuing other men's wives is a Bad Idea, based on personal experience :-) (verses 96-102, 115, 131 [18]).
As for runic magic, there's also some good material in Egils saga (chapter 75), where Egil discovers curse-runes hidden in the bed of a sick woman:
This sounds like actual written spells (which was typical all throughout Europe at the time), not necessarily the magical use of individual runes.
But as for runic divination, Hávamál 80 [20], does seem to hint at some sort of explicitly runic divination:
The next several lines suggest that (a) rúnum should be translated as "runes", not "mysteries" (fáði fimbulþulr especially), and (b) this consultation is considered to be a holy or mysterious process. (I can translate more tonight.)
None of this is conclusive, of course, but it suggests that Runic divination may benefit from some further research, too.
While we're discussing this stuff, can anybody recommend a good translation of the Edda for quoting on Wikipedia? The Bellows translation is way too loose for details like this, and Hollander's translation--though far more faithful to the text--is written in such an archaic style that it requires a glossary.
Ideally, I'd like a translation which is both academically solid, and easy to understand. Any thoughts? - emk 13:35, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Not totally sure where this should go so I've added here. With regards to the comment concerning the shape of the Armanen rune Gibor I quote the following from the main page
The shape of the Armanen runes as envisaged by Von List is substantially different to the form currently used. Who exactly it is that changed the shape of Gibor is open to debate, but it appeared in its 'new form' in the early 1930's. However, if one examines Von List's original documents one will find a somewhat different design, one that bares little resemblance to the 'Wolfsangel'. 90.204.30.249 ( talk) 00:49, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
What about the runes from the Lord of the Rings? The LOTR page links here . . . I think that it would make a nice addition. - Frazzydee 00:29, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
"They probably ought to have their own separate article, as Tolkien made them up himself and they did not exist historically." is not entirely true. Cirth (Pronounced 'Kerth') looks very much like the ancient runes on this page.
A few questions about the current content.
From the first sentence: "Celtic" doesn't belong here. In just about every sense, the Celtic peoples are not a subset of the Germanic peoples (a few confused Roman authors to the contrary). Also there is not a lot of evidence that Celtic people used runes. There are a few cases of English and Norwegian runes in Scotland (and maybe Ireland) and it's just concievable that Celtic people did these, but seems more plausible it was the English and Norwegians. That's about it. I think the Celtic connection with runes is very weak and not worth mentioning.
From the "Use of Runes" section: "It appears that runes may actually be much older. The rune for the sound æ, as in sAd, was not used in writing for at that time the Germanic Languages didn't have that sound. Yet, in every list of characters it always appeared. However, in Proto-West Germanic æ appears to have existed as a full-blown phoneme."
I am not sure about this. Are there some serious scholars pushing this view? It's entirely plausible that the runes are significantly older than 200AD, since many of them can't easily be dated, and the ones that are easiest to date are the ones in wood, which usually doesn't last that long. I have vague memories of a Roman author 1st century BC mentioning something that might have been runes, sorry, i can't remember any details now.
But this æ argument sounds a bit dubious to me. From your text, it looks like you are saying æ is in (constructed) proto-West-Germanic, but disappeared from West Germanic languages before 200AD. Old English is certainly a West Germanic language, and the æ letter occurs in Old English at dates much later than 200BC. On the continent, West Germanic languages are not written (except possible runic fragments, see below) until about 800AD, so it seems to me to be difficult to say if they had æ or not around 200AD.
Early runic inscriptions on the continent are mostly very short and difficult to follow. If they don't use æ in actual words it may be because the inscription is so short that that letter doesn't happen to be used. It is also difficult to identify the languages for most of these. Some might be Saxon, Friesian, and other West Germanic languages, but they could also be just about anything else.
For runes, West Germanic is not the only game in town. The Scandinavians used runes, and some of their languages have æ still today, i guess they probably did in runic times? There were also the East Germanic languages, and for all we know other lost Germanic branches, and they may well have used runes also.
