Heil Konrad,

I am very interested in your rune project below. Unfortunately, I am not
quite visualizing your directions. So, is there any way that you can write
it then, if possible, scan it and possibly Haukur would be kind enough to
post it on the Norse Course group page? Or even mail me a copy in the
post? If you do not have access to a scanner, I do and would be willing to
scan it and submit it to Haukur for posting. I am a firm believer that to
fully and truly learn a language, you must be able to know its alphabet so
that you can be sure that you are anunciating the words properly. This
helped me greatly while learning arabic, just reading it in the english
alphabet did not do the words justice. Arabic came so much easier to me
once I began studying it in it's own script...and I have retained it so
much more, too.

Best regards,

Cathy

At 10:30 AM 1/26/2003 +0000, you wrote:

>Our alphabet employs 4 runes to represents simple vowals. The total
>number of variations is 26. If I mistakenly typed the number 36 in
>my last post, then I stand corrected. There are only 26. The 4 runes
>used to represent these variations are named Ár (â - long A, from
>Proto-Norse Jâra, meaning 'year'; Old Ice. ár), ÚrR (û = Old Ice. Ú,
>from Proto-Norse Ûruz, meaning 'drizzle' or a kind of 'ox'), Íss (î
>= Old Ice. Í, from Proto-Norse Îsaz, meaning 'ice'; historically, we
>should write ÍsR instead of Íss; however, R is unpronounceable in
>this position due to the loss of an intermediate A, resulting in the
>early pronounciation 'Íss' in contrast to ÚrR, where R still remains
>pronouncable), and Óss (with a small hook under the Ó, = Old Ice. Á
># 2, which is not a long A, but a long nasal vowal which resulted
>from the loss of a following N; this sound is represented in modern
>Norwegian by the letter Å; the Latin symbol Ó, with a small hook
>under it, is not to be confused with the Latin symbol Ó = Ice. Ó).
>
>The names of these 4 runes appear in Codex Leidensis Lat. quarto 83
>as "ûrR, aus, îs, âr", where "aus" is equivalent to Ó with a small
>hook underneath it = Modern Norwegian Å, not Old Norse AU). These 4
>words could be represented by the modern Scandinavian spellings:
>
>ÚrR
>Åss
>Íss
>Ár
>
>Now take a blank piece of paper and a ruler. Draw several horizontal
>lines to place your runes between, resembling the appearance of a
>classical runestone. These lines should run parallel to one another
>and be evenly spaced, resembling a colledge-ruled piece of notebook
>paper. Remember that our runes will tall and skiny. To start with,
>it might be a good idea to space these lines more widely apart from
>one another, allowing for mistakes in runic proportions during the
>learning stages. Now draw the 4 runes whose names are given above.
>
>For Ú, draw a vertical line from top to bottom, then draw a short
>line extending from this line to the right and begining 1/3 of the
>way down the vertical line from the top. This 2nd line should not be
>perfectly horizontal, but should instead incline in a downward
>direction, however slightly. This 2nd line should also be strait.
> From the terminous of this line, draw a 3rd strait line all the way
>to the bottom. This 3rd line should not be perfectly vertical, but
>should instead incline slightly to the right, growing further from
>the original vertical line as it approaches the bottom. Be sure to
>allow enough room above the 2nd line to place a readable dot, as the
>space between this 2nd line and the top bar will often be occupied
>by a dot. By "bar" a mean the upper of the 2 horizontal lines that
>extend across the page and between which our runes will be drawn.
>Also, be sure to allow sufficient space between the vertical line
>and the 3rd line extending downwards and to the right to allow for a
>readable dot to be placed between the line. This space will also be
>occupied by a dot in certain variations. There will be 10 characters
>based on this U rune, employing dots in various locations.
>
>For Ár (Â = long A), draw a vertical line from top to bottom, then
>draw a shorter line crossing this line and inclining in an upward
>direction from left to right. This 2nd line should be much shorter
>than the vertical line intersecting it (remember that our runes are
>to be drawn tall and skiny). The two lines should meet at point
>exactly 1/2 of the way down the vertical line. This 2nd line should
>not incline too steeply upwards from left to right, as there must be
>space for readable dots both above and below this 2nd line on each
>side of the vertical line, but the incline should be steep enough as
>to not appear horizontal. This is important in order to avoid any
>confusion with the N runes, which is a mirror image of this rune in
>which the 2nd line inclines in the opposite direction. There will be
>6 characters based on this rune, employing dots in various places.
>
>For Åss (Ó with a hook underneath it = long nasal Á), draw a
>vertical line from top to bottom, then draw 2 short lines extending
>from the vertical line and to the right. The 1st of these 2 lines
>should begin 1/3 of the way down from the top of the vertical line,
>extending to the right and only slightly downwards. The 2nd of these
>2 lines should begin 2/3 of the way down from the top of the
>vertical line, also extending to the right and only slightly
>downwards. These 2 extending lines should be equally distant from
>each other at any point. They should also be of equal length and
>short, allowing for enough space to place a readable dot between the
>top line and the bar. By "bar" I mean the upper of the 2 horizontal
>lines that extend across the page and between which our runes will
>be drawn. The points at which these 2 short line meet the vertical
>line should divide the vertical line into thirds. The points at
>which these 2 vertical line terminate should divide the empty space
>between the bars into quarters, the top of the 2 terminating at a
>point exactly 1/2 of the way between the bars, and the lower of the
>2 terminating at a point exactly 1/2 of the way down between this
>imaginary mid-point and the lower bar - in other words, 3/4 of the
>way down from the top bar. There will be 2 characters based on this
>rune.
>
>For Í, draw a vertical line from top to bottom. There will be 8
>characters based on this rune.
>
>10 plus 6 plus 2 plus 8 = 26 characters. Each of these characters
>will represent a simple vowal sound - a monothong. Diphthongs will
>be dealt with later.
>
>Now the fun begins. For how to draw these 26 characters, please see
>my next post dealing with the 26 simple Danish vowals.
>
>Regards,
>Konrad.
>
>
>
>
>Sumir hafa kvæði...
>...aðrir spakmæli.
>
>- Keth
>
>Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
>
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>
>
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Cathy C. Burke
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