At the time when the runes were in common usage, there was no standardized spelling for Norse words. The words were spelled phonetically, according to what the person doing the inscription thought would be correct. It was assumed that the reader would be able to figure it out.
So the same word can be found spelled many different ways in different inscriptions. And certainly there are many examples of these spelling variations causing confusion about which word was intended. This is why there is so much disagreement about the meanings of many inscriptions.
Jamie
----- Original Message -----
From: "Schuyler Himberg" <schuylerhimberg@ cvuhs.org>
To: "norse course" <norse_course@ yahoogroups. com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 7, 2009 7:16:06 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject:
[norse_course] futhark
Lately I have been interested in studying the runic alphabet Futhark; therefore I am. Only now have I come across the problem that the runic letters (I guess one could call them letters or symbols) don’t show if a word is stressed by an accent mark. I know that not having an accent won’t change the word much (at least I think it won’t change the word much. Eg. In Russian the work myaka is totally different from the word myáka.) Any way, I was only asking if anyone can help me by explaining how someone reading a word in Futhark will know if they are saying the word correctly by putting emphasis on a letter. An exemplar would be if you read the word álfr in Futhark. You would not know if there was stress in the “a”. It would be very helpful if my query was answered.
Thank you
Kveðja,
Mr.Himberg