Why we should go back to writing in runes

[@RobWords]

ᛚᛁᚳᛖ·ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛋ? Let me know what you think below. And go to ground.news/robwords to stay fully informed and see through the headlines with Ground News. Save 40% on unlimited access to the Vantage Plan through my link for one month only.

[@Rob_Baker1962]

One could say that, if we reverted to an ancient form of writing it would leave our civilization in runes. 😉

[@QUIRK1019]

ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛋ·ᚱᚢᛚᛖ!

[@QUIRK1019]

ᚪᚱᛖ ᚪᛝᛚᚩ ᛋᚪᛉᚩᚾ ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛋ ᚩᚳ?

[@BB-et8pl]

I used to write in my journal in high school in runes. Totally worked.

[@MrThndrkiss75]

I like the idea, but for daily handwriting (notes, worksheets, forms, ECT) it would need a cursive or at least a rounded lower case. Try writing everything in all capitals for a week, and see how much it slows you down.

[@ThalassTKynn]

My favourite rune graffiti is a message left at the top of a cave wall, that is very hard to climb up to. When archaeolgists finally got close enough to read it they found that it says "This is very high" 😂

[@godwinawere9708]

OH MY😂😂😂😂

[@TheSpookiestgoose]

He pulled off a thousand year troll, what a legend

[@foolishstrudel2689]

Souls message moment:

[@mattsadventureswithart5764]

Were I to believe in such things, the person who wrote that would be my spirit guide / guardian angel.

[@naverilllang]

People will be people in any age

[@Merione]

As a foreigner who struggled for years to learn English spelling, I'm conflicted: on one hand, YES, consistent phonetic spelling would be a gift from God; on the other, I have suffered enough, let me enjoy the fruits of my labor 😂

[@tinfoilhomer909]

Unless you are French you have every right to enjoy your new skills. However I can't forgive France for my treatment in that country due to my English accent.

[@Merione]

@@tinfoilhomer909 Don't worry, I'm Italian, I make fun of our cross-Alps cousins just as much as anyone else lol!

[@alveolate]

i'd say the first step might be to get a modern font designer to come up with a futhark that looks more similar to the latin alphabet, as a sort of "go-between" so it's easier to learn the runes. the rather ALLCAPS nature of runes may make things quite hard to read on screens, especially to eyes grown accustomed to the latin alphabet. but simply having the option seems like a nice thing!

[@JamesJansson]

"It wouldn't be fair for me to suffer and for you to not!"

[@DrVictorVasconcelos]

És a fórener hu strogold fór íars tu lärn Inglish spéling*

[@jamieblanche3963]

Viking Runes? It's Norse Code! :D

[@pratn]

-. .. -.-. . -.-.--

[@dennisfox8673]

Well played, very well played indeed!

[@HonkyKong777]

🤣

[@markbollinger1343]

Hahah other may not like dad jokes but I do!

[@JamesJensen-g4m]

That’s a great dad pun. My danish dad would’ve loved it.

[@sophiahass6301]

Naming your letters words like "sun" and "joy" is just absolutely charming and I'm here for it

[@kabirkumar5815]

reminds me of the 'love', 'truth' and 'beauty' quark

[@johnmilligan4258]

​@@kabirkumar5815 There is no "love", "truth", or "beauty" quark. The 6 quarks are "up", "down", "top", "bottom", "strange", and "charm".

[@mina9e]

@@johnmilligan4258 well, at least there's still "charm" i guess

[@itap8880]

@@johnmilligan4258 "top" is also reffered to as "truth" and "bottom" is also called "beauty". I haven't heard of any "love" quarks though.

[@bojcio]

yes lets deoptimize our alphabet for the sake of cuteness

[@kathymarshall220]

The fact that there’s a runic message telling someone to get home from the pub and that it has a corresponding gibberish response has absolutely made my day! The more things change, the more they stay the same 😂😂

[@TheEpikalREKT]

just borrow the runes we need

[@thorstenjaspert9394]

@@kathymarshall220 early form of text message. 😀

[@Blitterbug]

My favourite was "If only I could visit the mead house more often" !

[@johnchastain7890]

The response might well have been meant to say "I'm not so think as you drunk I am."

[@snowstrobe]

Shame it was garbled, we could have learnt some of the more choice swear words of the day...

[@DutchLabrat]

Going back to runes would only make sense if the current English orthography was an utter unsalvageable mess beyond hope..... yeah, you have a point.

[@myhandlehasbeenmishandled]

Adopting some of those would be great; like thorn, wynn, and ng

[@Bern_il_Cinq]

Haþrs gonna Haþ

[@extremegameplays7404]

@@Bern_il_Cinq Hathrs gonna Hath.

[@Bern_il_Cinq]

@@extremegameplays7404 Don't drink the Haðerade

[@dunkleosteusterrelli]

​@Bern_il_Cinq I think this also counts as abusing them

[@sharkinthepark]

The best reason for the renewed use of runes is that, instead of that confounded dubya-dubya-dubya construction, the internet would have been known as wynn-wynn-wynn. It's just a win-win-win situation for us all.

[@erusseestelinya]

Joy joy joy!

[@brendangordon2168]

I'm hardcore thorn, but the pynn [sic] is a horrible idea.

[@sharkinthepark]

@@brendangordon2168 English needs a dedicated 'th' rune staff. The only oddity that runes leave unanswered is the 'sh' sound, meaning we have to arbitrarily use the 'sc' or 'sh' runes, neither of which quite fit the bill. Ah well, at least we have extra vowels in Futhorc to play with.

[@brendangordon2168]

@@sharkinthepark I suppose one could go the Portuguese / Basque route and use X. Or the Dutch route and use Z for S and S for SH.

[@mysticalmagician]

​@@ranro7371Mohammad PBUH was a messenger, yes, but not THE final messenger. Prophets and Angels be among ye today; be careful what you choose to believe for evil so often is disguised as sweet wine while it is the healthy medicine which is bitter in its flavor, my friend.

