Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 518

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX
The Futhark
As in the Semitic and Greek alphabets, each rune had its name (Fig. 232): these names are recorded in later Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, for instance, in the MS 17 in the Library of St. John's, Oxford, as well as in an English rune-song, and, in an old Danish form, in the Codex Leidensis, where the names are written in runes and in Latin letters, in a late and corrupt form.
The order of the runic letters is quite different from that of the Semitic, Greek, Etruscan and Latin alphabets. We may see this from a few inscriptions, such as the Thames scramasax, the Charnay brooch, the Kylfver stone from Gothland, and others, as well as from some manuscripts. (See, for instance, Fig. 233, 12 and 234.)
16 417 VIPPYH
SCH-RH1
abcdefghijklmno
dya
517
Fig. 234-Runic "alphabet" of a manuscript belonging to about A.D. 1300
DEVELOPMENT OF RUNIC WRITING
We can distinguish three main varieties, the last having a few subvarieties:
Early or Common Teutonic or Primitive Norse
About 100 inscriptions extant, dating mainly from the third to eighth centuries A.D., belong to this group. The "alphabet" or rather "futhark" consists of 24 letters (Fig. 232). It is generally assumed that it corresponded roughly with the original futhark of the Goths, of which very little is now known.
In the adaptation of the symbols to the sounds of the various Germanic dialects, the phonetic values of some symbols were obviously more or less modified.
The runes were divided into three groups known as ættir.
The shapes of the single runes of the three ettir are to be seen in Fig. 232. The following were their phonetic values: f, u, th (surd), a, r, k, 3. w;h, n, i, y, hw-ih, p. R, s:t, b, e, m, L, ng, d and a, o. 3 represents a sound similar to the hard g; R represents the soft s; d is the symbol for the dental th. These phonetic values, however, were not constant, and some of them are uncertain. The symbol representing the sound he or ih was very rare; in the Anglo-Saxon runic writing it had the value of eo, or h or ih; in primitive Norse it seems to have represented either the i or the e; but originally, according to some scholars, it seems to have represented the Gothic sound he.