No, only the orthographic habits of the
rune-carvers did. Practical needs may prompt modifications in the writing
system. If you mostly compose short occasional inscriptions, a highly
economic writing system is OK. The reader is not pressed for time and
can figure out at his leasure that, say, <:kurmz:kunukz:> stands
for /gormz konungz/ 'King Gorm'. But if you have to write long passages,
moderate redundancy helps to make reading faster and easier: the reader will not
have to halt every now and then to decipher individual words.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2001 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Rune-essay Mads Peder Nordbo
If it was so redundant, why then the later dotted g,d,p-runes? Did the
languages change that rapidly in the Viking age?