[@ZedP]

I consider myself lucky to have an opportunity to listen to a top linguist for free, not needing to go anywhere. Thanks for your very existence, Rob!

[@amanderge]

Two things: thank you for writing the closed captioning and not relying on the automated system! I have accessibility needs and it's wonderful that you take time and consideration to write it all out. Thank you so much for the dispelling of the hateful use for runes. These things mean a lot to me and others!

[@RobWords]

I'm so pleased you noticed both. It's my pleasure.

[@newsaxonyproductions7871]

Yeah it's really cool that he writes it out

[@Ledabot]

Although the latin version is very helpful, i find myself craving the CCs in runes too lol

[@Ledabot]

Although the latin version is very helpful, i find myself craving the CCs in runes too lol

[@violenceislife1987]

It's ok to be Right.

[@solveigw]

We were taught the younger Futhark as part of our linguistic and cultural heritage in year 5 or 6. As the good little nerds me and my friend were, we went all in, and used it for sending notes to each other. And my friend even wrote her next Norwegian assignment using only runes. 6 or 7 pages long. Our teacher wasn't too happy, but she really couldn't say much, because, you know, heritage.

[@thecozyconstellation]

i love that lol

[@Lasanga95]

Wow thats really cool

[@petertuxen4930]

Brilliant. Just as good as the Danish student who had to write an essay about laziness. The full essay was: "this is laziness! ". And he passed 😱

[@KAZVorpal]

In India there is an effort among young people to reclaim the swastika as a positive symbol of goodness ("be good" is what svastika means, in Sanskrit). You will find it as a random graffito, around there. It's called the manji, in Japan, and Wan, in China, where it can mean infinity, or life.

[@BuckNaked2k]

Also used by Native Americans

[@DrDeuteron]

now I heard the "good" one is a mirror image of the notorious one?

[@alexcallender]

Indians also like to spread the false propaganda that the nazi swastika is a form of the Christian cross, which is abject nonsense.

[@gamervox1707]

Isn't india right now kinda fascy(fascist-like)?

[@DamienHemlock]

@@DrDeuteronfor certain cultures, yes. Anglo-Saxons and their forebears used the swastika in both directions, however. The symbol is common amongst Indo-Europeans.

[@pelinoregeryon6593]

Yes, when I was eleven or so it took me one weekend to learn them using the ones in the hobbit to produce a key, was easy using them for English, of course I was the only one using it and just as a solo game for a short while until I got bored of it so within a few months I forgot how, but for a few weeks I could just write anything English out in runes rather than the alphabet without reference to my key. Yes it is suitable for everyday use, with one very minor niggle, it has several letters that aren't really conducive to being written clearly without lifting pen from paper.

[@clandouglas5456]

Some people already write in runes, they are called physicians.

[@tantuce]

They write in slightly wavy lines

[@dalektrekkie]

It's a joke, but is surprisingly accurate. Physicians and pharmasists write in a form of short hand that serves the exact same purpose as a written language composed entirely of the actual sounds used to say a word.

[@amanofnoreputation2164]

Calligraphic runes more closely resembling Japanese draft script.

[@davebauman4991]

Chinese, Japanese, etc. World's oldest continuous non phonetic written language would've been the Aztecs if it hadn't been for the Spanish conquistadors.

[@bvcxgdsjsfdsiogfdug]

Actually, they use cuneiform

[@paulkinzer7661]

I had fun with runes when I first read Th Lord of the Rings. It was great that Tolkien included a Runic alphabet in the appendices. I would leave Runic notes on the desks I sat in in different classes (on pieces of paper; not carved into the desk). One day, I found a response! When I figured out who it was from (from hints in his note), I was not surprised to learn that it was a nerdy friend who had seen me leave a note. He knew what the symbols were, having read LOTR, but he head not gone to the trouble of learning to read and write them. So he went home, got out his copy of the trilogy (like mine, the hardcover edition), and translated my note so he could write a response. I have no memory of just what either of us wrote, probably because they were lame and unimportant. But he was also a gifted artist/illustrator, and I do remember his playing with Runic 'fonts', a word I did not know at the time. I don't think he ever added flames around the edges of the letters, but he might have!

[@snowstrobe]

Same!

[@llchapman1234]

What a fun memory. Thanks for sharing 😊

[@davetidder2085]

When I was younger @14 I was heavily into LotR and Hobbit and used to write things in runes everywhere I was over the moon when I went to see the Viking exhibition at the museum in London and translated some of the runic inscriptions

[@3nertia]

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing!

[@paulkinzer7661]

@@davetidder2085 Cool! I would have been in geek heaven if I had had a chance to do that! Heck, I used the wrong verb tense. I'd still be in geek heaven if I got a chance to do that!

[@sturlamolden]

The main problem with runes is the straight lines. They require the scribe to lift the pen excessively. Runes are good for carving but inefficient for handwriting with pen and paper. On a keyboard it would not matter, though.

[@michellebyrom6551]

The majority of people today use print letters, not cursive, for handwriting. Many can't read cursive either. All down to the use of keyboards over pens for most writing. I admit the method is much less messy and a lot faster. I was taught cursive just before I finished primary school. We had always referred to it as grown-up, or real, writing. As an adult I learned touch typing before word processors, nevermind computers became commonplace. Sometimes feels like we've taken a step backwards in moving forwards.

[@ukyoize]

They could be smoothed out

[@TheHeIIion]

"lift the pen excessively" I'm left handed so I do that all the time anyway. I think runes would actually be much easier depending on the binder or thickness of the book since I often have to awkwardly work around that with letter curves. I'm almost feeling tempted to use not runes, but straighten out my letters if I have to write something in the book tomorrow at work.

[@RoyalKnightVIII]

You should check out Dalecarlian Runes, they were used for everyday communication until the 20th Century and rjeu became much more rounded and influenced by the Latin alphabet

[@folksurvival]

​@@RoyalKnightVIII Thanks.

[@sajaltarofdar2484]

15:26 I really enjoy your videos for the main content, which is why I click on them, but one of the things I love most are the creative ideas you add. They’re like a bonus and make your videos even more fascinating.

