[gothic-l] Runes and Wulfila's alphabet

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

I think you see in other countries too that runes weren't
used on vellum. Germany: no runes. England? (I think Beowulf
is in normal adapted Latin letters).  Iceland: same thing
(hardly any runes there). In Norway too the manuscripts
are with Latin letters. In Demark they even began writing
directly in Latin (Saxo). At least in Iceland and Norway
they wrote in the local language - but with Latin characters
(+ thorn and some things).
But all this while normal folks continued using runes,
as evidenced by the finds at the quai in Bergen.
Runes were used for simple messages or as tags for
merchandise, on small wooden sticks or plates, cut with
a simple knife.
In Denmark there was a kind of revival under Waldemar, where they
wrote with runes on parchment. They invennted a special series
for that: the king Valdemar futhark. It was probably adapted
to the way of writing Danish with latin letters that must have
become usual in the meantime. I think the "Skånske lov"
exists on parchment in these runes.

The reason was probably because they used professional scribes.
The "authors" did not write things themselves, instead they
dictated to scribes, who usually had received their training
as part of religious education. (monks) Perhaps a lot of
monks had also been educated abroad. These scribes probably
thought the usual letters were faster and more accurate to write
with callus on parchment - because they had a long evolution
for such, and were well adapted to the purpose.

Keþ.



>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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