[gothic-l] Re: Runes and Wulfila's alphabet

[Francisc Czobor]

Hello Brian,

as I have read, Wulfila invented the new alphabet because the runes 
were considered as "pagan". Apparently, he still used some runic 
letters because there was not exact correspondent in the Greek 
alphabet.
For instance: the "J" letter of Wulfila's alphabet is from runic, 
because there was no letter for semivocalic "i" in the Greek alphabet.
The "U" letter of Wulfila is also from runic, because the Greek 
upsilon was at that time already pronounced [ü] or even [i].
Why did Wulfila use a runic letter for "F" I don't know, since I 
suppose that the "phi" letter was already pronounced [f] by the Greeks 
of that time.
The "Q" letter is from Greek (koppa). The "Þ" and "Hw" letters seem to 
be Greek letter (psi, respectively theta) to whom Wulfila assigned a 
different phonetic value as in Greek.

Francisc 

--- In gothic-l at y..., babeck at a... wrote:
> Hails,
> On the subject of the runes and Wulfila's alphabet, it has always 
> struck me as odd that Wulfila invented single letters for the 
> labiovelas, i.e. /kw/ - 'q' Qairþr and /xw/ 'hv' Hvair.  There were 
> no such letters in the runic futhark and the combinations 
kenaz-wunjo 
> and hagalaz-wunjo were used instead (please correct me if I am 
> wrong).  This raises the following questions for me:
> If the Goths used the runic futhark before Wulfila's alphabet, why 
> didn't Wulfila follow runic convention with these sounds?
> Did it represent a change in the pronunciation of these sounds in 
> Gothic since the runes were first used?
> If the runes were once used by the Goths, why did Wulfila feel the 
> need to invent a totally new alphabet?
> Was it simply because the runes were not suited to writing on velum?
> Were the runes too closely associated with the old religion?  If so, 
> why did he use some apparently runic letters in his alphabet?
> Does anyone know if anyone has considered these questions and if any 
> answers have been proposed?
> Goleins,
> Brian Beck


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