Re: [tied] Re: Ingvar and Ivar

On Sat, 17 Feb 2001 12:51:12 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>As a matter of fact, the Scandinavian name of Rune 22 (discarded in the younger futhark) is unknown. *IngwaR is inferred from Anglo-Saxon "Ing".

*ingwaR is Wolfgang Krause's reconstruction for the name. If you have
a better proposal...

>There is no evidence that Rune 13 ever stood for a common Germanic diphthong. Its phonetic value is clearest in Old English inscriptions, where it can be used *either* for a vowel (/i:/ on the Dover Stone, the Loveden Hill urn) or a consonant (post-V /x/, usually the palatalised allophone [C], as on the Ruthwell Cross (<almeCttiG> 'almighty'). In the OE Runic Poem it is called Eoh, but e:oh [e:@x] is the normal OE development of *i:x.

Yes. As I think I said, the rune was used for /i/ or /h/ (/x/). But
we also have additional evidence:

1) the name of the 13th rune is usually reconstructed as *i:waR.
2) the names of the runes (except, obviously, *ingwaR for /N/ and
*algiR for /R/) are acrophonic.
3) Vowel length was not distinguished.
4) Last but not least: the inventor(s) of the runes knew what they
were doing.

The above can only lead to one conclusion: the 13th rune originally
stood for /iu/ when the runes were first invented (either in Denmark
or in the neighbourhood of the Roman limes, around the beginning of
our era). Unfortunately, the origins of the runic script are still
obscure and very few early runic inscriptions are known, so we may
never know for sure.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...