Древнейший рунический алфавит: Старший Футарк

System of runes for Proto Germanic

The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Period. Inscriptions are found on artifacts including jewelry, amulets, plateware, tools, and weapons, as well as runestones in Scandinavia, from the 2nd to the 10th centuries. In Scandinavia, beginning in the late 8th century, the script was simplified to the Younger Futhark, while the Anglo Saxons and Frisians instead extended it, giving rise to the Anglo Saxon futhorc. Both the Anglo Saxon futhorc and the Younger Futhark remained in use during the Early and the High Middle Ages respectively, but knowledge of how to read the Elder Futhark was forgotten until 1865, when it was deciphered by Norwegian scholar Sophus Bugge.

The Elder Futhark runes are commonly believed to originate in the Old Italic scripts: either a North Italic variant (Etruscan or Raetic alphabets), or the Latin alphabet itself. Derivation from the Greek alphabet via Gothic contact to Byzantine Greek culture was a popular theory in the 19th century, but has been ruled out since the dating of the Vimose inscriptions to the 2nd century (whereas the Goths were in contact with Greek culture only from the early 3rd century). Conversely, the Greek derived 4th century Gothic alphabet does have two letters derived from runes, (from Jer j) and (from Uruz u). The angular shapes of the runes, presumably an adaptation to the incision in wood or metal, are not a Germanic innovation, but a property that is shared with other early alphabets, including the Old Italic ones (compare, for example, the Duenos inscription). The 4th century BC Negau helmet inscription features a Germanic name, Harigastiz, in a North Etruscan alphabet, and may be a testimony of the earliest contact of Germanic speakers with alphabetic writing. Similarly, the Meldorf inscription of 50 may qualify as "proto runic" use of the Latin alphabet by Germanic speakers. The Raetic "alphabet of Bolzano" in particular seems to fit the letter shapes well. The spearhead of Kovel, dated to 200 AD, sometimes advanced as evidence of a peculiar Gothic variant of the runic alphabet, bears an inscription tilarids that may in fact be in an Old Italic rather than a runic alphabet, running right to left with a T and a D closer to the Latin or Etruscan than to the Bolzano or runic alphabets. Perhaps an "eclectic" approach can yield the best results for the explanation of the origin of the runes: most shapes of the letters can be accounted for when deriving them from several distinct North Italic writing systems: The p rune has a parallel in the Camunic alphabet, while it has been argued that d derives from the shape of the letter san (= ś) in Lepontic where it seems to represent the sound /d/. The g, a, f, i, t, m and l runes show no variation, and are generally accepted as identical to the Old Italic or Latin letters X, A, F, I, T, M and L, respectively. There is also wide agreement that the u, r, k, h, s, b and o runes respectively correspond directly to V, R, C, H, S, B and O. The runes of uncertain derivation may either be original innovations, or adaptions of otherwise unneeded Latin letters. suggests that all 22 Latin letters of the classical Latin alphabet (1st Century, ignoring marginalized K) were adapted (ᚦ from D, ᛉ from Y, ᛜ from Q, Ƿ from P, ᛃ from G, ᛇ from Z), with two runes (ᛈ and ᛞ) left over as original Germanic innovations. There are conflicting scholarly opinions regarding the ᛖ (from E ? ), ᚾ (from N ? ), ᚦ (D ? or Raetic Θ ? ), Ƿ (Q or P ? ), ᛇ and ᛉ (both from either Z or Latin Y ? ), ᛜ (Q ? ), and ᛞ runes. Of the 24 runes in the classical futhark row attested from 400 (Kylver stone), ï, p and ŋ are unattested in the earliest inscriptions of c. 175 to 400, while e in this early period mostly takes a Π shape, its M shape gaining prevalence only from the 5th century. Similarly, the s rune may have either three or four strokes (and more rarely five or more), and only from the 5th century does the variant with three strokes become prevalent. The "mature" runes of the 6th to 8th centuries tend to have only three directions of strokes, the vertical and two diagonal directions. Early inscriptions also show horizontal strokes: these appear in the case of e (mentioned above), but also in t, l, ŋ and h.