This brings alternative hypotheses: Runic script could have been invented by Scandinavians or English, or some other language speakers who had æ and then most of the continental Germans who copied these runes had æ in their alphabet but never used it. Or maybe if the runes are based on Greek script as a few scholars think, æ could represent a Greek letter that turned out to be not very useful for some Germanic languages. Or maybe the continental West Germanic languages still had æ in 200AD but lost it sometime between then and 800AD.
I'm at best an interested outsider when it comes to runes, so i don't really want to jump in and attack this stuff. Do we have an expert who can evaluate it and fix if needed?
I hate to say it, but there are a number of mistakes in this article. For a start, runes were used to write several non-Germanic languages, such as Hungarian. Remote parts of northern Norway continued using the runes until the 20th century (or so I have read). Btw, the English can't have invented the runes - the runes existed before the English did.
I don't know what you want to make of it, but some interesting side factoids:
-- OlofE
CELTS AND RUNES
The above opinion on no Celtic connection with runes is short sighted. Tribes were often so mixed that separate racial terms often seem complete nonsense. The early scripts of the Celts are exactly runic in style and shape. Runes were used throughout Norse/Gaelic areas of Scotland and Ireland and even combined with ogam. It is difficult to attach any exclusive racial term to runes and rune use. The best we can say is that they were used by tribes of North European origin.
ThormodRaudhi ( talk) 11:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC) Thormod.
On the Negau helmet of 200BC we have the inscription harigastewa, a Germanic rendering. Accompanying it were several other helmets bearing name inscriptions in Celtic. The runic style script has been identified as North Etruscan, in the opinion of some the forerunner of the Elder Futhark. Celtiberian is also a runic style script. It is extremely unlikely that Celtic speakers did not carry knowledge and use of such letters into the Elder Futhark period, given the many mixed Germano-Celtic tribes sharing so much else. Little different from rune use among the Norse-Pictish-Gaelic population of the Viking Age. The Hunterston brooch AD700 bears the inscription Malbrithastilk (Melbrigda owns this brooch), which serves to show that words of Celtic derivation were inscribed in runic.
Thormod. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThormodRaudhi ( talk • contribs) 16:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I did not claim that the ogam was inspired by the Elder Futhark, only that it was sometimes used in combination with runic inscriptions in Gaelic areas during the Viking Age. Runes were referred to as ogam lochlannach (or foreigner ogam) by the Gael because ogam was a convenient and familiar term for runic letters, although the word RUN also existed in Scots and Irish Gaelic.
Thormod. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThormodRaudhi ( talk • contribs) 19:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Moved here from article:
Was the first article actually written for Nupedia or copied from a reference work? Do we know who wrote the original version? --LMS i WROTE THE FIRST ARTICLE. User:Wathiik
I think Larry is complaining (as am I) that the reference numbers are unclear. Please use footnotes that reference directly into the bibilography of the article itself, and mark page numbers as such. I've given one example that I think is correct, but you'd know better how to match up the references. --LDC
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeronimo ( talk • contribs) 06:46, 19 September 2002 (UTC)
A question that I did not find an answer for; "How were numbers written in runes?" Egil
I might like to see the alphabet in here as a PNG or GIF image. I can't seem to get my browser to work right with the UTF-8 or Unicode or whatever it is; all I see is squares with four hexadecimal digits squeezed into them. I have similar issues with a lot of the Japanese, Chinese, and other non-Roman alphabets, but it would be a bit much to want words in general changed into images, I know. But I think when the article is about the alphabet itself, it mightn't be too much to ask. -- John Owens 08:03 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)
Well, at least the pictures I uploaded was not copyviolated, since I made them myself. At not all the text either, I think. Den fjättrade ankan 21:32, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Nor were my pictures violations, I drew them myself and none of them appear on the referenced page. I also wrote a lot of text on this page, which is not violations. Nixdorf 05:35, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I am proposing soon to remove the explicit redirect from the topic rune since runes, in the true sense of the word as used, particularly in Norse Mythology, have only a passing relationship to the runic alphabet and it is my intention to fully deal with this topic at some very near point. I will however ensure that a link remains and resolve any links which need attention as a consequence. Sjc 19:23, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
What's the reason for separate articles Runic alphabet and Runic script? -- Pjacobi 00:34, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Living at Strängnäs, Sweden, I am surrounded by runestoens, usually dated from 'around 1050' on the little sign next to them. Over the last 10 years I have photographed and tried to read rune stones in Sörmland, Västmanland and Uppland. I do not recall any stone that uses any of the futharks depicted in the article. What you see seems to be a mixture of newer Swedish/Norwegian runes and Medieaval runes. Examples: in a:s and n:s, the side strokes cross the staffs, the R:s are rounded, the t:s have a little roof on top. Why does nobody publish the rumes as they were actually used? Klaus Fuisting -- 217.208.201.168 13:28, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In fact, I have problems viewing the glyphs, too. It doesn't show anything on my computer besides rectangular squares. Do you have Runic glyphs? // Rogper 10:11, 20 November 2004 (UTC)
Isn't this a script rather than an Alphabet? the characters do not represent sounds that can be broken down to pronounce something else, the characters represents full words, like the Chinese script, which should not be called an Alphabet either.