[@lionspawfilmandphoto]

Your nerding out is so joyful. Please don't stop.

[@3nertia]

💯

[@breg9476]

totally agree! In fact, it's one reason I watch this channel!

[@Mister_Underhill]

The short silence after his Gollum was perfect. Self aware, but unapolegetic.

[@eotikurac]

it's the essence of cringe

[@bmclive3988]

Rob, your videos are getting better. More creative. Great balance of charm, education, and humor. Thanks for being a great KZbinr!

[@seanmcdaniel5094]

I loved this! I teach Spanish here in the U.S., and part of what I do is compare how Spanish and English use the alphabet. The conclusion, of course, is that our alphabet is entirely unsuited for representing the sounds present in our language, which is not the case for Spanish. This will be a great video to share with my students, as a way to have them reflect on this idea. Thanks!

[@dlevi67]

Mind you, Spanish, good at being consistently phonetic as it is, still uses "non-standard" Latin letters: ç (until ~1800) and ñ, plus a couple of diacritics for vowels (accents and diaeresis).

[@StockyScoresRaoraPantheraFC]

And ç was /ts/​@@dlevi67

[@clasicradiolover]

"Rr" and "ll" as well as ñ.

[@sammylastname8776]

Well yes, a Latin alphabet suits a Latin language, that does make sense

[@fixedfunshow]

@@sammylastname8776 Spanish, which I speak it, is at least top 5 languages that are the most similar to latin. But we always added as much characters as needed to help us write, no ambiguities.

[@cronos42]

You have yet to make a boring video, Rob. Every video is full of nuggets of wisdom. I am a teacher of English and adore them.

[@danielm.1441]

What a futharking good alphabet...

[@medusa3592]

😂👏

[@lukefriesenhahn8186]

Odd enough, that sounds like a slang or dialect specific word one could find in an alternative English.

[@FluxTrax]

The first letters of the futhark was frequentlybused as double entendre for 🐈

[@nikobellic570]

It would be a motherfurhark to learn though

[@arandomotaku9656]

​@@nikobellic570 It's easy af tho

[@NelielSugiura]

I have been taking personal notes in Anglo-Saxon Futhark Runic since around year twelve. I will never stop doing this. I do need to learn the proper phonetic way to use them, though, rather than just the rough estimation I have been from the PNG taken from Wikipedia all those moons ago.

[@RobWords]

This is wonderful!

[@L3Arm]

Oh my. You are my inspiration!

[@wintyrqueen]

With a little pressure you can get pretty much the whole ipa represented in runes. Example, here’s Yoda’s quote on fear being the path of the dark side: ᛭ᚠᛁᚢ᛬ᛁᛣ᛬ᚦᚢ᛬ᛈᚪᚦ᛬ᚩᚡ᛬ᚦᚢ᛬ᛞᚪᚳ᛬ᛋᚢᛁᛞ᛭ ᛫ᚠᛁᚢ᛬ᛚᛟᛞᛋ᛬ᛏᚣ᛬ᚨᛝᚷᚢ᛫ ᛫ᚨᛝᚷᚢ᛬ᛚᛟᛞᛋ᛬ᛏᚣ᛬ᚻᛖᛁᛏ᛫ ᛫ᚻᛖᛁᛏ᛬ᛚᛟᛞᛋ᛬ᛏᚣ᛬ᛋᚢᚠᚥᚱᛁᛝ᛫ ᛭ᚦᚢᛋ᛬ᛋᛈᚩᚹᚳ᛬ᛁᚩᚹᛞᚢ᛭

[@lordmashie]

Hehe plagiarism protection

[@akaHarvesteR]

Holy crap, and to have kept it up for 2012 years, amazing.

[@peatfitzpatrick4998]

One of the advantages of the Latin alphabet is the way lower-case letters have ascenders and descenders. This gives whole words a particular shape which makes them quicker and easier for us to read. Words written entirely in capitals all tend to be of a similar shape which makes them harder to distinguish - ironic really because we put them in capitals usually when we want people to sit up and take notice. Create a runic alphabet that doesn't look like a load of capitals and I'm in. Over to you Rob...

[@sjholmesbrown]

Check out Rob's video on the English Phonetic Alphabet, another project aiming to provide a new and consistent spelling It does use ascenders and descenders, especially in lower case.

[@Oldershaaw]

I just came across this channel by chance, and i have too say! i do NOT comment on KZbin videos, but your videos are incredibly educational, and quite fun too watch, i love that you dont take yourself too seriously and can throw in cheesy jokes which don't seem too cheesy(the golem voice) normally this just cringes me out whenever anyone does this but i honestly spat my drink when you did it and looked down in disappointment with yourself! absolutely hilarious! keep up the good work! ill definitely be checking out more videos! this is the second one so far! thank you for the good content!

[@ICLHStudio]

I don't know the validity of this for sure, but I've heard (and it sounds plausible) that not only are runes all straight lines for carving purposes, but have no horizontal lines (just vertical and diagonal) so that when carving them in wood you don't carve a line along the grain which will split and ruin the whole thing.

[@JON100JLOMAN]

Hopefully no pun intended

[@N8Dulcimer]

There are a lot of asian languages traditionally written on "palm leaf manuscripts" that rely on the same idea.

[@thecozyconstellation]

sounds legit!

[@katlouwen3152]

As a kid we read the Hobbit for school and I learned the runic alphabet for fun. I remember it being really easy to learn and fun to use. Now I know why! Thanks Rob

[@Abelhawk]

I learned Norse runes in high school just so I could write secrets to my friends, but I'm really glad I did. There are so many random secrets written in runes all across media. One video game I was playing has "Trogdor the Burninator Burninate" written in a circle of runes at the spawn point.

[@ricksherman34]

Thatch Roof Cottages !

