Are Runes a Language?

Today when we think of “Runes” we are for the most part thinking of the glyphs and letters used by ancient Germanic or Norse writing systems —and not the early languages attached to them. The reality is that in ancient times, runes were attached to what are now mostly long-forgotten languages like proto-Norse, an archaic version of what would be Swedish or Norwegian today.

So how can we write words in Runes today?

Today, it’s very popular to write contemporary English words in runes, to be used as signs over doorways, or on T-shirts, or as tattoos.  These modern designs are not at all the same thing as writing words in another language however. When we “write something in runes” today, we typically do so using a system called letter-substitution — in which modern English words are written letter-by-letter with the closest equivalent rune character.

For example, here’s how to write “warrior” in runes. Or at least, that’s how to write the English word for “warrior” using ancient runic glyphs. In fact, the term for warrior in the Old Norse language was Drengr.  A word that very few people would understand today if they saw written in runes. It’s important to remember that “writing something in runes” today is merely a form of modern writing, using ancient letters — as fun as that is.

Runic phonetics are very different

It’s important to note that ancient European languages sounded almost nothing like our modern languages, and we have very limited ideas about what many oof these languages even sounded like at the time. So when we spell-out modern English words in runes, we’re really just taking our best guess at which runes come closest to our contemporary English phonetics.

So the short answer is: No, runes are not a language. Runes are a writing system. But they were originally used to write the words in what are now mostly forgotten languages like Old Norse and Proto Norse.

Runic Divination

Another popular use of runes today is of course, divination or rune reading. While we know the tradition of casting runes and lots, and other forms of divination were ancient practices among Germanic and Nordic peoples. We know very little about the original meanings assigned to those lots themselves. It was the Roman writer Tacitus in 98 AD who described the Germanic tribes as “casting lots” to understand the “will of the Gods” — but whether or not those lots they were casting bore any resemblence to the Elder Futhark is a subject of modern conjecture and debate.

Runes as best we can tell, were simply an early form of writing, shared among the many different regions of Northern Europe and the British Isles.