Runes may be part of a linguistic system whose daily use is lost to time, but their effects can still be felt today. From technological symbols to ornamentation in fiction TV, the runic alphabet has encountered many changes but continues to hold fast against extinction. Here’s a history of runes: where they came from, what they are made of, and how they used to be used.
Lᛖᛏ’ᛊ ᚷᛖᛏ ᛊᛏᚨᚱᛏᛖᛞ!
What Are Runes?
English has long been written using Roman characters; in fact, this very sentence is made of Roman letters. However, older forms of English used to utilize a series of “letters” that were much more adapted to the sounds that English makes. These letters are called runes, first created by early Germanic tribes and then further iterated by the Anglo-Saxons.
Even if you do not think that you have ever seen a rune before, you probably have. They remain in popular culture in everything from Norse-inspired TV shows to appendices to the famous The Lord of the Rings series. Unlike English Roman letters, which must use multiple letters to convey certain sounds (e.g., “th,” “ch,” “wh”) or use the same letter for multiple sounds (e.g., “c” for “car” and “center”), runes each represent only one sound. The rune for “th” is different from both the “t” rune and “h” rune.
Additionally, unlike English letters, runes always contain only straight lines. Because this manner of writing was utilized thousands of years ago, it was important to create letters that were simple to carve into materials such as wood. This drove the aesthetic style of runic writing.
How Were Runes Used?
In times even before Vikings, who are commonly thought to have originated the use of the runic writing system, runes were used simply as descriptors. The cultures using runes favored oral storytelling over the written word, so runes primarily served as simple statements carved into items or buildings: this is the home of [name], [name] made this, and so on.
Runes followed a fairly lax system of rules:
- Writing direction did not matter (although the standard over time gradually coalesced into a left-to-right style)
- There was no need for delineation between letters and words, though some writers would occasionally include a small dot to mark a “space” between words
- Each rune was composed of straight lines, but creative liberty could be taken, such as in poetry, to ornament the runes if desired
These general guidelines continued from the runic system’s origin in Elder Futhark to its development into Younger Futhark and then its gradual transformation into Latinized (or Medieval) Futhark.
Why “Futhark”?
The term for the alphabet of runes is called “futhark.” This word originates from how the runes are organized. The alphabet is split into three groups, and the first six runes of the first group are f, u, th, a, r, and k. Thus, the term Futhark simply refers to the introductory letters of this alphabet.
Despite Futhark’s gradual change over time, the name remained. Transitions during the Younger Futhark period saw the number of runes change from 24 to just 16—a shift similar to English that saw multiple runes adjusted to encompass more than one sound.
As the language continued to change and saw overlap between the cultures who used Futhark and the growing Anglo-Saxon presence, Futhark began to blend with standard English (that is, Latinized) letters. However, Younger Futhark at this stage was not able to encapsulate the number of sounds present in the time’s Anglo-Saxon English. Thus, as the two blended, Futhark expanded to 28 and then 34 letters.
However, due to the rough edges between this mingling of Futhark and Old English, use of Futhark gradually fell out of favor to make way for the Roman alphabet. Roman letters were more suited to represent the sounds of Latin—the essential religious language of the time as Christianity swept through Europe. It is from this Latinization that modern English gained (and continues to keep) its letters. However, English contains more sounds than Latin, so the current alphabet does not contain letters to represent these sounds as Futhark once did.
Runes and Modern Culture
While the regular use of runes as a linguistic device has largely vanished from the world, most people have still encountered Futhark at some point. Why? Modern usage remains in many unexpected places. Tolkien, a language lover himself, incorporated runes into The Lord of the Rings, while the Nazis used runes to represent their ideals of victory and the perfect human race. Even the Bluetooth symbol finds its roots in Futhark. To understand why, we will continue this discourse in our upcoming post, The Modern Application of Runes: Futhark in the 21st Century. Discover how Futhark has been adapted and continues to impact people across the globe today!
