Although many people seem to think the runes used during the Viking Age were the Elder Futhark, this isn’t true. By the onset of the Viking Age (late 8th century CE), the Elder Futhark had been fully replaced in Scandinavia by the Younger Futhark, a reduced runic alphabet of 16 characters. Elder Futhark had served to record Proto-Germanic and Proto-Norse, whereas Younger Futhark was adapted for Old Norse, which had undergone significant phonological changes, including the loss of several consonant contrasts and a reorganisation of the vowel system.
The reduction in runes meant that one character often represented multiple phonemes. This system was phonemic rather than graphemic in the Latin sense — runes represented sounds, not letters — and the same rune could stand for different phonemes depending on phonological environment.
Variants of Younger Futhark
Two primary graphical variants are attested:
- Long-branch runes (also called Danish runes).
- Short-twig runes (also called Swedish-Norwegian runes).
The distribution between these is regionally and materially influenced. Long-branch forms dominate in runestones and inscriptions on durable media, while short-twig forms are frequently found in inscriptions on wood from sites such as Bryggen (Bergen). The often-repeated hypothesis that long-branch was reserved for “formal” inscriptions and short-twig for “informal” writing is [unverified], as the apparent distribution is strongly affected by preservation bias.
This discussion employs the long-branch series for consistency, but the phonemic correspondences apply to both variants.
There are also some peculiarities in the use of younger futhark runes to write Old Norse. For example, the same latin letter “e”, even making the same vowel sound in two different words, might be written in two different ways in younger futhark (namely ᛁ and ᛅ). Other examples include “r” sounds, which can be written both ᚱ and ᛦ and “a” vowels, some of which are written as ᛅ and some as ᚬ. We’ll get into the details of why later on in the article.
Old Norse in the Latin alphabet
So the best way I think of introducing the younger futhark runes and their “sounds” is by first introducing the Old Norse vowels and consonants in their latin form.
Consonants
| Old norse | IPA | English example | Rune |
| b p | /b/ /p/ /ɸ/ | boy happy (before “s” or “t”) *** | ᛒ |
| c k q | /k/ /k/ /x/ | call (never soft) loch (before “s” or “t”) (before /s/, /t/ – c anq q are only found in loan words) | ᚴ |
| d t | /d/ /t/ | dog time | ᛏ |
| ð þ | /ð/ /θ/ | this (voiced) thin (unvoiced) | ᚦ |
| f | /f/ /v/ | far (initial letter of word) very (elsewhere in word) | ᚠ |
| g | /g/ /x/ /ɣ/ | good (initial and after “n”) (never soft) Scots loch (before “s” or “t”) (loch, but voiced) (elsewhere) | ᚴ |
| h | /h/ | have | ᚼ |
| j | /j/ | year * | ᛁ |
| l | /l/ /l̥/ | leaf (leaf, but voiced) ** | ᛚ |
| m | /m/ | man | ᛘ |
| n | /n/ | new | ᚾ |
| q | /k/ | call | ᚴ |
| r | /r/ | roof (trilled like Scottish) | ᚱ/ᛦ **** |
| s | /s/ | safe (never voiced) | ᛋ |
| v w | /v/ /w/ | victory win | ᚢ |
| x | /ks/ | lochs (in loan words) | ᚴᛋ |
| z | /t͡s/ | cats (like a German “z”, in loan words) | ᛏᛋ |
* Note that the Old Norse “j” makes a sound like an English “y”. The Old Norse “y” is a vowel, not a consonant (see below) and is quite unusual – not what you’d expect.
** The “voiced” “l” occurs directly after an “h” at the beginning of a word, and at the ends of words after voiceless consonants or between voiceless consonants.
*** The sound an Old Norse “p” makes before an “s” or “t” is a bit like making the mouth-shape for a “p” but saying an “f”. Almost like blowing your lips apart to make the sound.
**** See the later section on “Proto-Germanic origins”, specifically where Proto-Germanic “z” becomes Old Norse “r”.
Note that the same rune is used for both voiced and unvoiced consonants (eg “b”/”p”, “t”/”d” etc.)
Vowels
The reduced rune inventory meant that one vowel rune often covered multiple phonemes. In general:
- ᚢ covers all rounded high vowels and several diphthongs.
- ᛅ and ᛁ split front vowel representation, but distribution depends on etymology and phonological history.
