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The Elder Futhark (or Elder Fuþark, Older Futhark, Old Futhark) are the oldest form of the runic alphabet, used by Germanic tribes for Proto-Norse and other Migration period Germanic dialects of the 2nd to 8th centuries for inscriptions on artefacts (jewellery, amulets, tools, weapons) and rune stones. In Scandinavia, the script was replaced by the Younger Futhark from the late 8th century, while the Anglo-Saxons replaced it with the Futhorc from the time of the invasion of England.

Origins

see also runic alphabet. The Elder Futhark are commonly believed to originate in one of the Old Italic alphabets. Their angular shapes, an adaptation to the incision in wood or metal, are not a Germanic innovation, but a property that is shared with other early alphabets, including the Old Italic and Latin ones (compare, for example, the Duenos inscription). The 2nd century BC Negau helmet inscription features a Germanic name, Harigast, in a northern Etruscan alphabet, and may be a testimony of the earliest contact of Germanic speakers with alphabetic writing. The Raetic "alphabet of Bolzano" in particular seems to be an immediate predecessor: of the 24 Elder Futhark runes, 14 have exact counterparts ( a, b, d, w, θ, i, k, l, u, r, s, t, g, o). A further five have recognizably similar counterparts ( f, z, h, m, n), so that starting from the alphabet of Bolzano, the genesis of the Elder Futhark is reduced to the innovation of five runes, the vowels e vs. ï, the glide j, the velar nasal ŋ and finally p (speculated by Looijenga (1997) to be a variant of b). The spearhead of Kovel, dated to ca. AD 200, sometimes advanced as evidence of a peculiar Gothic variant of the runic alphabet, bears an inscription tilarids that may in fact be in an Old Italic rather than a runic alphabet, running right to left with a T and a D closer to the Latin or Etruscan than to the Bolzano or runic alphabets.

The alphabet

The Older Futhark (named after the initial phoneme of the first six rune names) consist of twenty-four runes, often arranged in three groups or aett of eight each:

The common transliteration if these is:

f u þ a r k g w
h n i j ï p z s
t b e m l ŋ d o

þ corresponds to IPA . ï is also transcribed as ei, and may have been either a diphthong, or a vowel near or . z was Proto-Germanic , and evolved into Primitive Norse , and is also transliterated as R. The remaining transliterations correspond to the IPA symbol of their approximate value.

The earliest known full sequential listing of the alphabet dates to ca. 400 and is found on the Kylver Stone in Gotland:

*uþarkg*hnijpïzstbemlŋdo
Another early inscription was found on the Vadstena bracteate (6th century), showing the division in three aetts, with the positions of ï, p and o, d inverted compared to the Kylver stone:
fuþarkgw; hnijïpzs; tbemlŋo*

Names

Each rune most probably had a name, chosen to represent the sounds of the rune itself. The names are, however, not directly attested for the Old Futhark themselves. Reconstructed names in Proto-Germanic have been suggested for them, based on the names given for runes of the later alphabets in the rune poems and the names of the letters of the Gothic alphabet.

The rune names stood for their rune because of the first phoneme in the name (the principle of acrophony), with the exception of Ingwaz and Algiz: the Proto-Germanic z sound of the Algiz rune, never occurred in a word-initial position. The phoneme acquired an r-like quality in Proto-Norse, usually transcribed with R, and finally merged with r in Icelandic, rendering the rune superfluous as a letter. Similarly, the ng-sound of the Ingwaz rune does not occur word-initially.

Most names, in spite of being reconstructions, can be assumed with a fair degree of certainty for the Old Futhark because of the concurrence of Gothic, Anglo-Saxon and Nordic names. The names come from the vocabulary of daily life and mythology, some trivial, some beneficent and some inauspicious:

  • Mythology: Tiwaz, Thurisaz, Ingwaz, God, Man, Sun.

  • Nature and environment: Sun, day, year, hail, ice, lake, water, birch, yew, pear, elk, aurochs, ear (of corn).

  • Daily life and human condition: Man, wealth/cattle, horse, estate/inheritance, slag, ride/journey, hail, year, gift, joy, need, ulcer/illness.

It has been argued that such a distribution of meanings support the use of the runes for purposes of divination. On the other hand, however, the NATO phonetic alphabet, although hardly ever used for divination, shows a similar distribution of inherited names (Charlie, Juliet), unremarkable basic vocabulary (Hotel, Uniform) and concepts very much in vogue at the time of its invention (Radar, X-Ray, Foxtrot, Tango). A similar acrophonic principle is found in the names of the Ogham letters given in the 14th century Auraicept na n-Éces.

Inscription corpus

Old Futhark inscriptions were found on artefacts scattered between the Carpathians and Lappland, with the highest concentration in Denmark. They are usually short inscriptions on jewellery (bracteates, fibulae, belt buckles), utensils (combs, spinning whorls) or weapons (lance tips, seaxes) and were mostly found in graves or bogs.

