The Runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters (known as runes) formerly used to write Germanic languages before and shortly after the Christianization of Scandinavia and the British Isles. The Scandinavian variants are also known as Futhark (or fuþark, derived from their first six letters: F, U, Þ, A, R, and K); the Anglo-Saxon variant as Futhorc (due to sound changes undergone in Old English by the same six letters). However, the first A in the fuþark was nasal, hence originally close to an o.
The earliest runic inscriptions date from c. 150, and the alphabet was generally replaced by the Latin alphabet with Christianization by c. 700 in central Europe and by c. 1100 in Scandinavia. However, the use of runes persisted for specialized purposes in Scandinavia, longest in rural Sweden until the early 20th century (used mainly for decoration as runes in Dalarna and on Runic calendars). The three best-known runic alphabets are: * The Elder Futhark (c. 150–800) * The Anglo-Saxon Futhorc (400–1100) * The Younger Futhark (800–1100) The Younger Futhark is further divided into: * The long-branch runes (also called Danish, although they were also used in Norway and Sweden) * The short-twig or Rök runes (also called Swedish-Norwegian, although they were also used in Denmark) * The Hälsinge runes (staveless runes) The Younger Futhark developed further into: * The Marcomannic runes * The Medieval runes (1100–1500) * The Dalecarlian runes (c. 1500 – c. 1800) The origins of the runic scripts are uncertain. Many characters of the Elder Futhark bear a close resemblance to characters from the Latin alphabet. Other candidates are the 5th to 1st century BCE Northern Italic alphabets—Lepontic, Rhaetic and Venetic—all closely related to each other and themselves descended from the Old Italic alphabet. These scripts bear a remarkable resemblance to the Futhark in many regards.
The runes were introduced to the Germanic peoples in the 1st or 2nd century. (The oldest known runic inscription dates to c. the 160s and is found on a comb discovered in the bog of Vimose, Funen. The inscription reads harja; a disputed candidate for a 1st century inscription is on the Meldorf fibula). This period may correspond to the late Proto-Germanic or Common Germanic stage linguistically, with a continuum of dialects not yet clearly separated into the three branches of later centuries, viz. North Germanic, West Germanic and East Germanic. No distinction is made in surviving runic inscriptions between long and short vowels, although such a distinction was certainly present phonologically in the spoken languages of the time. Similarly, there are no signs for labiovelars in the Elder Futhark (such signs were introduced in both the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc and the Gothic alphabet as variants of p; see peorð.) The name given to the signs, contrasting them with Latin or Greek letters, is attested on a 6th century alamannic runestaff as runa, and possibly as runo on the Einang stone (c. 4th century). The name is from a root run- (Gothic runa), meaning "secret" or "whisper" (c.f. Finnish, where runo was loaned to mean "poem").
Mythological In old Scandinavian belief, the runes were of divine origin (Old Norse: reginkunnr), and this is attested as early as on the c. 600 AD Noleby Runestone (Runo fahi raginakundo toj[e'k]a..., meaning "I prepare the suitable divine rune ..." and in an attestation from the 9th century on the Sparlösa Runestone (Ok rað runaR þaR rægi[n]kundu, meaning "And interpret the runes of divine origin". More notably, in Hávamál, Stanza 80, the runes are also described as reginkunnr: 80. Þat er þá reynt, er þú að rúnum spyrr inum reginkunnum, þeim er gerðu ginnregin ok fáði fimbulþulr, þá hefir hann bazt, ef hann þegir. 80. Then 'tis made manifest, if of runes thou questionest him, those to the high ones known, which the great powers invented, and the great talker painted, that he had best hold silence.
The angular shapes of the runes are shared with most contemporary alphabets of the period used for carving in wood or stone. A peculiarity of the runic alphabet as compared to the Old Italic family is rather the absence of horizontal strokes. Runes were commonly carved on the edge of narrow pieces of wood. The primary grooves cut spanned the whole piece vertically, against the grain of the wood: curves are difficult to make, and horizontal lines get lost among the grain of the split wood. This vertical characteristic is also shared by other alphabets, such as the early form of the Latin alphabet used for the Duenos inscription.
