Teutonic Alphabet - History and Use

History and Use

The runes were in use among the Germanic peoples from the 1st or 2nd century AD. This period corresponds to the late Common Germanic stage linguistically, with a continuum of dialects not yet clearly separated into the three branches of later centuries: North Germanic, West Germanic, and East Germanic.

No distinction is made in surviving runic inscriptions between long and short vowels, although such a distinction was certainly present phonologically in the spoken languages of the time. Similarly, there are no signs for labiovelars in the Elder Futhark (such signs were introduced in both the Anglo-Saxon futhorc and the Gothic alphabet as variants of p; see peorð.)

The name runes contrasts with Latin or Greek letters. It is attested on a 6th-century Alamannic runestaff as runa, and possibly as runo on the 4th-century Einang stone. The name is from a root run- (Gothic runa), meaning "secret" or "whisper". The root run- can also be found in the Baltic languages meaning "speech". In Lithuanian, runoti has two meanings: "to cut (with a knife)" or "to speak". In the Finnish language, the word runo means "song", "poem" or, in old context, "singer".