Scandinavian inscriptions

Words frequently appearing in inscriptions on bracteates with possibly magical significance are alu, laþu and laukaz. Their meaning is unclear, although alu has been associated with "ale, intoxicating drink", in a context of ritual drinking, and laukaz with "leek, garlic", in a context of fertility and growth. An example of a longer early inscription is on a 4th century axe-handle found in Nydam, Jutland: wagagastiz / alu:??hgusikijaz:aiþalataz (wagagaztiz "wave-guest" could be a personal name, the rest has been read as alu:wihgu sikijaz:aiþalataz with a putative meaning "wave/flame-guest, from a bog, alu, I, oath-sayer consecrate/fight". The obscurity even of emended readings is typical for runic inscriptions that go beyond simple personal names). A term frequently found in early inscriptions is Erilaz, apparently describing a person with knowledge of runes.

The oldest known runic inscription dates to ca. 160 AD and is found on a comb discovered in the bog of Vimose, Funen. The inscription reads harja, either a personal name or an epithet, c.f. Proto-Germanic *harjaz "warrior". Another early inscription is found on the Thorsberg chape (ca. 200), probably containing the theonym Ullr.

The typically Scandinavian rune stones begin to show the transition to Younger Futhark from the 7th century, with transitional examples like the Björketorp or Stentoften stones.

The longest known inscription in Older Futhark, and one of the youngest, consists of some 200 characters and is found on the early 8th century Eggjum stone, and may even contain a stanza of Old Norse poetry.

Continental inscriptions

The oldest inscriptions (before AD 500) found on the Continent are divided into two groups, the area of the North Sea coast and Northern Germany (including parts of the Netherlands) associated with the Saxons and Frisians on one hand (part of the "North Germanic Koine", Martin 2004:173), and loosely scattered finds from along the Oder to south-eastern Poland, as far as the Carpathian Mountains (e.g. the ring of Pietroassa), associated with East Germanic tribes. The latter group disappears during the 5th century, the time of contact of the Goths with the Roman Empire and their conversion to Christianity.

In this early period, there is no specifically West Germanic runic tradition. This changes from the early 6th century, and for about one century (520s to 620s), an Alamannic "runic province" (Martin 2004) emerges, with examples on fibulae, weapon parts and belt buckles. As in the East Germanic case, use of runes subsides with Christianization, in the case of the Alamanni in the course of the 7th century.

Distribution

There are some 350 known Elder Futhark inscriptions (Fischer 2004:281). Lüthi (2004:321) identifies a total of approx. 81 known inscriptions from the South (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and approx. 267 from Scandinavia. The precise numbers are debatable because of some suspected forgeries, and some disputed inscriptions (identification as "runes" vs. accidental scratches, simple ornaments or Latin letters). 133 Scandinavian inscriptions are on bracteates (compared to 2 from the South), and 65 are on rune stones (no Southern example is extant). Southern inscriptions are predominantly on fibulae (43, compared to 15 in Scandinavia). The Scandinavian rune stones belong to the later period of the Elder Futhark, and initiate the boom of medieval Younger Futhark stones (with some 6,000 surviving examples).

Elder Futhark inscriptions were rare, with very few active literati, in relation to the total population, at any time, so that knowledge of the runes was probably an actual "secret" throughout the Migration period. Of 366 lances excavated at Illerup, only 2 bore inscriptions. A similar ratio is estimated for Alemannia, with an estimated 170 excavated graves to every inscription found (Lüthi 2004:323)

Estimates of the total number of inscriptions produced are based on the "minimal runological estimate" of 40,000 (ten individuals making ten inscriptions per year for four centuries). The actual number was probably considerably higher. The ca. 80 known Southern inscriptions are from some 100,000 known graves. With an estimated total of 50,000,000 graves (based on population density estimates), some 80,000 inscriptions would have been produced in total in the Merovingian South alone (and maybe close to 400,000 in total, so that of the order of 0.1% of the corpus has come down to us), and Fischer (2004:281) estimates a population of several hundred active literati throughout the period, with as many as 1,600 during the Alamannic "runic boom" of the 6th century.

List of inscriptions

After Looijenga (1997), Lüthi (2004).

  • English and Frisian (AD 300–700): 44; see Futhorc

See also

References

  • Orrin W. Robinson Old English and its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages Stanford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0804714541
  • J. H. Looijenga, Runes around the North Sea and on the Continent AD 150–700, dissertation, Groningen University (1997).
  • Max Martin, Kontinentalgermanische Runeninschriften und 'alamannische Runenprovinz' in: Alemannien und der Norden, ed. Naumann (2004), 165–212.
  • Svante Fischer, Alemannia and the North — Early Runic Contexts Apart (400–800) in: Alemannien und der Norden, ed. Naumann (2004), 266–317.
  • Katrin Lüthi, Von Þruþhild und Hariso: Alemannische und ältere skandinavische Runenkultur im Vergleich in: Alemannien und der Norden, ed. Naumann (2004), 318–339.
  • Hemlut Rix, 'Germanische Runen und venetische Phonetik', in Vergleichende germanische Philologie und Skandinavistik, Festschrift für Otmar Werner, ed. Birkmann et al., Tübingen (1997), 231–248.

External links

Runology | Alphabetic writing systems | Migration Period

Ældre futhark | Den eldre fuþarken

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Elder Futhark".

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