Kay
Displays fine for me, but isn't test.wikipedia on UTF-8? Then no problem is expected. You can also use the better looking link:
For fonts always start seeking at Alan's: http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/fonts.html
Pjacobi 10:09, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Runic script should behas been made into a redirect to this page.
dab
(T) 10:33, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Same with Elder_futhark_script. Also created Category:Runes. dab (T) 15:18, 9 December 2004 (UTC)
The Older Futhark section approaches full article length and may be exported to a separate article (with only the description of the alphabet remaining here) dab (ᛏ) 09:32, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
sigh. it seems 'Elder Futhark' is much more common than 'Older' or 'Old Futhark'. Anynone who wants to clean up the article for consistency is welcome to it. dab (ᛏ) 14:49, 17 December 2004 (UTC)
The Category:Runic alphabets uses incorrect terminology since it includes Cirth and Orkhon script -- only the Nordic and Saxon ones could be "Runic alphabets" per se. It should be changed to Category:Runiform scripts. Can someone do this? I don't know how. Evertype 09:44, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)
We do need this correction. "Runiform" means 'shaped like Runes'. Runes per se are quintessentially the Germanic Runes. Not Orkhon, not Old Hungarian, and not Cirth. Cirth may look like Runes, but the relation of its glyphs to their meanings are based on a different system, more closely related to Tengwar than the Germanic Runes. Cirth is, then, runiform. To be correct, this Category should be either Runiform scripts or Runiform alphabets. But Runic alphabets is an error. Evertype 15:55, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)
Runiform is most certainly a word. It means "like a rune", particularly in shape, and refers precisely to the straight-incised shapes of things which we tend to call "runic" though they are not really Runes. Runiform alphabets are Runes, Orkhon, Old Hungarian, and Cirth. If you take the last three out, then there's no point in having Runic alphabets as a category at all. But if we are to have it, it should be correct, and that means it should be Runiform alphabets. Get it right, or delete the category. Evertype 11:34, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)
No, Runiform alphabets/scripts is the superordinate category. It comprises Runes (including the different Runic alphabets), Orkhon, Old Hungarian, and Cirth. Evertype 00:02, 2005 Mar 2 (UTC)
We seem to be having terminological difficulties here, and I'd like to try to get that sorted out. The term alphabet is problematic, as is script. In this age of Unicode, there is a tendency -- also here on the Wikipedia -- to use script to indicate a "writing system" and alphabet as a subset of that. If we can do this more effectively accross the Wikipedia, it will be be possible for users to learn about letters, alphabets, and scripts more easily. Evertype 17:15, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)
We seem to be having terminological difficulties here, and I'd like to try to get that sorted out. The term alphabet is problematic, as is script. In this age of Unicode, there is a tendency -- also here on the Wikipedia -- to use script to indicate a "writing system" and alphabet as a subset of that. If we can do this more effectively accross the Wikipedia, it will be be possible for users to learn about letters, alphabets, and scripts more easily. Evertype 17:15, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)