The general agreement dates the creation of the first runic alphabet to roughly the 1st century. Early estimates include the 1st century, and late estimates push the date into the 2nd century. The question is one of estimating the "findless" period separating the script's creation from the Vimose finds of c. 160. If either ï or z indeed derive from Latin Y or Z, as suggested by Odenstedt, the first century BC is ruled out, because these letters were only introduced into the Latin alphabet during the reign of Augustus. Other scholars are content to assume a findless period of a few decades, pushing the date into the early 2nd century. Pedersen (and with him Odenstedt) suggests a period of development of about a century to account for their assumed derivation of the shapes of þ and j from Latin D and G.

The invention of the script has been ascribed to a single person or a group of people who had come into contact with Roman culture, maybe as mercenaries in the Roman army, or as merchants. The script was clearly designed for epigraphic purposes, but opinions differ in stressing either magical, practical or simply playful (graffiti) aspects. concludes that in its earliest stage, the runic script was an "artificial, playful, not really needed imitation of the Roman script", much like the Germanic bracteates were directly influenced by Roman currency, a view that is accepted by in the light of the very primitive nature of the earliest (2nd to 4th century) inscription corpus.

Old Futhark inscriptions were found on artifacts scattered between the Carpathians and Lappland, with the highest concentration in Denmark. They are usually short inscriptions on jewelry (bracteates, fibulae, belt buckles), utensils (combs, spinning whorls) or weapons (lance tips, seaxes) and were mostly found in graves or bogs.

Words frequently appearing in inscriptions on bracteates with possibly magical significance are alu, laþu and laukaz. While their meaning is unclear, alu has been associated with "ale, intoxicating drink", in a context of ritual drinking, and laukaz with "leek, garlic", in a context of fertility and growth. An example of a longer early inscription is on a 4th century axe handle found in Nydam, Jutland: wagagastiz / alu:? ?hgusikijaz:aiþalataz (wagagastiz "wave guest" could be a personal name, the rest has been read as alu:wihgu sikijaz:aiþalataz with a putative meaning "wave/flame guest, from a bog, alu, I, oath sayer consecrate/fight". The obscurity even of emended readings is typical for runic inscriptions that go beyond simple personal names). A term frequently found in early inscriptions is Erilaz, apparently describing a person with knowledge of runes. The oldest known runic inscription dates to 160 and is found on the Vimose Comb discovered in the bog of Vimose, Funen. The inscription reads harja, either a personal name or an epithet, viz. Proto Germanic *harjaz (PIE ) "warrior", or simply the word for "comb" (*hārijaz). Another early inscription is found on the Thorsberg chape (200), probably containing the theonym Ullr. The typically Scandinavian runestones begin to show the transition to Younger Futhark from the 6th century, with transitional examples like the Björketorp or Stentoften stones. In the early 9th century, both the older and the younger futhark were known and used, which is shown on the Rök runestone where the runemaster used both. The oldest known runestone, the Svingerud Runestone, dates to the Roman Iron Age, c. 1–250 CE, and was found in Ringerike, Norway, in autumn 2021. The inscription has several sections, notably a name idiberug (possibly idiberun), which could be interpreted as one of several names, including Idibera, Idibergu, or the family name Idiberung. The first three letters of the Elder Futhark, ᚠ (f), ᚢ (u) and ᚦ (th), are also found on the stone. Elder Futhark inscriptions were rare, with very few active literati, in relation to the total population, at any time, so that knowledge of the runes was probably an actual "secret" throughout the Migration period. Of 366 lances excavated at Illerup, only 2 bore inscriptions. A similar ratio is estimated for Alemannia, with an estimated 170 excavated graves to every inscription found. Estimates of the total number of inscriptions produced are based on the "minimal runological estimate" of 40,000 (ten individuals making ten inscriptions per year for four centuries). The actual number was probably considerably higher. The 80 known Southern inscriptions are from some 100,000 known graves. With an estimated total of 50,000,000 graves (based on population density estimates), some 80,000 inscriptions would have been produced in total in the Merovingian South alone (and maybe close to 400,000 in total, so that of the order of 0.1% of the corpus has come down to us), and estimates a population of several hundred active literati throughout the period, with as many as 1,600 during the Alamannic "runic boom" of the 6th century.