[@ranro7371]

The Aramaic word for God is "Alaha" too sounds familiar? Written without the confusing vowels it is written A-L-H ܐ ܠܗܐ (alap-lamed-he) as found in Targum or in Tanakh (Daniel, Ezra), Syriac Aramaic (Peshitta), reduced from the Arabic original (of which Aramaic is a dialect continuum as will be explained) it is written in the Arabic script 'A-L-L-H' (Aleph-Lam-Lam-Ha) add an A before the last H for vocalization. The word God in another rendition in Hebrew ʾĕlōah is derived from a base ʾilāh, an Arabic word, written without confusing vowel it is A-L-H in the Arabic script, pronounced ilah not eloah. Hebrew dropped the glottal stop and mumbled it, aramic mumbled a little less and it became elaha. Infact both are written written A-L-H in Arabic, it is pronounced i in Arabic and not A because it is an Alef with hamza below (إ أ ) They are two different forms of Alef. And it mean "a god", it is the non definitive form of A-L-L-H, in which the Alef is without a glottal stop/hamza,(ا), but this kind of nuance is lost in the dialect continua. infact "YHWH" itself is an Arabic word as discussed by Professor. Israel Knohl (Professor of Biblical studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in the paper" YHWH: The Original Arabic Meaning of the Name." jesus as his name is often misspelled due to the lack of the ayin sound in Greek, which was rendered to Iesous, coupling the nearest sound to ayin, same letter found in 'Iraq', which sounds entirely different in Arabic form 'Iran' in Arabic, with the -ous Greek suffix that Greeks typically add to their names 'HerodotOS', 'PlotinUS', 'AchelOUS' and later mumbled into a J. The yeshua rendition of Isa (his name in the Qur'an) PBUH which is purported to be the name of Jesus is KNOWN to had been taken from greek. Western Syriac also use "Isho". Western Aramaic (separate from Syriac which is a dialect of Eastern Aramaic) use "Yeshu". Western Syriac has been separate from Western Aramaic for about 1000 years. And sounds don't even match up. Syriac is a Christian liturgical language yet the four letters of the name of Jesus «ܝܫܘܥ» [ = Judeo-Babylonian Aramaic: «ישוע» ] sounds totally different in West vs East Syriac, viz. vocalized akin to Christian Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic «ܝܶܫܽܘܥ» (Yēšūʿ) in West Syriac, but pronounced more akin to Muslim Arabic Quran character name Isa in East Syriac «ܝܑܼܫܘܿܥ» (ʾĪšōʿ). The reason for this confusion is their dropping of phonemes. Only someone that has no idea what the letters are or how they sound would have a name ending in a pharyngeal fricative like the ayin, if it were to be used in a name it would have had to be in the beginning, thus the Arabic rendition is the correct one. An example in English is how the appended -d is a common error amongst the English pronouncing Gaelic names. The name Donald arose from a common English mispronunciation of the Gaelic name Donal. Just how it is with donal becoming donald and the two becoming distinct and the original being regarded as something seperate so too did Isa PBUH turn to Iesous turn to jesus and when they tried going back to the original they confused it for yeshua ( ysu is how it is actually written) for Isa PBUH ( 3'eysah ) Schlözer in his preparation for the Arabia expedition in 1781 coined the term Semitic language: "From the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, from Mesopotamia to Arabia ruled one language, as is well known. Thus Syrians, Babylonians, Hebrews, and Arabs were one people (ein Volk). Phoenicians (Hamites) also spoke this language, which I would like to call the Semitic (die Semitische)." -Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German By Han F. Vermeulen. He was only half right though, Arabic is the only corollary to "proto-semitic", infact the whole semitic classification is nonsensical as will be shown. "protosemetic" Alphabet (28), Arabic Alphabet (28), Latin transliteration, hebrew (22) 𐩠 𐩡 𐩢 𐩣 𐩤 𐩥 𐩦 𐩧 𐩨 𐩩 𐩪 𐩫 𐩬 𐩭 𐩮 𐩰 𐩱 𐩲 𐩳 𐩴 𐩵 𐩶 𐩷 𐩸 𐩹 𐩺 𐩻 𐩼 ا ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي A b t ṯ j h kh d ḏ r z s sh ṣ ḍ ṭ ẓ ʿ ġ f q k l m n h w y א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת Merged phonemes in hebrew and aramaic: ح, خ (h, kh) merged into only kh consonant remain س, ش (s, sh) merged into only Shin consonant remaining ط, ظ (ṭ/teth, ẓ) merged into only ṭ/teth consonant remaining ص, ض (ṣ, ḍ/Tsad ) merged into only ḍ/Tsad consonant remaining ع, غ (3'ayn, Ghayn) merged into a reducted ayin consonant remaining ت, ث (t/taw, th) merged into only t/taw consonant remaining The reason why the protoS alphabet here is 28 and not 29, is because the supposed extra letter is simply a س written in a different position, but it was shoehorned to obfuscated. In Arabic letter shapes are different depending on whether they are in the beginning , middle or end of a word. As a matter of fact, all of the knowledge needed for deciphering ancient texts and their complexity was derived from the Qur'an. It was by analyzing the syntactic structure of the Qur'an that the Arabic root system was developed. This system was first attested to in Kitab Al-Ayin, the first intralanguage dictionary of its kind, which preceded the Oxford English dictionary by 800 years. It was through this development that the concept of Arabic roots was established and later co-opted into the term 'semitic root,' allowing the decipherment of ancient scripts. In essence, they quite literally copied and pasted the entirety of the Arabic root. Hebrew had been dead, as well as all the other dialects of Arabic, until being 'revived' in a Frankensteinian fashion in the 18th and 19th centuries. The entire region spoke basically the same language, with mumbled dialect continuums spread about, and Arabic is the oldest form from which all these dialects branched off. As time passed, the language gradually became more degenerate, Language; When one looks at the actual linguistics, one will find that many were puzzled by the opposite, that is, how the other "semetic" languages were more "evolved" than Arabic, while Arabic had archaic features, not only archaic compared to bibilical Hebrew, Ethiopic, "Aramaic" contemporary "semetic" languages, but even archaic compared to languages from ancient antiquity; Ugaritic, Akkadain. What is meant here by Archaic is not what most readers think, it is Archaic not in the sense that it is simple, but rather that it is complex (think Latin to pig Latin or Italian or Old English, which had genders and case endings to modern English), not only grammatically, but also phonetically; All the so called semitic languages are supposed to have evolved from protosemetic, the Alphabet for protosemitic is that of the so called Ancient South Arabian (which interestingly corresponds with the traditional Arabic origins account) and has 28 Phonemes. Arabic has 28 phonemes. Hebrew has 22, same as Aramaic, and other "semitic" languages. Now pause for a second and think about it, how come Arabic, a language that is supposed to have come so late has the same number of letters as a language that supposedly predates it by over a millennium (Musnad script ~1300 BCE). Not only is the glossary of phonemes more diverse than any other semitic language, but the grammar is more complex, containing more cases and retains what's linguists noted for its antiquity, broken plurals. Indeed, a linguist has once noted that if one were to take everything we know about languages and how they develop, Arabic is older than Akkadian (~2500 BCE). And then the Qur'an appeared with the oldest possible form of the language thousands of years later. This is why the Arabs of that time were challenged to produce 10 similar verses, and they couldn't. People think it's a miracle because they couldn't do it, but I think the miracle is the language itself. They had never spoken Arabic, nor has any other language before or since had this mathematical precision. And when I say mathematical, I quite literally mean mathematical. Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years later in an alphabet that had never been recorded before, and in the highest form the language had ever taken? The creator is neither bound by time nor space, therefore the names are uttered as they truly were, in a language that is lexically, syntactically, phonemically, and semantically older than the oldest recorded writing. In fact, that writing appears to have been a simplified version of it. Not only that, but it would be the equivalent of the greatest works of any particular language all appearing in one book, in a perfect script and in the highest form the language could ever take. It is so high in fact, that it had yet to be surpassed despite the fact that over the last millennium the collection of Arabic manuscripts when compared on word-per-word basis in Western Museums alone, when they are compared with the collected Greek and Latin manuscripts combined, the latter does not constitute 1 percent of the former as per German professor Frank Griffel, in addition all in a script that had never been recorded before. Thus, the enlightenment of mankind from barbarism and savagery began, and the age of reason and rationality was born from its study. God did bring down the Qur’an, Mohamed is his Messenger.

