/r/runes

Photograph via snooOG

Your source for the discussion of runes, the native script of the ancient Germanic language-speaking peoples.


Verið velkomin!

r/runes is a subreddit for academic discussion of historic runic alphabets & runology.

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- Rules -

We have 7 rules in r/runes. Breaking any of these rules may force us to remove your comment, or post. Repeat or blatant rule breaking will result in a permanent ban.

Do NOT private message or use reddit chat to contact moderators about moderator actions. Only message the team via modmail. Directly messaging individual moderators may result in a ban.


Rule 0. Mod discretion always applies. We may remove content that is technically allowed under the rules if the team has good reason to believe it is detrimental to the community. Conversely, if something technically breaks the rules but we deem it beneficial to the community, we may choose to leave it up.

Please remember, you access this subreddit at the discretion of the mod team, and all rules are enforced at the mod team’s discretion. Moderators reserve the right to remove any content they deem harmful to the sub.


Rule 1. Don't Be a Jerk - Be Respectful. Follow Reddit's Rules and "Reddiquette".

This sub's core goal is to promote a friendly environment for all. Assume good faith and be kind to one another, we're all here to learn and discuss. Everyone should feel perfectly safe asking any on topic questions they may have.

We are lucky to enjoy an extremely friendly and supportive community, very seldom seeing serious disputes or fights. In the interests of maintaining this high standard, engaging in personal attacks or insults will not be tolerated. Disagreements are fine and indicative of a functioning discourse; name-calling and excessive nastiness are not. If you can't play nice, you're out of the pool.


Rule 2. No racism, promotion of pseudoscience, or bigotry.

Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, religious prejudices and other such bigotries have no place in this community and will not be tolerated. Usernames containing slurs, referring to acts of sexual violence, etc. are unacceptable here and will be banned on sight.


Rule 3. Produce quality sources for any and all historic claims.

r/runes is a subreddit for academic discussion of historic runic alphabets & runology. If you make a claim about the historic record, you must cite a reliable source backing your claim. This can be a notable runologist, a research paper, or something similar. This sub is not an echo chamber for misinformation.


Rule 4. No spam, low effort posts, unauthorized advertisements/(self) promotion, or NSFW content.

If you have something you'd like to promote, such as another subreddit, a podcast etc. you must contact the moderators before posting.


Rule 5. No translation requests.

This sub is intended for the scholastic discussion of runes, and can easily get cluttered with too many questions asking whether or not such-and-such is a rune or what it means etc. We ask that all questions regarding simple identification and translation be posted in r/RuneHelp instead of here, where kind and knowledgeable individuals will hopefully reply!


Rule 6. No modern religious topics.

We do not allow any discussion of modern religious topics here. r/runes is a subreddit that strives to be a community focused on learning, and studies runes from an etic perspective, meaning that we take a scholastic approach "from the perspective of one who does not participate in the culture being studied."

We ask that you post threads about modern religious practices elsewhere in more appropriate subs. Thank you!


Rule 7. No sigils or (early) modern symbols.

Despite of their enduring popularity in popculture, Icelandic sigils such as the végvísir and ægishjálmr do not originate in medieval Scandinavia. Both are in the tradition of early modern occultism arising from outside Scandinavia and were not documented before the 19th and the 17th century, respectively. As our focus lays on academic discussion of historic runic alphabets & runology, we ask that you post pictures and questions relating to these elsewhere, such as r/galdrastafir.

Further reading on how these symbols have little to no connection to the Norse or Viking period can be found here: ægishjálmr // vegvísir.


- Related subreddits -

- Directly related subreddits -

- General history, religion, linguistics and culture -

- Arts & Crafts -

Sidebar last updated on May 1st, 2024. Rules are subject to change at the mod team's discretion.

/r/runes

22,683 Subscribers

129

Uppland Runic Inscription Fv1976 107

5 Comments
2024/10/25
19:25 UTC

13

Examples of insults written in younger futhark?

I'm working on a comic set around 950-970. Now it's aimed at kids, so cursewords are out of the question, but I was thinking that using runes instead of the classic "curseword doodles" and thought I might as well put in some easter eggs that are at least close to historically accurate! Anyone know any classics?

8 Comments
2024/10/24
13:49 UTC

7

Hello i wanna start learning runes

Hi, I'm interested in runes reading. I'm from the Slavic country and wanna learn reading them. If u have any good book or some tutorials fir that i will be happy.

32 Comments
2024/10/22
06:13 UTC

42

Another one from the 101 series.

8 Comments
2024/10/20
08:57 UTC

0

Does each rune rules over each year?

I came across "calculate your birthday" and it allowed me to look up my birth month and its corresponding rune. But is there a way to calculate which rune rules over this year 2024? And the next 2025?

9 Comments
2024/10/18
03:01 UTC

6

Runes as numbers?

Is there any evidence of runes being used to represent numbers?

I'm specifically interested in the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, but would be interested to hear of others as well.

13 Comments
2024/10/14
20:29 UTC

3

Anglish Runes Font

Hi all,

I've updated my Anglish Runes truetype font (futhorc based), available here: https://github.com/hellwig-uk/anglish_runes

Specifically I redrawn some characters, added a new one for the 'sh' sound and improved kernings.

If there are any questions/comments/suggestion, I'll be for the next couple of days lurking around here.

5 Comments
2024/10/11
22:35 UTC

0

A Rune combination i made

12 Comments
2024/10/11
13:48 UTC

2

Ideas for how to spell my name in Elder Futhark?