Category:Alphabetic writing systems is certainly one of the appropriate categories. The terminological problem otherwise has to do with the original use of the word rune in English. Runes refers to individual runic letters as well as to the entire runic script. Runic alphabets refers to the specific traditions (English, Older and Younger Futhark, Proto-Germanic) which are subsets of the runic script. In addition, there are a number of other scripts which, because they look like runes, have been called runic: Old Hungarian runes, Old Turkic runes, and Tolkien's runes are probably the only real representatives of this set. The term runiform script is, properly, a superset of these three, but also includes the Runes themselves, since they are the standard by which the others are judged. I don't believe that Etruscan or Latin can properly be referred to as runiform (nor do I believe that anyone has ever done so). Ogham is sometimes called Ogham runes but this is not because they are runiform; it is an error made by people who really don't know the terminology very well. I'm going to save this now so you can have a look at it, while I formulate what I hope to be an acceptable recommendation. Evertype 17:41, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)
I think we basically agree. I added Category:Runes to Category:Letters by alphabet, since, as this category was intended to parallel Category:Greek letters etc. There is Category:Runology that can hold anything related to the futhark, but I object to the idea that "runiform" is a superset of "runic". Already "runic" is an adjective "like runes", and runiform is simply a ridiculous term, coined apparently because some people insisted that the Hungarians are entitled to have "runes" of their own, probably because of the connotations of the term due to runic mysticism and what not. Can you find me a definition of "runiform"? Who coined the term? Obviously, it is intended to mean "formed like runes", but what would stop us to e.g. exclude Linear B, or, as you say, Ogham? It is too vague to be appropriate as a category. We can add these associations to the articles in question, but I see no reason for a category that would include futhark, orkhon and cirth (other than Category:Alphabetic writing systems, because that's what they all are). Categories categorize without comment, and we should beware of lumping together things that would need qualification. dab (ᛏ) 10:26, 6 March 2005 (UTC)
I feel the article is reasonably cleaned up now, and I'd like to hear criticism from WP:FAC. dab (ᛏ) 16:02, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree - Ogham does not belong in this category. Cbdorsett 18:42, 6 March 2005 (UTC)
What about the recent runic discoveries in Italy? Etrusc writings ar at lest 3 to 4 hundred years older than any of the mentioned in this article. Etrusc runes are not new, they are derivates from much older times, mostly agglutinative languages of the past. Beppo on the new theories. [[[User:65.45.172.48]]]
A friend of mine suggested this page, http://www.sunnyway.com/runes/meanings.html, with lengthier descriptions of what the runes mean. I am not sure if this is authentic or new age, but it may be useful to incorporate that information. Radiant _* 11:29, 30 March 2005 (UTC)
Someone may want to check the Japanese version of this article where they seem to have found images of all of the runes stamped onto some sort of little metal planchets... We might want to consider using them. -- Dante Alighieri | Talk 19:46, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
The "West Germanic hypothesis" assumes an introduction by West Germanic tribes. This hypothesis is based on the earliest inscriptions of ca. 200, found in bogs and graves around Jutland, which exhibit West Germanic name forms, e. g. wagnija, niþijo, and harija, possibly names of tribes located in the Rhineland.
