The twisting path of runes from the Greek alphabet

Fairfax, Edmund

doi:10.1075/nowele.67.2.03fai

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 13 publications

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“…ple within whose sphere the fuþark originated rather than of a single person, but tend also towards purposeful creation. 7 Though theories involving an unsophisticated creator (i.e., a person with little to no literacy in the model script according to the terminol ogy of Daniels (1996a)) do exist (e.g., Fairfax, 2014, pp. 215-217 and Friesen, 1918-1919 12, whose Germanic script inventors received only very basic or inadequate tutoring), the inventor of the runes is more of ten considered to be a speaker of a Germanic language not merely with competence in writing the source language, but often with some level of classical education.…”

Section: The Rune Mastermentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is a Written Word? And if So, How Many?

Evertz-Rittich¹

Grapholinguistics and Its Applications

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In the analysis of written language, the distribution of the punctuation marks dot, exclamation mark, and question mark is usually explained with refer ence to the concept of sentence. For this reason, these characters are referred to in German linguistics as 'Satzschlusszeichen' ('sentence closing marks'). However, if the term sentence is understood as in syntax, e.g., as a phrase with a finite verb as its head, it turns out that (e.g., in English) in some cases the marks in question ac tually follow what can be considered a sentence (Where are you now?), but in many other cases they do not. In particular, the marks may follow less than a sentence (Here!) or more than a sentence (I am here and you are there.) or they may be inter spersed in a sentence (Stop! Being! Stupid!). In order to arrive at a proper analysis of such data, it is necessary to distinguish between two different structural concepts, the sentence as a strictly syntactic notion on the one hand and another concept be longing to the field of grapholinguistics on the other hand. There are numerous suggestions how to conceive this other concept. In the approach to be presented, it is termed written utterance and is considered to be what a writer understands as a coherent thought. It is important that the concepts of sentence and written utter ance are completely independent of each other, since they belong to different areas of linguistics. A grapholinguistic analysis has to explain the wellformedness con ditions of written utterances. In the grapholinguistic model, which serves as the background for the following analysis, the language system is considered as part of the writing system, so that in the analysis of written forms all concepts established for the analysis of the language system can be used. This model provides a specific answer to the pertinent question of the relationship between written language and spoken language. 1. On the Term Grapholinguistics Grapholinguistics is a branch of linguistics that has developed into an independent field of research over the last 50 years. 1 The term grapholin

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Section: The Rune Mastermentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is a Written Word? And if So, How Many?

Evertz-Rittich¹

Grapholinguistics and Its Applications

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The Ordering of the Futhark

Straubhaar

Simms

Brown

et al. 2020

Amst. Beitr. alteren Ger.

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This article focuses on the ordering of the runic alphabet. It is well-known that the runic alphabet goes f-u-th-a-r-k, and that this ordering differs sharply from that of all of the contemporary alphabets. This is particularly surprising, as it is difficult to understand why the inventor(s) of the runic alphabet would alter the ordering of the possible source alphabet(s) so dramatically. In this article, we evaluate some of the main theories proposed to account for this ordering, and then present our own solution, which holds that this ordering is primarily a pedagogical device. We argue that the furthark employs three types of pedagogical tricks: (1) futhark is easily pronounceable as a quasi-word, whereas the other sequences (a-b-c-d-e-f-g, alpha-beta-gamma-delta-epsilon, etc.) are not; (2) each rune in the futhark is associated with a noun in which it is found, which aids memorization; and (3) the order of the rune-associated nouns has been divided into three thematic groups (ættir), each headed by a god or a dreaded force of nature, and within each ætt, the meanings of the rune-names fall into thematic divisions, again making the futhark as a whole easier to memorize.

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Runology and historical sociolinguistics: On runic writing and its social history in the first millennium

Schulte

2015

Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics

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This paper argues that the rise and the transmission of the runes is largely determined by sociolinguistic factors. First, the older fuþark is identified as a unique Germanic design, adapted from Latin or Greek sources by one or more well-born Germani to mark group identity and status. Hence it is rather unlikely that the search for an exact source alphabet of the older fuþark will make a major breakthrough in future research. Second, the present author argues that the extension of the fuþark in the Anglo-Frisian setting is due to high-scale contact with the Christian Church, including Latin manuscript culture and Classical grammatical schooling, whereas these factors were almost entirely absent in pre-Viking-Age Scandinavia. The clerical influence is shown not least by "Christian inscriptions" in Anglo-Saxon England such as the Ruthwell Cross. Learned Christians recycled the obsolete runes to reestablish the phonological type of perfect fit -a situation which is diametrically opposed to the Scandinavian scenario. Typologically, therefore, the First Grammatical Treatise in Iceland is directly in line with the Anglo-Frisian extension of the runic alphabet, whereas the Viking-Age fuþark represents a counter-development with no clear influence of the Christian Church until the early 900s.

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The twisting path of runes from the Greek alphabet

Cited by 3 publications

References 13 publications

What Is a Written Word? And if So, How Many?

What Is a Written Word? And if So, How Many?

The Ordering of the Futhark

Runology and historical sociolinguistics: On runic writing and its social history in the first millennium

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