Heil Cathy!

Thank you for your interest in my rune-project. Sorry for the delay
in responding to you. I have been considering what you wrote.

--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Cathy Burke <cburke@...> wrote:
> 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?

Yes, I would be happy to draw the basic characters and have them
posted on Norse Course. To begin with, I could draw a rough version
by hand - the precise measurements for each charcter would have to
be determined later during the programming stage. However, I do not
have a scanner. This is a problem.


"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."

This would work. A sample text might also help folk to visualize it.
It would be handwritten, but my handwriting is clear and strait.
Perhaps list-members could suggest a few sentences or verses they
would like to see written in the script? Perhaps we could render the
same line in more than one dialect? I am open to suggestions.

"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."

I understand what you mean. The unique scripts used for Hindi and
Bengali have gone a long way to helping me learn better. Reading the
same text in Roman characters does less justice. One of our biggest
problems is that the Judeo-Christian conquest of Scandinavia almost
entirely destroyed the native culture of the region, including the
alphabet. The church imposed the Roman alphabet by "divine right" -
the blessings of Israel had been "transfered to them" through "the
Lord´s divinely inspired translation of the Bible thru St. Jerome".
We paid the price. Instead of encouraging and further refining our
native alphabet, the church disparaged it as a work of the Devil. To
add insult to injury, the native language itself was disparaged and
its use discouraged throughout most of Scandinavia. While we admire
the great cultures of the Semites, the Indians, and the Chinese (who
have evolved elegant native scripts for representing their tongues),
we did not receive the freedom or the education necessary to write
our own alphabet until the 20th century. We are a conquered culture,
most of whose members cannot understand their ancestors´ tongue. It
is for this reason that I have become interested in working together
with others to standardize our alphabet for print in the modern age.
The characters I am discussing are the standard classical ones from
our last period of linguistic unity and cultural intactness. What I
am doing is using dots to further clarify sounds, a tradition which
started in the Viking Age. I hope to invite criticism and eventual
agreement on the fine points of this punctuation. Also, I am trying
to encourage the use of our common native alphabet in print. Lastly,
I am trying to encourage an effort to standardize a conservative
written version of our language from the early 9th century, which is
about when our 2nd original alphabet first came into use. This would
give us a common base from which to operate for all of Scandinavia,
allowing for local adaptation from this common base. I am interested
in what others have to say and contribute to this project, which is
just giving back to the folk what is rightfully theirs to begin with.

"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.

Yes, I can appreciate what you are saying here. As you are likely
familiar with the very angular version of Arabic script used for a
lot of printed media these days, your eyes should have no problem
adjusting to basic printed Norse. The system of dots used in Arabic
is also similar to what we are talking about in Norse.

> Best regards,
>
> Cathy


Again, thank you for your input.

Regards,
Konrad.



>
> 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/
> >
> >To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> >norse_course-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >
> >
> >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
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>
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