From: carledlund@aol.com (CarlEdlund) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Assistance with Runes ... Lines: 82 NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder07.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Date: 13 Sep 2000 17:21:44 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-ID: <20000913132144.24533.00001473@ng-fi1.aol.com> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!psinet-eu-nl!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!portc01.blue.aol.com!audrey04.news.aol.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27255 > Paris quoth: > You guys in a.f.t are usually good with this sort of thing.. > I need to know what the runic inscription for the name 'Ragnar' or 'Raynor' would > have looked like at the time my town (Batley, West Yorkshire, UK) was settled > (mid 800AD). I think I'm passably well qualified to help you heren :) Use the runic characters for "raknaR" (using the "second" example of the a-rune in both cases). If that doesn't make sufficient sense, just email me at carledlund@mindspring.com, and if you can receive PDF files, I'll happily mail you one with the appropriate runic characters. The "normalised" Old Icelandic spelling of the name is "Ragnarr", BTW. > It would probably have been the Elder Futhark, or Danish Futhark runic system > in operation at the time.. It would mostly likely be the "danish futhark". I'm simplifying here, but ... The "elder futhark" refers to the 24-character system employed in various parts of the Germanic speaking world as late as the 8th century AD. A variant is the "Anglo Saxon futhorc" which made some expansions and changes to the elder futhark. Around 800 AD, the Scandinavians reformed the runic system into a 16-character system known now as the "Danish" or "common futhark"; a somewhat rarer variant is known as the "Swedish-Norwegian" or "short-twig" futhark. I suppose the medieval and post-medieval developments of these Scandinavian futharks could be considered something else again. > What I don't understand is: > Why are there to 'a' symbols.. Sound changes in the language. The key to understanding this aspect of the runic system is that the rune's name determines its value. Each run had a name which served as a mnemonic aid to remembering its phonetic value as a character. As the proto-Germanic dialects which had existed when the elder futhark was devised evolved, the names of the runes changed. By the 8th century in Scandinavia, the name of the elder futhark's a-rune, "ansuz", had changed to something more like the classical Old Icelandic form "áss" -- in the 8th century, however, the initial vowel was a nasalised "a" sound which modern runologists transcribe with a "hooked-a" or small-caps-A character. Thus, this "first" a in the 16-character Danish futhark represented a slightly different sound than it had in the 24-character elder futhark because the pronunciation of its name had changed. As the Viking period progressed, the name and value of the rune continued to change, though it's evolution was influenced by the fact that the younger futhark could really use an o-rune, as you noted ;) It ends up with a name like "óss" and a value like "o". The named of the "second" a-rune in the younger futhark is descended from the name of the elder futhark's j-rune, named "jera" meaning something like "good harvest". This name had changed to "ár" in Viking-Age Scandinavian, and so the value of the rune changed to "a". > Why is there no 'G' or 'O'. The Scandinavians reformed the runic system partially because the number of sounds used by the Viking-Age language now far exceeded the number of characters in the elder futhark. The obvious solution might have been to increase the number of characters (similar to the English runic system), but another valid solution was to _decrease_ the number of characters. Generally, there was little trouble figuring out from context whether the k-rune stood for a k or g sound. Speakers of Modern English will be familiar with an alphabet that has rather less characters than their language has sounds, despite having a number of redundant characters ;) However, towards the end of the Viking Age, people starting adding "diacrital marks" to runes to clarify which sounds they were intending to represent. For example, an i-rune with a dot in the middle was understood to represent the sound of "e". > Is the film going to be bad or good? Yes ;) Cheers, Carl ###### From: Paris Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Assistance with Runes ... Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 09:32:20 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 14 Message-ID: <8psqb4$8dg$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <20000913132144.24533.00001473@ng-fi1.aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.107.142.1 X-Article-Creation-Date: Fri Sep 15 09:32:20 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x73.