From: barth@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (barth.richards)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan,alt.folklore.urban
Subject: runes (was Peace Symbol)--LONG!
Date: 28 Jan 93 00:51:30 GMT
Organization: AT&T


In article <1993Jan27.154341.20187@ifi.uio.no> joakimr@ifi.uio.no (Joakim
Ruud) writes:

>Okay, let me just make this clear...

Well, nice try anyway.  I'll try to make it clearer.  My information comes
from the book RUNES, by Ralph W. V. Elliot, Manchester University Press/St.
Martin's Press, 1959, 1989.

>The norse runes are divided into two different alphabets, or "Futhark"'s (the
>word futhark is derived from the first six characters.)
>The original one had 24 characters,

Referring to the 24-rune futhark in general as "norse" is kind of a misnomer.
The 24-rune futhark was used by Germanic peoples across a wide area of Europe.
You are correct, however, in that the Norsemen did use the 24-rune futhark.

>among them were two special characters for
>the "th"-sound, one for the sound in "the" (called "edd") and one for the
>sount in "thought" (called "thorn").

The names and phonetic values tended to depend on the language of the user
of the runes, though there was some consistency.  The rune you refer to as
thorn:

            |
            |\
            | >
            |/
            |

was consistently used for the th sound in "thought," but the name varied:

     Anglo-Saxon: thorn
       Old Norse: thurisaR* or thurs
   Old Icelandic: thurs
          Gothic: thauris (conjectural)
  Proto Germanic: thurisaz (conjectural)

* In old Norse, there was a sound that was roughly half way between a
  modern English r and y, which liguists transliterate as R.

The rune you named "edd" did tend to be used for a voiced th (as in "the"),
though sometimes was used for the sound d as in "dog."  The names of this
rune are mostly conjectur, mostly based, I'm guessing, on the words for
"day" in the various languages:

     Anglo-Saxon: daeg
          Gothic: dags (conjectural)
  Proto Germanic: dhagaz (conjectural)
       Old Norse: dhagaR (conjectural)


The name "edd" wasn't used as far as my research shows.  However, you may
be confusing the rune name with "eth," the name of the letter, used in
Germanic texts written in Roman letters, for the voiced th sound.  The
capital letter looks like a capital D with a bar through it:

       --- 
       |  |
      -+- |
       |  |
       ---

The lower case letter looks like a lower case d tilted to the left with a
bar through it:

      \ /
       X
      / \
        /\
       /  |
       \_/

The letter is actually still in use in the modern Icelandic language, as is
thorn, a letter that looks muck like it's runic forebearer, and ash (or
aesc) which looks like an a and e run together.

>This original futhark came to Germany God knows when and from where (on one of
>the famous norwegian runestones there are mesopotamian hieroglyphs...),

See my other post for mopre info on where they probably came from.

>and was used by norwegians in the pre-viking period (up to about 700 AD). 

That part's true enough.

>Then the futhark was compressed to 16 characters. It is not clear why this was
>done, but on theory goes like this: The runes were never intended to write
>messages or literary passages of any sort. They were used exclusively for
>magic. So, our ancestors figured; if we combine two or three runes into one,
>then obviously each rune must have a stronger magical power !

The 16-rune futharks of the Norsemen *were* used to write messages.  The
futhark was collapsed from 24 to 16 runes by combining the phonetic values,
so that similar sounds used the same rune:

     | /
     |//
     |/ 
     |  
     |    f and v


     |\  
     | \ 
     |  |
     |  |
     |  | u, y, w, au, o, oe


     |
     |\
     | >
     |/
     |    both th sounds (th as in thought, and th as in the)


     |\
     | \
     |\
     | \
     |    nasalized a


     |\
     | >
     |/
     |\
     | \  r


     | /
     |/
     |
     |
     |    k and g


     \|/
     /|\
      |
      |
      |   h and ch (like in Scottish loch)


      |
     \|
      |
      |\
      |   n


      |
      |
      |
      |
      |   i, e, and j (pronounced like the y in yes)


      |
      |/
      |
     /|
      |   a


        |
     |\ |
     | \|
     |
     |    s


      ^
     /|\
      |
      |
      |   t and d


     |\
     | >
     |<
     | >
     |/   b, p, spirant v


      ^
     /|\
     \|/
      |
      |   m


     |\
     | \
     |
     |
     |    l


      |
      |
      |
      |
     /|\  R (a sound partway between Modern English r and y)


>Whatever the reason, the runes were combined, and they were also changed to
>other forms. Incidentally, the "edd" and the "thorn" were kept, so they must
>have had some special importance...

Thorn was kept in the 16-rune futhark, but the voiced th rune was not.  It
did remain in the Anglo-Saxon futhark (or more properly, futhorc), with the
name daeg (day) and representing the d sound.


Barth "will transcribe runic texts for food" Richards

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88  Barth Richards                  "Language is a virus from outer space."  88
88  att!ihlpf!barth                           - William S. Burroughs         88
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