The earliest secure runic inscriptions date from around AD 150, with a potentially earlier inscription dating to AD 50 and Tacitus's potential description of rune use from around AD 98. Runology forms a specialised branch of Germanic philology. Runology is the academic study of the runic alphabets, runic inscriptions, runestones, and their history. The Anglo-Saxon variant is futhorc, or fuþorc, due to changes in Old English of the sounds represented by the fourth letter, ⟨ᚨ⟩/⟨ᚩ⟩. The Scandinavian variants are also known as fuþark, or futhark, these names derived from the first six letters of the script, ⟨ ᚠ⟩, ⟨ ᚢ⟩, ⟨ ᚦ⟩, ⟨ ᚨ⟩/⟨ ᚬ⟩, ⟨ ᚱ⟩, and ⟨ ᚲ⟩/⟨ ᚴ⟩, corresponding to the Latin letters ⟨f⟩, ⟨u⟩, ⟨þ⟩/⟨th⟩, ⟨a⟩, ⟨r⟩, and ⟨k⟩.

Scholars refer to instances of the latter as Begriffsrunen ('concept runes'). In addition to representing a sound value (a phoneme), runes can be used to represent the concepts after which they are named ( ideographs). Runes were used to write Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised purposes thereafter. 18 CE (derived from Eastern Arabic numerals and Brahmi numerals)Ī rune is a letter in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. BCEĪdlam (slight influence from Arabic) 1989 CE Caucasian Albanian (origin uncertain) c.Cherokee (syllabary letter forms only) c.

Elder futhark rune stones