The Elder Futhark (or Elder Fuþark, Older Futhark, Old Futhark) is the oldest form of the runic alphabet, used by Germanic tribes for Northwest Germanic and Migration period Germanic dialects of the 2nd to 8th centuries for inscriptions on artifacts such as jewellery, amulets, tools, weapons and runestones. In Scandinavia, the script was simplified to the Younger Futhark from the late 8th century, while the Anglo-Saxons and Frisians extended the ...
more
The Elder Futhark (or Elder Fuþark, Older Futhark, Old Futhark) is the oldest form of the runic alphabet, used by Germanic tribes for Northwest Germanic and Migration period Germanic dialects of the 2nd to 8th centuries for inscriptions on artifacts such as jewellery, amulets, tools, weapons and runestones. In Scandinavia, the script was simplified to the Younger Futhark from the late 8th century, while the Anglo-Saxons and Frisians extended the Futhark which eventually became the Anglo-Saxon futhorc after Proto-English /a/ developed to /o/ in nasal environments.
Unlike the younger futhark which remained in use until modern times, the knowledge of how to read the Elder Futhark was forgotten, and it was not until 1865 that the Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge managed to decipher it.
The Elder Futhark (named after the initial phoneme of the first six rune names: F, U, Th, A, R and K) consist of twenty-four runes, often arranged in three groups or ætts of eight each. In the following table...
less