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 212.107.142.1 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDodesseus Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news-nue1.dfn.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeed1.telenordia.se!algonet!newspeer.highwayone.net!diablo.theplanet.net!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27296 In article <20000913132144.24533.00001473@ng-fi1.aol.com>, carledlund@aol.com (CarlEdlund) wrote: Thank you very much. This was an excellent reply. -- Paris. Not the City. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ###### Lines: 9 X-Admin: news@aol.com From: carledlund@aol.com (CarlEdlund) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Date: 15 Sep 2000 13:40:36 GMT References: <8psqb4$8dg$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Subject: Re: Assistance with Runes ... Message-ID: <20000915094036.28995.00003208@ng-cg1.aol.com> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!europa.netcrusader.net!152.163.239.131!portc03.blue.aol.com!audrey04.news.aol.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27320 BTW, is anyone has general questions on runes, I've been trying to assemble a Rune FAQ (in vague preparation for an introductory book on the subject, since I don't think there's a really satisfactory one currently available in English). Send 'em along. Cheers, Carl ###### From: "Androg" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <8psqb4$8dg$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <20000915094036.28995.00003208@ng-cg1.aol.com> Subject: Re: Assistance with Runes ... Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 18:23:44 +1000 Lines: 20 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 NNTP-Posting-Host: delta.tavultesoft.com X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: delta.tavultesoft.com Message-ID: <39c7158b@casper.southcom.com.au> X-Trace: 19 Sep 2000 07:28:11 GMT, delta.tavultesoft.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dca1-hub1.news.digex.net!intermedia!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!216.65.16.3!news-in.nibble.net!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!news1.optus.net.au!optus!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.labyrinth.net.au!casper.southcom.com.au!delta.tavultesoft.com Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27398 CarlEdlund wrote in message news:20000915094036.28995.00003208@ng-cg1.aol.com... > BTW, is anyone has general questions on runes, I've been trying to assemble a > Rune FAQ (in vague preparation for an introductory book on the subject, since I > don't think there's a really satisfactory one currently available in English). "Runes - an Introduction" by Ralph W. V. Elliott (Manchester University Press, 1959), is quite a good introduction, in my opinion. -- Andróg "Fela bith on Westwegum werum uncúthra, wundra and wihta, wlitescéne land, eardgeard elfa, and ésa bliss." ###### From: carledlund@aol.com (CarlEdlund) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Assistance with Runes ... Lines: 34 NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder07.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Date: 19 Sep 2000 14:53:25 GMT References: <39c7158b@casper.southcom.com.au> Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Message-ID: <20000919105325.16403.00001933@ng-fi1.aol.com> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!portc03.blue.aol.com!audrey04.news.aol.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:27395 Quoth Androg: >CarlEdlund wrote in message >news:20000915094036.28995.00003208@ng-cg1.aol.com... >> BTW, is anyone has general questions on runes, I've been trying to >assemble a >> Rune FAQ (in vague preparation for an introductory book on the subject, >since I >> don't think there's a really satisfactory one currently available in >English). > >"Runes - an Introduction" by Ralph W. V. Elliott (Manchester University >Press, 1959), is quite a good introduction, in my opinion. Elliot's book isn't bad, but is now fairly dated and doesn't address some issues I would like to see addressed. In some ways, Ray Page's _Runes_ book (from U Cal Berkeley or the British Museum, 1987) is the best short intro on runes available, though it is now aging as well, and is far too short. IMO, the best intro-type English language book on runes is Erik Moltke's _Runes and their Origin: Denmark and Elsewhere_. Unfortunately, as it is published by the National Museum of Denmark it is hard to find and extremely expensive, despite being a paperback. Published in 1985, it's even older than Page's book, but being much more comprehensive it holds up a little better. IMO, a new general introduction for a popular audience is desireable, and I think a slightly different approach -- aimed at a contemporary readers -- than was taken in past books would also be beneficial. This is not to say that Elliot's, Page's, or Moltke's books are bad -- not at all! They're quite good. I just that think something newer could be at least as good. Cheers, Carl