[@lethalbroccoli01]

​@@ranro7371what is your point? And the Quran did not come from space.

[@ranro7371]

Languages degrade, they do not "evolve". It is a tool for thinking, not communication, it is what seperates other lifeforms from humans. The mere fact that translation is even possible underlies a common origin for all languages, orca whales seperated from their birth pod are unable to communicate with other whales if they get adopted, they are only able to track the others visually. Arabic is the only corollary to proto-semitic, infact the whole semitic classification is nonsensical for anyone with a somewhat functioning mass between their ears. hebrew, aramaic, rest of madeup dialect continua only have 22 letters of the 29 protosemitic letters Arabic has all 29. The difference betweeen Arabic and the other creoles and Pidgin is the same as that between Latin and pig latin or italian. Arabic is written in an alphabetic script that consists of 28 consonants and three long vowels. For example: قرأ زيد كتابا qaraʾa zayd-un kitāb-an Zayd read a book This sentence is composed of three words: qaraʾa (he read), zayd-un (Zayd), and kitāb-an (a book). The word order is verb-subject-object, which is different from English but similar to Proto-Semitic and Akkadian. The word zayd-un has a suffix -un that indicates the nominative case, which is equivalent to "the" in English or "-u" in Akkadian. The word kitāb-an has a suffix -an that indicates the accusative case, which is equivalent to "a" in English or "-a" in Akkadian. Proto-Semitic is the reconstructed ancestor of all Semitic languages. It is not written in any script, but linguists use a system of symbols to represent its sounds. For example: ʔanāku bēlīya ʔašū I am his lord This sentence is composed of three words: ʔanāku (I), bēlīya (my lord), and ʔašū (he). The word order is subject-object-verb, which is different from English but similar to Arabic and Akkadian. The word bēlīya has a suffix 'ya' that indicates possession, which is equivalent to "my" in English or "-ī" in Arabic. The word ʔašū has a prefix ʔa- that indicates the third person singular masculine pronoun, which is equivalent to "he" in English or "huwa" in Arabic. I'll compare Arabic with Proto-Semitic and show how Arabic preserves features that are lost or changed in other Semitic languages. Classical Arabic has largest phonemic inventories among semitic languages. It has 28 consonants (29 with Hamza) and 6 vowels (3 short and 3 long). Some of these sounds are rare or absent in other semitic languages. For example, - Classical Arabic has two pharyngeal consonants /ʕ/ (ع) and /ħ/ (ح). These sounds are found only in some semitic languages (Hebrew and Amharic), but not in others (Akkadian and Aramaic). - Classical Arabic has two emphatic consonants /sˤ/ (ص) and /dˤ/ (ض) These sounds are found only in some semitic languages (Hebrew and Amharic), but not in others (Akkadian and Aramaic). - Classical Arabic has two glottal consonants /ʔ/ (ء) and /h/ (ه), which are produced by opening and closing the glottis ). Akkadian has lost the glottal stop /ʔ/, while Aramaic has lost both the glottal stop and the glottal fricative /h/. - Classical Arabic has six vowel phonemes /a/, /i/, /u/, /æ /, /e/, /o/, which can be short or long. Akkadian has only three vowel phonemes /a/, /i/, /u/, which can be short or long, while Aramaic has only two vowel phonemes /a/ and /i/, which can be short or long. |Classical Arabic | 28 consonants, 29 with Hamza and 6 vowels; some consonants are emphatic or pharyngealized; some vowels are marked with diacritics | Complex system of word formation based on roots and patterns; roots are sequences of consonants that carry the basic meaning of a word; patterns are sequences of vowels and affixes that modify the meaning and function of a word | Flexible word order, but VSO is most common; SVO is also possible; subject and object are marked by case endings (-u for nominative, -a for accusative, -i for genitive); verb agrees with subject in person, number, and gender; verb has different forms for different moods and aspects | | Akkadian | 22 consonants and 3 vowels; some consonants are glottalized or palatalized; vowels are not marked | Similar system, but with different roots and patterns; some roots have more than three consonants; some patterns have infixes or reduplication | Fixed word order of SVO; subject and object are not marked by case endings, but by prepositions or word order; verb agrees with subject in person, number, and gender; verb has different forms for different tenses and aspects | | Aramaic | 22 consonants and 3 vowels (later variants have more); no emphatic or pharyngealized consonants (except in some dialects); vowels are not marked (except in later variants such as Syriac) | Simple system of word formation based on prefixes and suffixes; some roots or patterns exist, but are less productive than in Arabic or Akkadian | Let's start with a simple sentence: ## The house is big Arabic: البيتُ كبيرٌ al-bayt-u kabīr-un Proto-Semitic: *ʔal-bayt-u kabīr-u Hebrew: הבית גדול ha-bayit gadol Akkadian: bītum rabûm Amharic: ቤቱ ገደሉ betu gedelu As can be seen, Arabic and Proto-Semitic have the same word order (noun-adjective), the same definite article (al-), and the same case endings (-u for nominative). Hebrew and Akkadian have lost the case endings and changed the definite article (ha- and -um respectively). Amharic has changed the word order (adjective-noun) and the definite article (u-). But Arabic is not only similar to Proto-Semitic, it is also pre-Semitic, meaning that it is the original form of Semitic before it split into different branches. This is because Arabic preserves many features that are not found in any other Semitic language, but are found in other Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Egyptian and Berber. These features include: - The definite article al-, which is derived from the demonstrative pronoun *ʔal- 'that'. This article is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the article n- in Berber and the article p-, t-, n- in Egyptian. - The dual number for nouns and verbs, which is marked by the suffix -ān or -ayn. This number is rare in other Semitic languages, but it is common in other Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Egyptian and Berber. - The imperfective prefix t- for verbs, which indicates the second person singular feminine or third person plural feminine. This prefix is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the prefix t- in Berber and Egyptian. - The passive voice for verbs, which is marked by the infix t between the first and second root consonants. This voice is unique to Arabic among Semitic languages, but it is similar to the passive voice in Egyptian and Berber. Finally, a more complex sentence: The letter was written with a pen. Arabic: كُتِبَتِ الرِّسَالَةُ بِالقَلَمِ kutiba-t al-risāla-t-u bi-l-qalam-i Proto-Semitic: *kutiba-t ʔal-risāla-t-u bi-l-qalam-i Hebrew: המכתב נכתב בעט ha-michtav niktav ba-et Akkadian: šipram šapāru bēlum Egyptian: sḏm.n.f p-ẖry m rnp.t Berber: tturra-t tibratin s uccen Here, Arabic and Proto-Semitic have the same word order (verb-subject-object), the same passive voice marker (-t-), the same definite article (al-), and the same preposition (bi-). Hebrew has changed the word order (subject-verb-object), lost the passive voice marker, changed the definite article (ha-) and the preposition (ba-). Akkadian has changed the word order (object-subject-verb), lost the passive voice marker, changed the definite article (-um) and the preposition (bēlum). hbrew was considered dead by 0 C.E. time, hence "Aramaic" was spoken Now how is it that the Qur'an came thousands of years in a language that is lexically, syntactically, phonemically, and semantically older than the oldest recorded writing? God did bring down the Qur’an, Mohamed is his Messenger.

