Rune Origins 1

                  Rune Origins 1

Thule Island theory

Runes are said to have been passed on by the mythical Hyperborean, the fabled peoples of the Northernmost Isles. Some scholars say runes originated in the second century B.C.E., when the Cimbri and the Teutons invaded the Italian peninsula and came into contact with the North Etruscan and Latin alphabets. Other scholars believe that runes were formulated by the Goths in the first and second centuries C.E., on the Baltic coast. As early as the first century C.E., the Roman scholar Tacitus describes what many scholars’ on runes believe to be indeed runes' being used in divination practices. He writes that a priest, priestess, or the head of the household would inscribe runes on strips of wood cut from a fruit-bearing tree, then close his/her eyes, turn to the north, invoke the goddesses and gods, and cast the runes on a white cloth. According to Tacitus, Thule Island was first sighted by the Roman Fleets in the first century. Thule Island may well have been Iceland today:

 “Never before had a Roman fleet sailed round the coastline in this most remote sea, and so established that Britain is indeed an island. At the same time they found and conquered the Islands known as the Orcades (Orkneys), at that time quite undiscovered (or at least they landed on them- it would have been impossible to sustain a military presence there). They even looked closely at Thule, (Thule - `Ultima Thule` was considered to be the very furthest land in the world; likely to have been the Shetlands, though just conceivably Iceland) - but no more than that, as they had no orders to go any further, and winter was approaching”.  

Elder Fuþark

"The Elder Futhark is thought to be the oldest version of the runic alphabet, and was used in the parts of Europe which were home to Germanic peoples, including Scandinavia. Other versions probably developed from it. The names of the letters are shown in Common Germanic, the reconstructed ancestor of all Germanic languages."

Anglo-Saxon Fuþark

"A number of extra letters were added to the runic alphabet to write Anglo-Saxon/Old English. Runes were probably bought to Britain in the 5th century by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians (collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons), and were used until about the 11th century. Runic inscriptions are mostly found on jewelry, weapons, stones and other objects. Very few examples of runic writing on manuscripts have survived. “[The chart that follows is incomplete. There are additional A-S runes, which you can see here.]

Younger/Scandinavian Fuþark

"This version of the runic alphabet was used sporadically in Scandinavia, in particular in Denmark and Sweden, until about the 17th century.

The commonality of symbols of all of the following alphabets makes sense when one considers the migration of ancient peoples from the east to the west. The people and languages of northern Europe are considered "Indo-European" because of this migration. It's not unreasonable that customs, languages, alphabets, mythology, etc. share common origins. If this is to be believed, than Semitic races may have added their “alphabet system” to that of the Germanic Futhark.

Etruscan Alphabet

"The Etruscan alphabet is thought to have been developed from the Greek alphabet by Greek colonists in Italy. The earliest known inscription dates from the middle of the 6th century BC. More than 10,000 Etruscan inscriptions have been found on tombstones, vases, statues, mirrors and jewelry. Fragments of an Etruscan book made of linen have also been found. Most Etruscan inscriptions are written in horizontal lines from left to right, but some are boustrophedon (running alternately left to right then right to left). Used to write: Etruscan, a language spoken by the Etruscans, who lived in Etruria (Tuscany and Umbria) between about the 8th century BC and the 1st century AD. Little is known about the Etruscans or their language."

Archaic Etruscan alphabet (7th-5th centuries BCE)

Neo-Etruscan alphabet (4th-3rd centuries BCE)

Latin Alphabets

"The Old Italic alphabets developed from the west Greek alphabet, which came to Italy via the Greek colonies on Sicily and along the west coast of Italy. The Etruscans adapted the Greek alphabet to write Etruscan sometime during the 6th century BC, or possibly earlier. Most of the other alphabets used in Italy are thought to have derived from the Etruscan alphabet."

Ancient Latin

The earliest known inscriptions in the Latin alphabet date from the 6th century BCE. It was adapted from the Etruscan alphabet during the 7th century BC. The letters Y and Z were taken from the Greek alphabet to write Greek loan words. Other letters were added from time to time as the Latin alphabet was adapted for other languages."

Faliscan

Marsiliana

Messapic

"The Messapic alphabet is thought to have derived directly from the Greek alphabet, rather than developing from the Etruscan alphabet. The only known inscriptions in the Messapic alphabet date from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. The Messapic language was not related to other languages of Italy."

Middle Adriatic/South Picene

North Picene

Oscan

Umbrian

Roman Alphabet for Latin

"The Romans used just 23 letters to write Latin. There were no lower case letters, and K, X, Y and Z used only for writing words of Greek origin. The letters J, U and W were added to the alphabet at a later stage to write languages other than Latin. J is a variant of I, U is a variant of V, and W was introduced as a 'double-v' to make a distinction between the sounds we know as 'v' and 'w' which was unnecessary in Latin."  

But what other alphabets may have influenced runes? Remember that over the millennia there was a great migration of people, spreading from the birthplace of mankind, in the "middle east" to what are now Europe and northern Africa. Ancient people did travel--a lot--and long before the Vikings became known as explorers and traders.

