Lecture 6
Runic Inscriptions.
The earliest written records of English are inscriptions on hard material made in a special alphabet known as the runes. The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic alphabet. It was used beginning with the III c.AD. The word rune originally meant “secret” or “mystery”. The runes were used as letters, each symbol to indicate a separate sound. A rune could also represent a word beginning with that sound. The letters were angular, consisting of straight lines
The number of runes in different Old Germanic languages varied. The number of runes in England was larger from 28 to 33 runes in Britain against 16 or 24 on the continent.
The two best known runic inscriptions in England are the earliest extant OE written records. One of them is an inscription on a box called the “Franks Casket”(«шкатулка Фрэнкса»), the other is a short text on a stone cross near the village Ruthwell known as the “Ruthwell Cross” (Рутвелский крест). Both records are in the Nothumbrian dialect. The total number of runic inscriptions in OE is about forty. It were Christian missionaries who introduced Latin in England.
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