Could someone provide references for this one? My work of reference says that these forms are Proto-Norse. Should it be rewritten or deleted?-- Wiglaf 18:02, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Runes are found in the northern hemisphere of the planet because a mucousal oracle bead is concealed [not congealed] and well-protected underneath a roadside limestone chapel in the state of Pennsylvania. The mucousal oracle bead holds a tiny voice strip struck within, and the sight of the voice strip has inspired manual applications of its appearance upon such materials as bark, stone, and clay. Directly from the voice strip itself we can postulate that cuneiforms were the first manual attempt to bring the bead contents to light; and that the runes [rheum, rue, room, roam, run] have resulted from highly opinionated attempts to countermand the effects of the oracle-maker's [o-m] creation. Analogous artifacts include the oracle bones of China, with some acknowledgment of the similar-ity of bone to mucous as a primary physiological secretion. It is a colloquialism to say that someone's nose is "running" or "runny" when the brain mass is discharging mucous during the grief process. Beadtot 22:18, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
there is also a rune tradition in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal due to Viking explorers and settlers. Althought the tradition of the use of Runes are now declining (due to education, people dont need to use runes no more and decline of fishing activity), after (I believe) 1000 yrs of use.- Pedro 20:28, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hello folks, I cleaned up some sections in the "modern use" section to better organize the mass of information and references there. I did not remove any information but reworded some of it a bit to reflect their moves. The "Military use" is of particular interest, which is something we added to the odal page, reflecting the fact that the modern German military uses the odal rune in a variety of ways. Does anyone know if any other modern Scandinavian or Germanic military use runes similiary? -- Bloodofox 08:59, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
so there is a linear design on Bundeswehr shoulderpads that looks like the Odal rune. That doesn't mean much, it's just a simple angular hoop. Unless there is some reference that the Bundeswehr actually said that the design is meant to represent a rune, I don't think there can be any claim that the design is 'runic'. After all, you could go and claim every straight line you see is the "Isaz" rune, and every angle the "Kaunaz" rune. That's silly. Of course, if you have information that the Bundeswehr does describe the design as runic, by all means quote it. Nazi use of runes goes well beyond the "military", and deserves its proper section. dab (ᛏ) 09:02, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Hello, I've removed the Thor Steinar from the article, which was previously under the Third Reich section. Thor Steinar have repeatedly stated they are not a Neo-Nazi company, that their use of runes derives from Norwegian use of the wolfshook, for example. Placing them in this portion only furthers this misconception, which is disputed by the company itself. Their official site contains no mention of anything remotely 'neo-nazi.' [14] Even if the brand is popular with right wingers, it is also popular with subcultural crowds and sometimes pagans, due to the use of runes. The Wikipedia article about it is also wrong, it unfairly places the company under the 'Neo-Nazi' tag solely because of some of their consumers and the fact that they use, oh dear, runes. I can think of a few polo shirt manufacturers that have had problems alike it in the past. -- Bloodofox 21:02, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I can't seem to find Thor Steinar's old disclaimer. Checkout the German Wikipedia Thor Steinar article for more info: [15] -- Bloodofox 21:37, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Should this article have a section regarding the runic usage of colons? For example, :OFTEN:RUNIC:INSCRIPTIONS:APPEAR:LIKE:THIS: on rune stones, plus the colon practice has even survived to this day in some Germanic countries, where sometimes you will find words framed with colons in a similar way. What about bindrunes? Maybe bindrunes deserve their own article, or perhaps not, but it'd be good to see a complete history of the bindrunes. I know that they were also used during the middle ages, as well as commonly as bomarke which later spread to Portugal, as someone mentioned here. -- Bloodofox 21:56, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
we need to branch out a "pc" article soon, we cannot mention every videogame or fantasy novel with a rune in it here. dab (ᛏ) 09:56, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
I wonder about the section of the Björketorp runestone, the word "argiu" links to " Ergi", while the translation gives the modern Scandinavian meaning "anger", maybe someone with better knowledge of Old Norse could check it out and provide a good translation. 惑乱 分からん 01:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I am considering adding tables to the individual rune articles, along the lines of those we did for the Phoenician/Canaanite letters, e.g. Gimel. The problem is that nobody has uploaded images of the Futhorc/Younger Futhark glyphs, so I am dumping them on this talkpage for now; help is welcome. dab (ᛏ) 10:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Fehu | Feoh | Fé | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚠ U+16A0