- ᚬ is reserved in Viking Age usage for long nasal /ɑ̃ː/ and related reflexes, not for /o/ (a later medieval development).
| Short vowel Old Norse | IPA | English example | Long vowel Old Norse | IPA | English example | Rune |
| a | /ɑ/ | father | ᛅ | |||
| e | /e/ (& later /ɛ/) | pet | é | /ɛ:/ | said | ᛁ/ᛅ * |
| i | /i/ (& later /ɪ/) | heat | í | /i:/ | feet | ᛁ |
| o | /o/ | vote | ó | /o:/ | rode | ᚢ ** |
| u | /u/ | root | ú | /u:/ | rude | ᚢ |
| y | /y/ | German München | ý | /y:/ | German Füße | ᚢ *** |
| æ/ę | /æ/ | cat | ǽ | /æ:/ | cad | ᛅ/ᚬ **** |
| ǫ | /ɔ/ | law | ǫ́/á | /ɔː/ | fork | ᛅ/ᚬ **** |
| ø | /ø/ | French feu ***** | ǿ/œ | /øː/ | (same but longer) | ᚢ |
| au | /au/ | now | ᛅᚢ | |||
| ei | /ei/ | hay | ᛅᛁ ***** | |||
| ey | /øy/ | gluey | ᛅᚢ ****** |
* See the later section on “Proto-Germanic origins”, specifically the section on i-umlaut mutation
** Many people seem to think that the ᚬ rune is used for “o” vowels. But this wasn’t the case until much later than the “Viking age”. For Old Norse, the ᚬ vowel only represented long, nasal “a” vowels. (See the later section on “Proto-Germanic origins”, specifically the section on nasal vowels.)
*** Note that the Old Norse “y” vowel isn’t like another “i”; it is much closer to the German “ü” (somewhat like in the English word “tune”). It evolved into the “i” sound much later after Old Norse. This is why it is written like another “u” vowel, and can confuse people trying to write English words using runes.
**** See the later section on “Proto-Germanic origins”, specifically the section on nasal vowels.
***** Because of the presence of the “i” immediately after, we know for sure that the “e” is formed by i-umlaut mutation. So in this case, the “e” is definitely written as ᛅ.
****** This is a very odd vowel sound for many English speakers. There’s no easy way of describing it. See the later section on “Proto-Germanic origins”, specifically the section on i-umlaut mutation.
One good general rule-of-thumb is that rounded-mouth vowel sounds are written as ᚢ. Sadly, there is no good rule-of-thumb for ᛁ versus ᛅ. Many of the entries in the above table have footnotes, or multiple possible rune renderings, and this is why it isn’t trivial to write in younger futhark.
Proto-Germanic origins
The reason that some vowels and consonants are written in different ways in some words is due to historical reasons. The Old Norse language evolved from Proto-Germanic (via Proto-Norse), and some of the runic spellings have carried over from this earlier language. In order to correctly write some letters (á/ǫ/æ/e/r specifically) in runes, we often have to consider these Proto-Germanic origins to see how the words evolved over time.
i-umlaut mutation
During the evolution of Proto-Germanic via Proto-Norse to Old Norse, the presence of an “i” or “j” in a word after an “a” vowel caused the earlier “a” vowel to move “forward” in the mouth, so that “a” became “e”, “ó”->”ǿ/œ”, “u”->”y”, “au”->”ey” etc. Although much of this happened prior to the norse age, you still see this same effect when different verb or noun declensions are applied in Old Norse grammar. But when writing those words in younger futhark, they use the un-mutated vowel form. So the Old Norse word “gestr” (meaning “guest”), which comes from the Proto-Germanic “gastiz”, would be written ᚴᛅᛋᛏᛦ.
Because of this effect, we can immediately see that “ei” must have come from “ai”, and so is written ᛅᛁ. In all examples I’ve seen, the Old Norse “ey” has come via i-mutation from Proto-Germanic “au” and so is written ᛅᚢ.