The "West Germanic hypothesis" speculates on an introduction by West Germanic tribes. This hypothesis is based on claiming that the earliest inscriptions of c. 200 CE, found in bogs and graves around Jutland (the Vimose inscriptions), exhibit word endings that, being interpreted by Scandinavian scholars to be Proto-Norse, are considered unresolved and having been long the subject of discussion. Inscriptions like wagnija, niþijo, and harija are supposed to incarnate tribenames, tentatively proposed to be Vangiones, the Nidensis and the Harii, tribes located in the Rhineland. Since names ending in -io reflect Germanic morphology representing the Latin ending -ius, and the suffix -inius was reflected by Germanic -inio-, the question of the problematic ending -ijo in masculine Proto-Norse would be resolved by assuming Roman (Rhineland) influences, while "the awkward ending -a of laguþewa (cf. Syrett 1994:44f.) can be solved by accepting the fact that the name may indeed be West Germanic." However, it should be noted that in the early Runic period differences between Germanic languages are generally assumed to be minute. Another theory assumes a Northwest Germanic unity preceding the emergence of Proto-Norse proper from roughly the 5th century. An alternative suggestion explaining the impossibility to classify the earliest inscriptions as either North or West Germanic is forwarded by È. A. Makaev, who assumes a "special runic koine", an early "literary Germanic" employed by the entire Late Common Germanic linguistic community after the separation of Gothic (2nd to 5th centuries), while the spoken dialects may already have been more diverse. The genesis of the Elder Futhark was complete by the early 5th century, with the Kylver Stone being the first evidence of the futhark ordering as well as of the p rune.
The earliest runic inscriptions were certainly not coherent texts of any length, but simple markings on artifacts (e.g. bracteates, combs, etc.), giving the name of either the craftsman or the proprietor, or, sometimes, remaining a linguistic mystery. Because of this, it is possible that the early runes were not so much used as a simple writing system, but rather as magical signs to be used for charms, or for divination. The name rune itself, taken to mean "secret, something hidden", seems to indicate that knowledge of the runes was originally considered esoteric, or restricted to an elite. The eerie 6th century Björketorp Runestone warns in Proto-Norse using the word rune in both senses:
The same curse and use of the word rune is also found on the Stentoften Runestone. There are also some inscriptions suggesting a medieval belief in the magical significance of runes, such as the Franks Casket (700 CE) panel. However, it has proven difficult to find unambiguous traces of runic "oracles": Although Norse literature is full of references to runes, it nowhere contains specific instructions on divination. There are at least three sources on divination with rather vague descriptions that may or may not refer to runes: Tacitus's Germania, Snorri Sturluson's Ynglinga saga and Rimbert's Vita Ansgari. The first source, Tacitus's Germania, describes "signs" chosen in groups of three. A second source is the Ynglinga saga, where Granmar, the king of Södermanland, goes to Uppsala for the blót. There, the "chips" fell in a way that said that he would not live long (Féll honum þá svo spánn sem hann mundi eigi lengi lifa). The third source is Rimbert's Vita Ansgari, where there are three accounts of what seems to be the use of runes for divination, but Rimbert calls it "drawing lots". One of these accounts is the description of 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". According to the story, this "drawing of lots" was quite informative, telling them that attacking Birka would bring bad luck and that they should attack a Slavic town instead. The lack of knowledge on historical usage of the runes has not stopped modern authors from extrapolating entire systems of divination from what few specifics exist, usually loosely based on the runes' reconstructed names and additional outside influence (see runic divination). A recent study of runic magic suggests that runes were used to create magical objects such as amulets (MacLeod and Mees 2006), but not in a way that would indicate that runic writing was any more inherently magical than were other writing systems such as Latin or Greek. Some later runic finds are on monuments (runestones), which often contain solemn inscriptions about people who died or performed great deeds. For a long time it was assumed that this kind of grand inscription was the primary use of runes, and that their use was associated with a certain societal class of rune carvers. However, in the mid-1950s, about 600 inscriptions known as the Bryggen inscriptions were found in Bergen. These inscriptions were made on wood and bone, often in the shape of sticks of various sizes, and contained inscriptions of an everyday nature—ranging from name tags, prayers (often in Latin), personal messages, business letters and expressions of affection to bawdy phrases of a profane and sometimes even vulgar nature. Following this find, it is nowadays commonly assumed that at least in late use, Runic was a widespread and common writing system. In the later Middle Ages, runes were also used in the Clog almanacs (sometimes called Runic staff, Prim or Scandinavian calendar) of Sweden. The authenticity of some monuments bearing Runic inscriptions found in Northern America is disputed, but most of them date from modern times.