I've been playing around with the idea of using this more often for signing off on artistic endeavors and maybe to use as a signature in general. I have an alt account on Facebook where I spell my last name (Olson) as ᛟᛚᛋᛁᚾ so that the O's don't make the same sound, but I'm wondering if there's a sure way that the Norse would done that or not. I imagined there would've been more readily available info on this, but I guess I don't know when "son of _____" and "dottr of _____" came into the picture.

4 Comments
2024/10/10
20:29 UTC

5

Er Sound

New to elder futhark. If I wanted to make an “er” sound would that be (using the word pur for example) ᛈᚱ or something like ᛈᚢᚱ?

edit: also how does the “sh” sound work 😭

5 Comments
2024/10/10
03:26 UTC

7

The Galloway Hoard, featuring some runic inscriptions

3 Comments
2024/10/08
16:47 UTC

22

þæssaʀ writing missing

In the current transliteration of the Sønder Kirkeby Runestone, we have: Þor wigi runaʀ [þæssaʀ]. The brackets indicate that the word is not on the stone, possibly because it is broken. But linguists believe it was part of the inscription. "Þor wigi runaʀ" is engraved on the stone in runic characters. What I want to know is how do you write "þæssaʀ" in the same runic characters.

5 Comments
2024/10/07
17:46 UTC

59

Runestone at Minigolf field in Sigtuna ⛳

6 Comments
2024/10/06
17:17 UTC

9

I had a custom Tagelharpa made with Havamal stanza 138 in Old English and in Anglo Frisian Runes

This sub in particular u/AssaultButterKnife,u/Hurlebatte, and u/SamOfGrayhaven helped with the translation and transliteration years ago so I thought I would share a picture of it.

https://preview.redd.it/nfo5omy86zsd1.jpg?width=2000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=100f86edf94493dfa49c8a7036975b6def4afcfa

Some of the runes are blocked so here is the whole inscription:

᛫ᚹᚪᛏ᛬ᛁᚳ᛬ᚦᚫᛏ᛬ᛁᚳ᛬ᚻᚪᛝᚩᛞᛖ

᛬ᚩᚾ᛬ᚹᛁᚾᛞᛁᚸᚪᚾ᛬ᚸᚪᛚᚸᚪᚾ

᛬ᚾᛖᛇᛏ᛬ᚪᛚᚪ᛬ᚾᛁᚸᚩᚾ

᛫ᚸᚪᚱᛖ᛬ᚷᛖᚹᚢᚾᛞᚩᛞ

᛬ᚪᚾᛞ᛬ᚷᛖᚠᛖᚾ᛬ᚹᚩᛞᚾᛖ

᛫ᛋᛖᛚᚠ᛬ᛗᛖ᛬ᛋᛖᛚᚠᚢᛗ

᛫ᚩᚾ᛬ᚦᚪᛗ᛬ᚸᚪᛚᚸᚪᚾ

᛬ᛒᛖ᛬ᚦᚪᛗ᛬ᚦᛖ᛬ᚾᚪᚾ᛬ᛗᚪᚾ᛬ᚹᚪᛏ

᛬ᚻᚹᚫᛋ᛬ᚻᛖ᛬ᚩᚠ᛬ᚹᚣᚱᛏᚢᛗ᛬ᚱᛁᚾᚦ᛫

3 Comments
2024/10/05
17:50 UTC

4 Comments
2024/10/03
20:57 UTC

42

Modern Runes i made

(PS: i switched up m and b)

17 Comments
2024/10/01
18:46 UTC

2

Is there a runic alphabet for English that works flawlessly for modern english?

Besides, is there a community somewhere of people learning to write modern english in some runic alphabet?

14 Comments
2024/09/24
12:11 UTC

4

Runes - holy signs or old alphabet?

So I'm in a discussion with a friend of mine as there are 4 words that I'd like written in runes which are to become part of a much larger tattoo that I'm planning to get. She says I've gotta be careful because they're holy symbols and can individually carry influence, which I kinda get, I know they were used that way, but I also know they were used as an alphabet and things were written in them (ie Kensington rune stone). So, how does one differentiate? How were they transformed from letters to symbols, or vice versa?

17 Comments
2024/09/22
13:53 UTC

4

How do you write the letter i in runes?

Hello everyone, relatively new here and grateful that this community exists. I am doing a little bit of research on runes for some calligraphy hobbying I do.

I'm specifically looking in to the word "tíri" which is a word found in Anon Nkt 23¹¹ (source here). For clarity, this is loosely translated to "Honor" or "Glory". I'm thinking that in runes this would look like

ᛏᛁᚱᛁ

but I wanted to get a second opinion from a group of others familiar with written runes (AKA old Norse?).

Thank you for your help, and happy to be here.

5 Comments
2024/09/16
23:18 UTC

1

What translator do you use for runic?

I just use LingoJam.

5 Comments
2024/09/16
20:33 UTC

12

Ogham is a unique script from Ireland that many scholars over the years have connected to the runic alphabet(s). Here's a great new introduction to the topic from the OG(H)AM project at the University of Glasgow and Maynooth University and Daniel Bălteanu.

1 Comment
2024/09/15
17:08 UTC

2

Has anyone (except sven) made a runic alphabet for modern Scandinavian languages?

Im Swedish and I wanna be able to write Swedish using runes. The elder younger and medieval futharks don't rly cut it. I know Sven made one but it's bad and I don't like it. Have anyone made any others? Preferably something more established?

8 Comments
2024/09/13
23:12 UTC

3

I want to write my own notes. Where do I start?

I have a new notebook I'm planning to use for my study on runes, fuþork and mythology. I want to start taking notes in it and thought I could start with the runes and their pronunciation. After that, their meaning maybe? How would you do it?

3 Comments
2024/09/13
17:21 UTC

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