| |||
transliteration | f | |||
IPA | [f] | |||
Position: | 1 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Ûruz/Ûram | Ur/Yr | Úr | ||
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚢ U+16A2
|
ᚢ ᚣ U+16A2 U+16A3
|
ᚢ U+16A2
| |
transliteration | u | u y | u | |
IPA | [u] | [u] [y] | [u] | |
Position: | 2 | 2 27 | 2 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Þurisaz | Þorn | Þurs | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚦ U+16A6
| |||
transliteration | þ | |||
IPA | [θ] | |||
Position: | 3 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Ansuz | Os/Ac/Æsc | Óss | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚨ U+16A8
|
ᚩ ᚪ ᚫ U+16A9 U+16AA U+16AB
|
ᚬ U+16AC
|
ᚭ U+16AD
|
transliteration | a | o a æ | ą | |
IPA | [a] | [o] [a] [æ] | [o] | |
Position: | 4 | 4 25 26 | 4 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Raidô | Rad | Ræið | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚱ U+16B1
| |||
transliteration | r | |||
IPA | [r] | |||
Position: | 5 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Kaunan | Cen | Kaun | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᚲ U+16B4
|
ᚳ U+16B3
|
ᚴ U+16B4
| |
transliteration | k | |||
IPA | [k] | |||
Position: | 6 |
name | Proto-Germanic | Anglo-Saxon | Old Norse | |
*Tiwaz | Tir | Týr | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |
Unicode | ᛏ U+16CF
|
ᛐ U+16D0
| ||
transliteration | t | |||
IPA | [t] | |||
Position: | 17 | 12 |
we have dozens of images of important runic artefacts, and we feature an image of some cheap "fortune telling" runes as an image illustrating "Elder Futhark"? Quite apart . from the dubious merit of generic clip art, modern systems of divination belong to the "modern uses" section. Nobody saw it necessary to give any details about these. There can easily be an article on Runic divination, discussing whatever divination systems people have come up with, and I suppose the image could be used to illustrate that, even though it will not be useful for illustrating the article unless it is explained what is going on in the image (I see two index fingers pointing at an o rune flanked by l and b runes, incised on oval wooden or plastic chips). dab (ᛏ) 15:01, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
The dalrunes in the article are wrong. In fact, the runes claimed to be dalrunes are actually medieval runes (i.e. post Viking age but before c:a 1500AD). The dalrunes were evolved from the medieval runes in the 16th century when the runes were not commonly used anymore in other parts of Scandinavia, so there's a clear connection though. But to claim the general scandinavian medieval runes to be dalrunes is somewhat anachronistic.
Here's a link to how the dalrunes actually looked like: http://www.angelfire.com/on/Wodensharrow/images/dalrunor.gif
This also means that there's no discussion concerning the extremely important medieval runes in the article. (These are probably the runes which were most widely used ever between 200AD and 1900AD.) The time period 1100AD to 1500AD is simply lost, somehow.
Jens Persson ( 130.242.128.85 17:15, 4 May 2006 (UTC))
I have now traced the guilty edit for this relabelling of the Middle Age runes to "Dalecarlian Runic script" (which later became "Dalrunes", which BTW sounds strange in my ears). Here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Runic_alphabet&diff=8265225&oldid=8265221 . So, the guilty guy is some Dbachmann. I wonder what he was thinking about here. And more seriously, why didn't anyone notice during two years this mistake in the article? i mean, the Middle Age runes were extremely important, maybe the most important runes ever used since they were more widely used than the earlier Runic scripts.
Jens Persson ( 130.242.128.85 19:18, 4 May 2006 (UTC))
your belligerence is completely unnecessary. Your link [16] seems to rather confirm that our "Middle Age Runes" are Dalrunes. Obviously, I can spot the variants. So instead of all the fuss, you could discuss how some letters like o and q developed variants in the time leading up to 1900. From what point do we talk of "Dalrunes", and if the "Middle Age Runes" are not "Dalrunes", what are they? What are our sources for verifying this? Do we have to travel to Sweden and talk to old folks, or has anybody discussed Dalrunes in published literature? What is required to make a given inscription "Dalrunic"? I know that the defining feature of Futhorc is the ōs rune. What exactly are the variants that need to be present for a script to be "Dalecarlian"? I wouldn't call two scripts "completely different" if the later evolves out of the earlier by introducing a few letter variants. Otherwise we could hardly claim to be using the "Latin" alphabet right now. dab (ᛏ) 06:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
The runes displayed under "Dalrunes" are a generic medieval Scandanavian runic alphabet, with the usual suffling around of c, s, and z (which were apparently fairly interchangable). Try as I might, I can't find a single non-Wikipedia source that ties these specifically to Dalarna.
