From: radzy@sradzy.uucp (T.O. Radzykewycz)
Subject: Re: Peace Symbol
Organization: The Radzykewycz Clan; Newark, CA
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 07:06:52 GMT

>comjohn@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Mr. John T Jensen) writes:
>> I don't know what you think runes were, but they were in fact
>> letters, representing sounds, not concepts (such as defence)....
>> Their invention was stimulated by Roman writing, amongst the
>> then-pagan proto-Norse.

styri@nta.no writes:
> I'm sorry, but this is only one theory. Problem is, there are
> no certain translations based on the "letters representing
> sounds" theory. There's an academic dispute going on at the
> moment here in Norway and a scientific paper seems to be
> forthcoming.  A new theory links the runes to older stuff than
> Roman letters and such.

What does
    "no certain translations based on the 'letters representing
    sounds' theory"
mean?   I can't figure out any reasonable meaning for it.

As for the "new" theory linking runes to older stuff, I was
under the impression that runes were developed by someone from
the germanic area who went south to study with the etruscans and
greeks.  There is probably a new variation of an older theory,
but as far as I know, the futhark has been linked to pre-Roman
alphabets for quite a while.

The best theory I've seen says that the futhark was developed
from an early version of the etruscan (immediately pre-roman)
alphabet and the greek alphabet with influences from the older
phonetian alphabet.  At the time of the latin alphabet, the
order and orientation of letters was fixed; however, in early
versions of the etruscan alphabets, the order was not yet
fixed.  Inscriptions could be written left-to-right,
right-to-left, or boustrophedon (alternating LtoR with RtoL).
This is same as runic inscriptions.

The same can be said about orientation of the letters -- early
etruscan letters could be written reversed or upside-down and
still not be thought anomalous.  Latin letters had a fixed
orientation, so that if you took the mirror image, it was
wrong.  Consider that the rune "L" could be written "correctly"
in any of four ways:

        |\     /|       |       |
        |       |      \|       |/

The same could not correctly be done with any of the Roman
letters (in spite of the "Toys-R-Us" people).

A third thing linking the futharks to pre-Roman alphabets was
the fact that a rune could represent both the phonemic value or
the name of the rune.  Thus, The rune I (with the phonemic value
"ee" as in 'wheel', name "isa" or "isaz", and meaning "ice") was
used for three things: the sound sequence "isa", the word "ice",
and the sound "ee".  Greek and Latin alphabets could not be used
this way, but the phonetian alphabet could.


I think that the magical aspects of runes was created from the
common practice of naming the letters in early alphabets.  From
the pre-alphabetic cuneiform letters until the Roman alphabet,
each letter had a name, like children's books today have words
associated with each letter:
	a - apple
	b - book
	c - cat
	d - dog
and so on.  The Caananite and Phoenician alphabets borrowed the
names from the cuneiform syllables that the letters were taken
from, sometimes translating the meaning, and sometimes simply
taking the sequence of sounds.  The Greek alphabet also had
names for the letters, though the letter-names at that point
weren't necessarily meaningful words to the Greeks.  (Haven't
you ever wondered why the Greek letters had long names like
kappa and upsilon, rather than simple names like the modern
latin alphabet has?  This also explains why the names of the
first two letters of the Greek alphabet and the first two
letters of the Hebrew alphabet have such similar names, even
though the languages are so very very different.)  The germanic
scholars also created a poem (the rune-poem) as a learning aid,
so that students could learn the futhark more easily.  From
those names and the nursery-rhyme-like rune-poem, the later,
unschooled people (who did NOT use the runes for communication,
as did their predecessors) adapted the magical meanings.


The following is completely speculation on my part:
The myth about the origin of the futhark does claim that it was
delivered to the germanic people by the god Odin.  *IF* this
myth is based on fact, then I suggest that Odin (a man --
remember that around this time, it wasn't uncommon for a king to
claim god-hood) or one of his people (perhaps a non-firstborn
child) travelled south to (what is now) Greece and Italy to
study.  When s/he understood the value of writing, s/he decided
to adapt the letters to a format more usable at home.  This
adaptation conformed both to the germanic language, which had
significant differences in phonology, and to the available
writing media -- paper had to be imported, so it was rare and
expensive.  It wouldn't surprise me for the king (or god) who
SENT the person, to take credit for the creation of the
futhark.  This person might have been a king named Odin, or it
might have been a king who was later confused with Odin.

References:

_The_Writing_Systems_Of_The_World_, by Florian Coulmas
1989  Blackwell Publishers

_Reading_The_Past:_Runes_, by R. I. Page
1987  University of California Press

_The_Enchanted_Alphabet_, by Dr. James M. Peterson
1988  The Aquarian Press

_Writing_Systems_, by Geoffrey Sampson
1985  Stanford University Press

_The_Origins_Of_Writing_, ed by Wayne M. Senner
1989  University of Nebraska Press

_Futhark:_A_Handbook_Of_Rune_Magic_, by Edred Thorsson
1984  Samuel Weiser, Inc.