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

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Hi Francisc,
Wulfila's þ that you identify as psi, can also (perhaps)
be seen as the "thurisaR" mirror rune. I mentioned those
a couple of days ago. They were used in the Illerup
inscriptions, and at first people were not able to read
them. It was only when they realized that they were
mirror runes, that the inscriptions became clear.
Wunjo was among the mirror runes at Illerup.

        /|\
        \|/
         |   = Wunjo as mirror rune.
         |


         |
        /|\
        \|/  = ThurisaR as mirror rune.
         |     (at Illerup the sides were
                rounded)

Rounding the two angles of Wunjo, makes it look like Greek phi.
Can psi have been used for the ThurisaR mirror rune by Wulfila?

Best regards
Keth


PS I remember the Wunjo as mirror rune when I scrutinized the photos
of the lance points of the Vennolum type that bore the inscriptions
WAGNIJO. I will have to go through the rest of the photos to look
at the other runes too.


>
>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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