However, I've found three sources which show Dalarna runes as a mix of medieval Scandanavian runes and modified Latin letters. Starting with The allrunes Font and Package, by Carl-Gustav Werner (2004/01/06, p. 6):
Werner has a pretty extensive bibliography of academic literature on runes, so I'm inclined to credit him as a reasonable source. (He also has an excellent section on medieval Scandanavian runes in general.)
In addition to this article, I've found several websites which display Dalarna runes:
So far, I can't find any non-Wikipedia source which claims that the Dalarna runes are identical to the medieval Scandanavian alphabets (and if they are, why do they have their own section?).
Unless somebody else has a good citation, I'm going to remove the Unicode examples of "Dalrunes" (which are fairly misleading), and add a note about the frequent mixing of Dalarna runes with Latin letters. The rest of the section seems consistent with the other sources I've found. Thoughts? emk 16:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Here's the second paragraph, which was interesting, but can't be reconciled with any source that I can find, nor with the material we have at Kensington Runestone.
In particular, the Edward-script looks like a slightly modified Younger Futhark, and certainly not like any of the pictures of the Dalecarlian or medieval Scandanavian runes we currently have in the article. Also, the Kensington article assumes that the Edward manuscript is of uncertain relation to runic practice in Scandanavia. So I'm not confident enough about this material to leave it in, and I'm moving it to the Talk page (as per WP:CITE).
Please, if you have sources for this content, cite them and move it back to the main page. emk 12:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
"Runestones: As some people started making runestones in modern times they had a problem with that some modern characters were missing from the older rune alphabeths so an updated version using ruffed runes was created.[1]"
I don't see what the depicted runes associated with this text has to do with modern runestones. The depicted runes look like the runes reanimated in the early 17th century by Johannes Bureus (Svenska ABC boken medh runor (1612), see http://ds.kb.se/?mapp=3&fil=Abc1612-1 ), and they were not meant to be used for runestones but rather to be written on paper like the latin characters. Actually, due to nationalistic felings, there were serious thoughts on introducing the runes as being the official script for writing Swedish back then, and Burues book was one attempt to standardise these runes.
Jens Persson ( 130.242.128.85 18:45, 4 May 2006 (UTC))
I started this from many works I have on runes. I don't have pictures of the runes specifically and don't even have the proper font to display the ones in the article, so bear with me. The first set is my attempted transliteration of the Runic names into Proto-Indo-European in the order of the Futhark, the second set is the order of the futhark and the alternate names in different Germanic languages. (Gmc is Germanic/Proto-Germanic. OE is Anglo-Saxon/Old English, OFris is Old Frisian, ODu is Old Low Franconian/Old Dutch, Go is Gothic, ON is Old Norse, OS is Old Saxon etc.). I attempted very much to make the alternate spellings in the same language and transliteration of each language to be as historically attested as possible. Maybe someone with enough time on their hands can properly incorporate this information into the article, it's been sitting on my computer as a text file for years. If the name has a different root, such as 'sôwilô' "the sun" & 'sigiz' "victory", but is the same rune; I put each instance of the alternate example in brackets. Otherwise, the other examples in brackets are simply unattested forms as far as my sources go. Nagelfar 23:13, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
...
a reconstructed language-root of the futhark rune-names
The futhark in the different teutonic languages
Old Frisian runes
early alternate runes not in the futhark
later alternate runes not in the futhark
More various examples from forms appearing; The following is a list I did at another time from forms appearing in different works, with the Mod. English form which probably isn't always correct and less concern about alternate etymologies.