[@Abelhawk]

@@ranro7371 I guarantee no one is going to read your entire comment.

[@Veronika7777]

I've been using runes since I was a child. As a fan of Lord British's video game series Ultima, there was included in the accompanying literature in the old game boxes, a replacement alphabet showing Thorn and Wynn and many many others as well as some beautiful cloth maps with runes inscribed a la Tolkien. Fantastic!! I was instantly hooked. This runic replacement alphabet was almost identical to the later longer forms of Futhorc. My brothers and I have been writing this way in our travel journals throughout our lives. Girl Nerd alert: I even wrote with them backwards and in German for the journal entries I didn't want my brothers to read but one wily brother actually decoded it! (gasp!). Anyway, GREAT video, Rob, thanks so much! Cheers! 💜

[@ivory7182]

I created my own writing system for English both for fun and for when I don't want anyone else to be able to read my notes. It has 42 symbols, including both pronunciations of th, and I created the shapes by first making them out of straight lines and then simplifying them to the closest equivalent I could without lifting the pencil. It was a surprisingly fun and rewarding project

[@Ballykeith]

If you leave examples of this behind when you die, this will become a fun and rewarding project for a future codebreaker to decipher, especially so if the content is as enthralling as that of Anne Lister 😊

[@mgb360]

It sounds like you went through the same sort of thought process as quikscript. I'd be curious to hear if you're familiar with it or what you think. If you haven't, I'm curious how similar your system ended up being

[@ivory7182]

​@@mgb360I wasn't familiar with it, but from a quick look it is interesting that I ended up with several very similar symbols

[@mgb360]

@@ivory7182 interesting to hear you had some convergence there. Thanks for taking the time

[@dyzmadamachus9842]

"Both pronunciations of th". THERE ARE TWO???

[@SirDeathDark]

Great video; I'm glad other folks are on board this train. Slight correction, but Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, at its end, had 30 runes, including a second K and G rune (the two final additions). These cropped up because the prior G had begun taking on a sound we'd currently write as the consonant Y (ex. "gear" became "year") and because the C rune began to take on a sound we'd now write as "ch" (ex. "beorc" became "birch"). This change is significant because that change of the C rune is also associated with two digraphs: SC taking on the "sh" sound (ex. "fisc" became "fish") and CG taking on the "dg" sound (ex. "cycgel" became "cudgel"). If we do want to adapt Futhorc into use for modern English, we'll probably want to be able to write those sounds.