Long, nasal, “a” vowels
In Old Norse, like it’s Proto-Germanic origin, “a” vowels followed by an “n” (and probably “m” too) were pronounced “nasally”, eg. /ɑ̃ː/. (In other words, rather than just being a vowel sound from the back of the throat, the following “n” meant that you sound the vowel through your nose.) These particular vowels (the ones that are both long and nasal), so á, ǫ́, æ, are written using the ᚬ rune. But again, like with the i-umlaut mutation, you can’t always tell this by looking at the Old Norse word spelling. If the vowel was nasal in Proto-Germanic, it’s also considered nasal in Old Norse. Consider the word “ár” meaning year. It is spelled ᛅᚱ in younger futhark. But the word “áss”, meaning “god”, is spelled ᚬᛋ, despite there being no “n” or “m” in the word. The reason is because it comes from the Proto-Germanic word “ansuz”, which does contain an “n” immediately after the “a”.
Proto-Germanic “z”
The letter “z” is quite uncommon in Old Norse words, and is written just as if it were written “ts”. But in Proto-Germanic, it was a very common word ending. As Proto-Germanic evolved into Old Norse, all those “z”s became “r”s. Although the distinction got lost in the Latin-spelling of the words, it was preserved in the runic spelling. Any “r”s that originated from Proto-Germanic “z”s are written as ᛦ whereas any other “r” in an Old Norse word is written ᚱ. We’ve already seen an example above (gestr -> ᚴᛅᛋᛏᛦ), and the plural of “áss”, “æsir” (meaning “gods”) is written ᚬᛋᛁᛦ. Another very common example is the old norse word “á” (when it means “on” or “in”), as it comes from the Proto-Germanic “ana”, so is written ᚬ. (But when it means “river” or “stream”, it would be written ᛅ.)
To confuse things further, we often see ᛦ used in noun declination endings even when the “r” wasn’t originally a proto-germanic “z”, especially masculine nouns and plurals and with “-er” or “-ir” endings, for example faðir is sometimes written ᚠᛅᚦᛁᛦ and bróðir ᛒᚱᚢᚦᛁᛦ.
There are also regional variations in how the use of ᛦ evolved; at the end of the Viking Age, you’ll find evidence of “r”s being written ᚱ irrespective of Proto-Germanic origin.
Abbreviations and Contractions
The most obvious one that everyone will tell you is that “they didn’t use double runes”. It’s mostly true, but there are exceptions. One example is when ᚢ is used for both a consonant (v) and a following vowel (eg. u) as in the word “óvinir” (“non-friend” or “enemy”), written ᚢᚢᛁᚾᛁᛦ. But for the most part, you can assume that double-letters in Old Norse words spelled in Latin are only represented by a single rune when written in younger futhark.
Another is “nasal omission”. A nasal “n” before a “g”, “k”, “t” or “d” (or an “m” before a “b” or “p”) is not written with its own rune. So the word “viking” is written ᚢᛁᚴᛁᚴᛦ (later ᚢᛁᚴᛁᚴᚱ).
Special cases
Sometimes, there are words that are so common that the norse people presumably just “got used” to writing them a specific way, so that, irrelevant of their later Latin spelling, they are spelled in runes according to their “original” spelling. There’s no logical pattern here to follow – you just have to remember those cases. As and when I discover new ones, I’ll add them here:
| Old Norse spelling | Older spelling | Runic spelling | English |
| ok | auk | ᛅᚢᚴ | and |
| um | umb | ᚢᛒ | about, around |
| er | es | ᛁᛋ | is (+others) |
| fyrir | fyr | ᚠᚢᚱ | before, in front of |
References
- Hreinn Benediktsson. (1959) 2002. “The Vowel System of Icelandic: A Survey of Its History”. In Linguistic Studies, Historical and Comparative. Edited by Guðrún Þórhallsdóttir, Höskuldur Þráinsson, Jón G. Friðjónsson, and Kjartan Ottoson. 50—73. Reykjavík: Institute of Linguistics. Originally published in Word 15:282-312.
- Hreinn Benediktsson. (1962) 2002. “The Unstressed and the Non-Syllabic Vowels of Old Icelandic”. In Linguistic Studies, Historical and Comparative. Edited by Guðrún Þórhallsdóttir, Höskuldur Þráinsson, Jón G. Friðjónsson, and Kjartan Ottoson. 74—91. Reykjavík: Institute of Linguistics. Originally published in Arkiv för nordisk filologi 77:7—31.
- Hreinn Benediktsson, ed. 1972. The First Grammatical Treatise. Reykjavík: The University of Iceland Publications in Linguistics.
- Kristján Árnason. 2011. The Phonology of Icelandic and Faroese. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Michael P. Barnes. Runes: A Handbook
Also thanks to Richard Kristiansen for corrections and additions.
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