Futhark as a System of Writing in English

Disclaimer:  I don’t have a Ph.D. in ancient languages or writing systems.  I’ve been doing this as a hobby for years and have used the described method to communicate with friends who speak, read and write English, just for fun.  If you choose to use this method, I hope it brings you the same level of fun as it has for me over the years.  This post simply covers writing in English using a different method, not the symbolism of the Runes.

Writing English in the Elder Futhark can be relatively simple once you get the hang of the concept.  As many English speakers/writers know, the language is pretty messed up.  Words are filled with unnecessary letters such as silent letters.  For example, the word “pneumonia”.  Spelling this phonetically it would look like “newmoanyuh”.  Weird isn’t it?  Well, if you’re going to write in runes, you’ll need to get used to this idea. 

Other examples of phonetic spellings are: 

Click the image for a larger version.

Queue = Cue

Sassafras = Sas-uh-frass

Thought = Thawt

Alphabet = al-fuh-bet

Crime = krahym

Pizza = peet-suh

You get the idea.

You will notice that there is no Futhark equivalent to the letter “Q”.  This is because “K” makes the same sound.  Additionally, since there are some sounds that are in English that weren’t used in ancient Scandinavian languages, I’ve made a couple of substitutions in the graphic that is in this post.  The "<" Kaunaz rune covers both the letter C and the letter K and the rune that looks like a “P” Wunjo covers V and W, etc.  The details are in the image in this post.  The best overall rule is to keep it simple.  If you try to overcomplicate it, you'll drive yourself crazier than an Evangelical Christian!

The Elder Futhark is simply a writing system.  The easiest way to handle this as such is to use the runes phonetically instead of trying to copy letter for letter from our alphabet to the Futhark.  Using the phonetic method, runes can be applied to almost any language…and others with some modifications.  Since I’m not fluent in any other language but English, I’m simply hypothesizing on that, but the idea seems sound.

If you’re trying to make your runes unreadable to someone who is unfamiliar with Runes (love notes to your significant other for example) using phonetic spelling with runes will make your text a bit more secretive or secure.  This is by all means not the only way to write in runes, but I’ve personally found it to be the most effective.   However, if you are planning to take over the world, I’d not recommend using this method for super secret communications as that any cryptographer could break this method in less than five minutes.

There may be slight deviations in the way a person writes based on this method because of their regional accent, but by using this system a person from the Southern United States should still be able to read the runes written by someone from the Bronx, and more interestingly…the Southerner would probably be able to tell that the writer was from the Bronx!

Writing English using Futhark is more of an art than an exact science.  Much like in the 1700’s, spelling is subjective.  Take a look at the writings of Thomas Jefferson for example.  This should drive the Grammar Nazis a bit crazy!

Anyway, you all have fun with this and share it with your friends.

Until next time...