Younger Futhark

The Younger Futhark, also called the Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet, a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, consisting of only 16 characters, in use from ca. 800 CE. The reduction, paradoxically, happened at the same time as phonetic changes led to a greater number of different phonemes in the spoken language, when Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse.

Thus, the language included distinct sounds and minimal pairs which weren't separate in writing. Also, since the writing custom avoided having the same rune twice in consecutive order, the spoken distinction between long and short vowels weren't retained in writing, either. The only real reason for using the same rune consecutively, would be when it represented different sounds following each other, such as carving kunuur for the name Gunvor.

History

Usage of the Younger Futhark is found in Scandinavia and Viking Age settlements abroad, probably in use from the 9th century onward. While the Migration Period Elder Futhark had been an actual "secret" known only to a literate elite, with only some 350 surviving inscriptions, literacy in the Younger Futhark became widespread in Scandinavia, as witnessed by the great number of Runestones (some 6,000), sometimes inscribed with almost casual notes.

There is a transitional phase from ca. 650 to 800 showing mixed use of Elder and Younger Futhark letters, for example the Björketorp (ca. 650), Stentoften (ca. 650), Snoldelev and Rök (ca. 800) stones.

The Younger Futhark became known in Europe as the "alphabet of the Norsemen", and was studied in the interest of trade and diplomatic contacts, referred to as Abecedarium Nordmannicum in Frankish Fulda (possibly by Walahfrid Strabo) and ogam lochlannach "Ogham of the Scandinavians" in the Book of Ballymote.

The Younger Futhark is divided into long-branch (Danish) and short-twig (Swedish and Norwegian) runes. The difference between the two versions has been a matter of controversy. A general opinion is that the difference was functional, i.e. the long-branch runes were used for documentation on stone, whereas the short-branch runes were in everyday use for private or official messages on wood. In addition the Hälsinge Runes (staveless runes, ca. 900–1200), Middle Age runes (ca. 1100–1500) and the Latinised Dalecarlian futhark (ca. 1500–1910) were developed out of the Younger futhark.

Variants

The Icelandic and Norwegian rune poems have 16 runes, with the stave names fe ("wealth"), ur ("iron"/"rain"), Thurs ("giant"), As/Oss, reidh ("ride"), kaun ("ulcer"), hagall ("hail"), naudhr/naud ("need"), is/iss ("ice"), ar ("plenty"), sol ("sun"), Tyr, bjarkan/bjarken ("birch"), madhr/madr ("man"), logr/lög ("water"), ᛦ yr ("yew").

Long-branch runes

The long-branch runes are the following signs:


f	u	þ	ą	r	k	h	n	i	a	s	t	b	m	l	ʀ

Short-twig runes

In the short-twig runes (or Rök runes), nine runes appear as simplified variants of the long-branch runes, while the remaining seven have identical shapes:


f	u	þ	ą	r	k	h	n	i	a	s	t	b	m	l	ʀ

Hälsinge Runes (staveless runes)

Hälsinge runes are so named because in modern times they were first noticed in the Hälsingland region of Sweden. Later other runic inscriptions with the same runes were found in other parts of Sweden. They were used between the 10th and 12th centuries. The runes seem to be a simplification of the Swedish-Norwegian runes and lack vertical strokes, hence the name 'staveless.' They cover the same set of staves as the other Younger Futhark alphabets. This variant has no assigned Unicode range (as of Unicode 4.0).

Medieval Runes

In the Middle Ages, the Younger Futhark in Scandinavia was expanded, so that it once more contained one sign for each phoneme of the old Norse language. Dotted variants of voiceless signs were introduced to denote the corresponding voiced consonants, or vice versa, voiceless variants of voiced consonants, and several new runes also appeared for vowel sounds. Inscriptions in medieval Scandinavian runes show a large number of variant rune-forms, and some letters, such as s, c and z, were often used interchangeably (Jacobsen & Moltke, 1941–42, p. VII; Werner, 2004, p. 20).

Medieval runes were in use until the 15th century. Of the total number of Norwegian runic inscriptions preserved today, most are medieval runes. Notably, more than 600 inscriptions using these runes have been discovered in Bergen since the 1950s, mostly on wooden sticks (the so-called Bryggen inscriptions). This indicates that runes were in common use side by side with the Latin alphabet for several centuries. Indeed some of the medieval runic inscriptions are actually in Latin language.

Dalecarlian Runes

According to Carl-Gustav Werner, "in the isolated province of Dalarna in Sweden a mix of runes and Latin letters developed" (Werner 2004, p. 7). The Dalecarlian runes came into use in the early 16th century and remained in some use up to the 20th century. Some discussion remains on whether their use was an unbroken tradition throughout this period or whether people in the 19th and 20th centuries learned runes from books written on the subject. The character inventory is suitable for transcribing modern Swedish and the local Dalecarlian dialect.

References

Jacobsen, Lis; Erik Moltke (1941–42). Danmarks runeindskrifter. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaards Forlag.
Werner, Carl-Gustav (2004). The allrunes Font and Package