[@tapunyr8526]

As a young teenager I memorized Tolkien's dwarven runes and still continue to use them today. Great video as always Rob

[@SergeantSniper]

That is legitimately really freakin' cool.

[@shaunfarrell3834]

Me too

[@55Quirll]

When I was in HS our English Class had us do the same thing and do some translating. I enjoy authors that do that. They don't know how encouraging they are making their readers to become like the characters they are reading. Not sure if there are other books that do this.

[@lordofchaosd327]

Same

[@FiAlmighty]

Your channel is honestly my favorite channel on KZbin. Languages, etymologies, and their intersections with cultures is my #1 special interest and you always deliver bangers.

[@EALoArt]

Tolkein's version of the old norse runes is how I wrote anything in my journal/sketchbook I didn't want anyone glancing over and reading.

[@westzed23]

I wrote letters to a friend using Tolkien's runes. They worked well for spelling any words.

[@Torby4096]

I use Tengwar for that😉

[@keithtorgersen9664]

Tolkien’s creation of dwarf language and writing was peculiar because the spoken language was based on Hebrew and the written language was based on Norse runes.

[@eeyorehaferbock7870]

@@westzed23I think my grandma did that with a childhood friend as well; she grew up speaking German, and while neither she nor her family ever actually subscribed to Nazi ideology (they were from Czechoslovakia anyway), she was still very much immersed in old Germanic culture in general growing up.

[@eeyorehaferbock7870]

@@keithtorgersen9664yes-although interestingly enough, I think I’ve read that the Norse runic alphabet may have been influenced by cuneiform symbols used by the Phoenicians who in turn were a Semitic group themselves (their modern descendants being Lebanese and possibly other Levantine people). So even that may not be such a stretch to imagine.

[@genevricella]

Rob, you are so thorough and thoughtful in researching and writing your scripts. As a lifelong linguist it gives me great pleasure watching your videos; I learn so much from them. Many thanks for all of your efforts.

[@RobWords]

Thank you!

[@pjalexandra]

I love the completely unapologetic nerd-out of this one. Sympathy to all those who rightfully complain about English spelling--there's relief in a visual representation that feels intuitive. Very informative and enjoyable channel for language aficionados & teachers, keep shining!

[@opie2736]

I am so happy you mentioned Tolkien. I just found your channel, and I have to say, it is extremely interesting. I would love to see a deeper dive into what using runes as a way to write modern English would look like. I could easily watch a two hour video on this topic!

[@shdwbnndbyyt]

All I know is that my late brother had severe dyslexia... as long as he used the modern alphabet. Using the cyrillic alphabet he had no reading issues.

[@LiyemEanapay]

That is fascinating as fuck and needs to be researched

[@Terran.Marine.2]

Agreed and agreed

[@DAHSspookyyYyyy]

​@@LiyemEanapay While I can't remember the specifics, we do know from research that some languages are less friendly for lexical disabilities than others. And between languages, a multilingual may be dyslexic in one language but not another.

[@JoaoP.434]

Do Polish people tend to be more dyslexic? I mean, with all those dipraghs like in the words "szczęście" and "Szczebrzeszyn". Maybe it's just hard for me who doesn't speak the language, because when I first saw Polish written it looked like someone started typing on a keyboard ramdomly

[@dyzmadamachus9842]

I think Polish looks so random because of the latinization. If you'd use one letter for each sound in "szczęście", you'd end up with 5 or 6 letters at most, instead of 9.

[@UK_Canuck]

There was all too much self-satisfaction wrapped up in that Gollum moment. 🤣

[@nikobellic570]

Think that was shame too. Anywho, I like the dad jokes that get sprinkled in

[@MotoHikes]

3:57 Furthermore, for E all you need to do is rotate it 90 degrees anti-clockwise, L and U all you need to do is flip horizontally, K looks alot like C, A you add another stave to the right, and D you split in half.

[@autumnphillips151]

I think it’s also worth mentioning that Latin didn’t have the letter K, but the letter C in the Latin alphabet was pronounced like a K, just like the rune resembling C was (and also the C in many modern English words, like “catch”). “Veni, vidi, vici” was pronounced like “weni, widi, wiki”. Edit: I’ve discovered that the Latin alphabet did actually have K, but it was used very rarely and was interchangeable with C.

[@DanSkunk]

There are even more similarities to greek: Lagu is identical to older versions of lambda, thorn is theta with half the circle, hægil almost identical to a form of heta, peord is a rotated pi, wyn is close to digamma which originally had a w sound, dæg is even closer to delta.

[@DanSkunk]

@@autumnphillips151 K was redundant because latin didn't originally differentiate between g and k sounds so they used gamma for both, which became rounded, and then an extra stroke was later added to differentiate between c with a k sound and c with a g sound. Maybe whoever marked C to make G didn't know about K?

[@nicksm2976]

As someone who learned how to speak english by just playing videogames and watching youtube videos as a child, I think english sharing an alphabet with my mother tongue is something that helped out a lot in me actually learning how to speak it since I could easily look up the meaning of specific words. I watched a lot of anime too, but I didn't end up learning that much japanese and I think it was partially because the alphabet is different. If english had it's own unique alphabet I probably wouldn't be writing this comment :)

[@jorgehaswag7294]

I think the biggest problem with runes is how they’re not optimized for writing on paper and the angles would slow us down. We’d need to round them out like what happened with thorn and wynn

[@nikobellic570]

Or stop writing on paper, and go back to wood and stone!

[@simonlow0210]

Agreed, just alter the shape a little bit and create a cursive futhark

[@ulrichwolfgang]

One could say the same about many languages, yet they either have cursive like Russian, or it's not a bother like Japanese. Most people also simply write in press form, and the vast majority write on keyboards, like us right now.

[@jtotheb-ip2hh]

I agree -- the angles AND all straight lines. And if you were writing in a hurry, it would resemble a mess of toothpicks dropped onto the page XD

[@christopherstein2024]

They are not that complicated. If you can write Futhark you can also write ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚲ Fonts will naturally develope as soon as you use these.