Hungarian Runes

Hungarian runes (Székely Rovásírás) are descended from the Kök Turki script used in Central Asia. They were used by the Székler Magyars in Hungary before István, the first Christian king of Hungary, ordered all pre-Christian writings to be destroyed. In remote parts of Transylvania however, the runes were still used up until the 1850s. Hungarian runes were usually written on sticks in boustrophedon style (alternating direction right to left then left to right). The runes include separate letters for all the phonemes of Hungarian and are in this respect better suited to written Hungarian than the Latin alphabet.  

Turkish Runes

The upper rune rows are the Elder Futhark variants. The lower rune row shows the Turkish Runes and their phonetic equivalents.

Tifinagh Abjad

"The Tifinagh or Tifinigh abjad is thought to have derived from the ancient Berber script. [Berbers were mountain people, who lived in northwestern Africa, in what is now Morocco.] The name Tifinagh means 'the Phoenician letters', or possibly comes from the Greek word for writing tablet, 'pínaks'. It is not taught in schools, but is still used occasionally by the Tuareg for private notes, love letters and in decoration. For public purposes, the Arabic alphabet is used."

The South Arabian Alphabet

"The South Arabian alphabet is known from inscriptions found in southern Arabia dating from between 600 BC and 600 AD. Its origins are not known. The South Arabian alphabet, like Arabic and Hebrew, includes only consonants. It was written from right to left in horizontal lines. The top rows of letters are written in monumental style, while the bottom rows of letters are in cursive style. "

Sabaean or Sabaic alphabet

"The Sabaean or Sabaic alphabet is one of the south Arabian alphabets. The oldest known inscriptions in this alphabet date from about 500 BC. Its origins are not known, though one theory is that it developed from the Byblos alphabet. The Sabaean alphabet, like Arabic and Hebrew, includes only consonants. Unlike Arabic and Hebrew, Sabaean has no system for vowel indication. In most inscriptions it is written from right to left, in some it is written in boustrophedon style (alternating right to left and left to right). It was used to write Sabaean, an extinct Semitic language spoken in Saba, the biblical Sheba, in southwestern Arabia. The Sabaeans managed to unite southern Arabia into a single state by the 3rd century AD, but were conquered by the Abyssinians in 525 AD. "

The European scholars have come to recognise from the very beginning the obvious similarity between the character forms of the Primitive Norse stones and those of the Central Asian Gokturk monuments, but for certain various reasons have refrained from tackling this point by denying all kinds of plausible relations.

All throughout the period of 160 years that elapsed between the years of 1730 and 1893, that is between the discovery of Orhun monuments and their definitely final decipherment, fanciful theories were fabricated about the Vikings' (or Indo-Germans', or Celts', or Goths') prehistoric emigrations into Central Asia, and the erection of Orhun stones as landmarks of their presence and civilisation dating back to several thousands of years BC in that region.

Only when in 1893, it was understood that these inscriptions were not written in any other tongue but pure Turkish, then those fanciful theories were discarded, and the proposed pre-historic dating were revised to be not earlier than AD 700. Even today, a number of academicians are still straining at finding a Sogdian, Persian or Aramaic origin for Turkish inscriptions, but their efforts at proving their claims all end in vain. A casual comparison of ancient scripts is all needed to see that the characters used in Orhun monuments are more identical with the futhark than any of those alleged originals. Besides this close resemblance, it is an exciting fact that the Primitive Norse runes declared to have ambiguous contexts can be rendered meaningfully when they are exposed to our novel method of reading ancient Turkish scripts.  

Kjell Aartun is a doctor of philosophy and language-researcher who writes in his book, (RUNER i kulturhistorisk sammenheng, En fruktbarhetskultisk tradisjon, Pax Forlag, Oslo 1994.), that he has proven that the runes were not inspired by the Greek and Latin alphabets. He argues that it is opposite, maintaining that the Norwegian runes are identical with runes which were used in Semitic language areas such as Trojan Asia Minor and Canaan (Palestine) as far back in history as 2000BC.

The runes are, after Kjell Aartun’s opinion, one of many oriental writing-systems which were the basic platform by which the Greek and Latin alphabets later developed. Additionally, he writes that he can prove that the first Norwegian runic inscriptions were written in a Semitic language, citing known cult-based erotic texts, many of which included holy depictions of the act of making love.

According to Aartun, new archeological finds show that many people from the Mediterranean Sea area, and especially the Cretans (who were Semitic), often traveled to the north on trading tours. He says that during the Migration Period many Semitic-speaking people came to Norway. Aartun writes that this conclusion is born out by actual facts which Snorri refers to when saying: "these Asians was called aeser and in the northern countries the Asians spread so much that their language was the common language in all these countries."

Kjell Aartun's theories are not accepted by authoritive Norwegian runeologists.

Blekinge's Most Ancient Runic Inscriptions, - Manifestations of Semitic Fertility Cult    

Ref: http://home9.swipnet.se/~w-93783/index.html  

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