12 Runic Alphabet

The word “rune” is translated as “secret” The most important sources about runic history are ancient texts of Scandinavian pagan religion – Old Edda and Lesser Edda. German runic writing was the letter system of peculiar look, accounted by the writing technique on bone, wood and metal.

Nowadays we have the main runic alphabet, consisting of 24 signs, may be more, but another ones are regarded as variants or combined runes. The whole system is divided into 2 parts –futharks: Old futhark and Late futhark

24 signs traditionally gradate into 3 groups of 8 symbols called atts.

There were two main theories:

1) Runic writing appeared on the basis of Latin alphabet

2) Cradles (истоки) of these signs are in Transalpine and North Italian scripts. Scientists have a lot of historical facts, approving the Etruscan merchants (купечество) used this system. Probably they brought it to the North (6th BC). The top of development and complete formation of Runic alphabet system was in 1-2c AD.

28 signs appeared in the middle of the 6th in Britain where German runes penetrated (проникли) in the 5th with Anglo-Saxon invasion. Frisian futhark was improved by the some additions and changes (mostly combined runes) and numbered 29 units.

In Northumberland 33 rune system existed already, with the mixture of Celtic runes.

In the middle of 7th the tendency to simplification appeared – some runes changed in inscription, some were lost. To the middle of the 10th the number of runes decreased to 16 units and late futhark formed.

The next step in development of RA took place in the middle of the 12th by adding dots to 16 sign system.

They attract attention by their unusual form – it is too difficult to regard it as ordinary symbol.

13. Gothic alphabet

The Gothic alphabet (4th century) was probably created by bishop Ulfilas who also translated the Bible. A peculiar alphabet based on the Greek alphabet, with some admixture of Latin and Runic letters. The Gothic alphabet should not be mixed up with the so called Gothic script which is still used in German writings and which is a modified shape of Latin script. The Gothic alphabet is a writing system used exclusively for writing the ancient Gothic language.

14. LATIN ALPHABET

The Latin Alphabet superseded (вытеснять) both the Runic and the Gothic alphabet in order to organize church service. First glosses (толкования) appeared to render (воспроизводить) the names into Latin. The Latin alphabet of that time had only 23 letters. Historically there were the following types of Latin writing: scriptura capitalis, scriptura uncialis, semiuncialis and minusculis.

15. GRIMM’S LAW

Grimm’s law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) was the first systematic change ever to be discovered. It was discovered in 1822 by Jacob Grimm. It establishes a set of regular correspondences between early Germanic stops and fricatives and the stop consonants of certain in other Indo-European languages

1. IE p, t, k  Germanic f, p, x: pater-faeder

2. IE b, d, g  Germanic p, t, k: cordis-heorte, duo-twa

3. IE bh, dh, gh  b, d, g

16. VERNER’S LOW

Verner’s Law, discovered by Karl Verner in 1875, describes sound changes in the PG language whereby voiceless fricatives become voiced if the preceding syllable was unstressed but otherwise remained unchanged:

1. p, t, k  f, p, x, (h)  (v) b, d, g: Māter – mōdor: Pater - fæder

2. s  z

17. RHOTASISM

The term derived from the name of the Greek letter “rho” which partly explained essence of the notion. Thus in the case of RHOTASISM if the preceding vowel was unstressed S changed Z eventually Z become R in West Germanic and Northern Germanic languages (but not in Gothic):Maiza – maira – more

s  z z  r

18. THE SECOND AND THE THIRD SHIFT

The second consonant shift occurred between the 5^th and 7^th c. A.D., gradually spreading from South to North of Germany. Also was discovered by Grimm. Account for the consonant system of High German:

p > pf > f: Pipe- pfeife (pf-f-)

t > z > s: Two-zwei (ts-)

k > kh > ch: Make-machen (-x-)

θ > d.

The third shift took place only in Danish where voiceless stops became aspirated at the beginning of a word. Other processes which took place in OG system of consonants were doubling.

In Proto-Germanic doubling was influenced by the sound N: snitno-snepan-snitzen (tt>tz).

In West Germanic a consonant was doubt before J and J disappeared: sitjan-sitia-sittan-sittian.

Consonant R was not doubled