The Fuþark, Part II

The Runic alphabet is rooted in the earliest of Man’s writing traditions, descending from the Phoenician alphabet, which itself was derived from the Near Eastern hieroglyphic tradition. The Phoenician alphabet was introduced to Europe by the Greeks, who adapted it to fit their needs.

The Phoenician alphabet was itself not actually an ‘alphabet,’ but rather an ‘abjad,’ consisting of only consonants: wrttn lk ths. Obviously not the clearest form of communication.

Lucky for the Greeks then, that they did not have use for many of Phoenician’s consonant symbols, lacking them in their own language. They therefore adapted these unnecessary consonantal letters into vowels, creating a true alphabet, which wrote each sound with one letter.

This type of writing has obvious advantages to the old syllabary system the Greeks’ forefathers had used, and to this day we use a derivative of this new ‘alphabetos’ system.

Photo: Phoenician alphabet, created by Wikimedia User:Luca and released into the Public Domain, current version last edited by Wikimedia User:AnonMoos / Link