I wrote Bülach fibula (for the first time inserting "penis penis penis" in a Wikipedia article :P I only hope Tawkerbot will let that pass...) to account for the "leek" meaning. I think that in the current mainstream opinion, people's imagination ran wild here, and I suppose laguz is a safer reconstruction. I suggest we move Laukaz to Laguz. dab (ᛏ) 09:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I have never seen the word used outside this article (even after searching for it with Google). Most English-speakers would say either "Dalecarlian runes" or "runes from/in Dalarna". ISNorden 15:57, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I have read at least six interpretations of that rune's name in different books (some scholarly, some occult). For the sake of NPOV, I recommend labeling the translation of Perthro "[unknown/disputed]", and linking to the name theories in the article about that specific rune. -- ISNorden 21:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Pure conjecture, but was there any connection to the romance rooted word "port", as in a seaport? Place to stow a sea faring vessel, i.e. longship..? Nagelfar 04:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Congratulations to Emk for adding a runic literacy category to the new writing-systems template! So far, he and I are the only listed users; if any of you can decipher runes tolerably well, feel free to update your own userpages now. -- Ingeborg S. Nordén 17:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
The following material appears to be derived from the TITUS page on the history of the Runic alphabet:
Unfortunately, the version of the Raetic alphabet on the TITUS page differs significantly from that in Schumacher's "Die Rätischen Inschriften". This is a widely-cited catalog of Raetic inscriptions. The alphabet it describes generally matches the alphabet on the Negau helmet and the images found on this page).
In particular, I can't find another source that agrees with the transliteration of the Raetic ᛞ as "d" (all the other sources transliterate this as "š"), and several other forms in the TITUS table do not appear in any of the inscriptions I can find.
Does anyone have another source which confirms the TITUS table? If we can't find one, it might be more accurate to cut the history section down to "a northern Italic alphabet" and not get into specific details like "only five Elder Futhark runes ( ᛖ e, ᛇ ï, ᛃ j, ᛜ ŋ, ᛈ p) [have] no counterpart in the Bolzano alphabet". But if someone's got a second source, one which traces the TITUS forms to specific artifacts, we can use it to update the appropriate sections of Old Italic alphabet.
See Talk:Old Italic alphabet for more discussion. emk 00:24, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Hello again! A question about the following passage:
I don't know of any unambiguous references to runic divination. But there's a series of verses in Sigrdrífumál which sound like instructions for runic magic, the most specific of which is:
Lee Hollandar translates this in much the same fashion in The Poetic Edda, and Gordon defines rísta as "to cut (runes)" in his Introduction to Old Norse. Cleasby and Vigfusson translate the last line as, "and mark (the character) Naud on one's nail," in their dictionary.
Given the relative consensus around this stanza, and the less explicit instructions in the the surrounding stanzas, I'm uncomfortable with the blanket statement, "[The Norse literature] nowhere contains specific instructions on ... [runic] magic."
I think there may also be something about the use of ᚦ in curses in one of the sagas, too, but I've never tracked it down. So I'm going to strike the "and magic" from the main page. If you disagree, please feel free to put it back. - emk 23:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
That does seem to be the advice in the Sigrdrífumál, but in the Hávamál, Odin suggests that persuing other men's wives is a Bad Idea, based on personal experience :-) (verses 96-102, 115, 131 [18]).
As for runic magic, there's also some good material in Egils saga (chapter 75), where Egil discovers curse-runes hidden in the bed of a sick woman:
This sounds like actual written spells (which was typical all throughout Europe at the time), not necessarily the magical use of individual runes.
But as for runic divination, Hávamál 80 [20], does seem to hint at some sort of explicitly runic divination:
The next several lines suggest that (a) rúnum should be translated as "runes", not "mysteries" (fáði fimbulþulr especially), and (b) this consultation is considered to be a holy or mysterious process. (I can translate more tonight.)
None of this is conclusive, of course, but it suggests that Runic divination may benefit from some further research, too.
While we're discussing this stuff, can anybody recommend a good translation of the Edda for quoting on Wikipedia? The Bellows translation is way too loose for details like this, and Hollander's translation--though far more faithful to the text--is written in such an archaic style that it requires a glossary.
Ideally, I'd like a translation which is both academically solid, and easy to understand. Any thoughts? - emk 13:35, 14 September 2006 (UTC)