Hi, I have made a few comments on the futharks and on runic inscriptions in
general.
I have taken bits out of your post and elaborated on them.
As always when dealing with runology the biggest problem is that most of the
books are either very basic or for runologists only. A lack of decent
introductions is a major problem.
[I hope to kick start some work on runic inscription that I have been
meaning to do for years. If I get it done I will post it up for all on the
Norse Course.]
"Around the year 800, a new nordic alphabet arose. This development
is likely to have taken place in Denmark, where the majority of the
earliest inscriptions employing these characters in found. In short
order, this new alphabet spread to Norway and Sweden, where various
innovations where made both in the forms of these 16 runes and their
phonological accuracy. "
The change was from an older roughly 24 rune futhark to a slimmed down 16
rune futhark. this occurred at the same time as major sound changes in what
was to become Old Norse. The two factors are almost certainly related.
Whilst there is evidence of a consistency of development (the same 16 runes)
the two futharks both contain graphical elements that could not be derived
from each other, this suggests simultaneous development.
The two scripts are best described as Long branch and Short branch rather
than Swedish and Danish as is often the case.
Neither is purely distinct to one country or another.
"Any modern runologist can testify to the confusion and uncertainty involved
in trying to
accurately transcribe inscriptions from this period."
Caused mostly by an attempt to fit runic characters into our precise
linguistic world.
The Vikings used letters rather loosely.
A 'u' for instance would be used to signify certain range of sounds (back
round) rather than anything as precise as 'u'.
And even for close sounds such a 'v'.
This is bizarre to us because we have a world of precision. Vikings would be
able to sit and ponder an inscription whereas we want the meaning right now!
"this alphbet will consist only of the original 16 Danish runic characters
and be capable of accurately
transcribing any Scandinavian dialect from about 800 until 1300."
Why Danish (by which I mean long branch)? What's wrong with the short branch
futhark?
It was after all the one most commonly used.
[By this I mean never assume that only one solution is correct.]
"If we were to remove the dots from
our runes, then our text should appear precisely as on a classical
Danish runestone from about 800-900."
The dots are there for a reason. We may not always appreciate the reason,
but does that mean we should remove them?
Dotting in runic inscription does not indicate anything other than 'pay
attention to this rune'.
Barnes, Haglund and Page came up with the best solution for transliterating
dotted runes #1. Just add a dot to the Latin character - hence k + a dot
rather than g. using g suggests things about the sound of the rune and how
it was used that could be misleading. (in this example it could be 'nk' or
'ng' for instance). #2
"Can we accuratly represent all Norse
sounds from 800-1300 using only 16 characters and little black dots? The
answer is yes."
Why not, they did.
"Furthermore, our
alphabet will not only be historically accurate, it will also be
more pholologically accurate than the modified Latin alphabet used
to print Old Norse today."
Apart from one common character (Hooked O) all the modified Latin letters
are those used by Icelandic saga writers.
The only major reform suggested by the first grammarian in his attempt to
standardise the Icelandic alphabet was to introduce dots for nasality.#3
Also you are forgetting the wide variations in spelling (dialects and
otherwise) that occur in runic inscriptions.
The Old Norse texts we have are heavily edited to remove weird characters
and odd spellings. What we get is 'standardised Old Norse'. Runic
inscriptions are even worse as we cannot guarantee exactly what sound a rune
may have had in a certain position.
One thing in general is the concept of accuracy with the 16 runes.
ALL the Scandinavian languages have and have always had more than 16
phonemes. Without a one to one phoneme / grapheme relationship (that's
'sound' / 'letter' in techno babble) there cannot be accuracy. Even the
graphemic relationship of the modern languages does not accurately relate to
the phonemes used. c.f. Swedish g in gick and gat ('yick' and 'gat').
The 16 runes had a large degree of latitude as to which sounds they
represented. Accuracy is impossible without artificial modification to such
an extent that the 16 runes would be overwhelmed.
I am currently reading through your posts on Danish vowels, so I may have
some more comments soon.
One brief one on that is that Danish is a vowel minefield. Danish is not a
good example to base any system on. You may be creating extra work for
yourself with that one.
Cheers
Stuntie.
#1 Barnes, Haglund, Page. The runic inscriptions of Viking age Dublin.
#2 Lagman S. De Stungna runorna (Runrön 4)
#3 [forgotten who]. The first grammatical treastsie.
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.435 / Virus Database: 244 - Release Date: 30/12/02