[@adragoor]

Fun fact: Runes were used quite regularly to write Swedish up until a hundred years ago or so in some remote parts of the country. Check out Dalecarlian runes!

[@neriv12]

they were used for Elfdalian, not swedish, and were used all the way up until 1980!!

[@NedkaRokonokova]

I've been using runes for my writing since the 1990s. All personal things, nothing meant to go any further than my own musing. I didn't think I would find myself in such good company. Your video is brilliant! As much as I love English, I am also a harsh critic. Not only does our alphabet stink, but our whole system of spelling is pointless. We may as well use wet spaghetti noodles because, ultimately, it's little more than memorization. Isn't that just weird? I love that word. I'm all for runes as our alphabet. The US and UK could finally get on the same page with color/colour, center/centre, etc. I enjoyed your video on stealing some German words, but this was even funner (come on, can't we make that a word finally?) Liked, subscribed, and now I'm off to your rune typewriter which looks funnerer (pushing it, am I?)

[@atklm1]

My handwriting is the same it was in elementary school over 30 years ago. My teacher, God bless that old gasbag, called them with the term that would translate directly to English ”Magpie’s foot prints”. Now I know that it’s not bad handwriting, I’m just writing with runes. It’s in my Nordic blood 😄

[@thomicrisler9855]

There's a similar phrase for bad handwriting in English, "chicken scratch"

[@quiestinliteris]

I love that we apparently universally agree that birds can't write. 😂

[@atklm1]

@@thomicrisler9855 I’ve heard that the idiom ”It’s all Greek to me” is ”It’s all Chinese to me” in Greece. In my language (Finnish) it’s ”It’s all Hebrew to me”. Same goes to ”Pig Latin”, which is something else in many different languages, in mine it’s ”Pig German”.

[@clasicradiolover]

Yes my handwriting was compared to chicken scratch and my memory, I was told, was shorter than a knat's eyebrow.

[@eekee6034]

Incidentally, handwriting like this is a sign of higher-functioning autism.

[@Kaiserland111]

I really don't think the Nazi use of runes is responsible for the non-adoption of runes - rather it would be a massive undertaking to convert everything in English to runic, and to reteach entire generations how to read and write. There isn't enough benefit to doing so, as English is already the world's most dominant language, despite its many flaws.

[@Wayland444]

Yes, I agree. In the same way that although the qwerty keyboard could be improved we are just too entrenched in the old way to make any change feasible.

[@ulrichwolfgang]

Impossible it is not, for the Norwegians have done it, with the creation of Nynorsk

[@JewTubeUsername]

This guy is just high on Churchillian Matzo fumes.

[@PhailRaptor]

Look no further than the confusing and conflicting usage of Imperial vs Metric as measuring systems for examples why we haven't done something like this

[@kevingray4980]

It's a matter of time until the English system will be reformed. The way we write things now will one day look as silly and dated as runes to us now.

[@VictoriaKimball]

I love runes. In junior high (early '70s), my friends and I used runes to write secret "coded" messages to each other. (We were highly influenced by the LotR.)

[@alexcallender]

Wow, that’s amazing to hear! My friends and I did the exact same thing when we were in elementary school, around 3rd-5th grade. It was a bit later of course (~2003-2005), but we were also massively influenced by LOTR, as the Peter Jackson films were still new at the time, and obviously a gargantuan cultural phenomenon. If I remember correctly there was a key to the Dwarvish Runic alphabet in one of our copies of The Hobbit, which is where we picked it up.

[@CookieDoh]

My friends and I did the same in the 80’s. 😂

[@Dinger_D]

I love your video and specially the part you talk about Thorn, i love that letter.

[@GabbeTard]

I had a course in cultural history and when our teacher went over the history of the Svastika - our entire class was baffeled. I remember the teacher encouraging us to reclaim it as a positive symbol again. It really opened my eyes to how fast things can be changed in the world, something that meant positive things for multiple cultures around the globe for hundreds if not thousands of years got ''ruined'' in just a couple years by one political party.

[@RobWords]

The standard Thai greeting literally means swastika. The Nazis screwed up something beautiful.

[@tomtaylor5623]

If you actually studied the history you'd see it is very clearly an Indo European or 'Aryan' symbol and the Volkitsch movement correctly used it as a symbol of their folk. Just because other cultures who were invaded by them in ancient history also used the symbol does not mean they have any real claim to it. Why are you all so intent on lying about this subject?

[@shaunfarrell3834]

@@tomtaylor5623 Not lying, just shining the light or facts on to mystic claptrap used to justify fascist brutality and hate agendas.

[@tomtaylor5623]

@@shaunfarrell3834 You're literally lying and trying to justify it by mashing a few words together. The symbol has nothing to do with some of their members mystical beliefs, and their mystical beliefs had nothing to do with the movement or its purpose.

[@SvendleBerries]

@@tomtaylor5623 - *"Why are you all so intent on lying about this subject?"* Because these pour souls have been fooled into believing that their government education would never intentionally mislead them. They only know what theyve been taught, and theyve been taught that thats all they need to know. And that anything that contradicts those teachings is somehow "far right", whatever thats supposed to mean anymore. Reminds me of religion in many ways, especially the distrust/anger/hatred towards non-believers.

[@EannaButler]

Some corrections: 4:17 - the second letter in Elder Futhark there is not F, it's the letter A. 9:33 - the letters are mixed up - the one on the left is A and the on the right is O. "For the Wynn" - ha! Wait a second... The wind-up that is Bluetooth is literally named after this great man, and the Bluetooth symbol is actually an amalgam of the Runic glyphs for his initials?? No way!! This fact has made my week!!

[@alexdunphy3716]

The amalgamation of the runes originates from Harald Bluetooth himself. It seems like it was something done by Kings of the era as Charlemagne did something similar with his initials

[@flexyco]

I'm only halfway and again feeling delighted with your demeanor, your energy and wit. I love every video you make. Thank you for being you!

[@TheRealLeesyKate]

paused at the thorn shirt plug because 1) I NEED to buy it, and 2) this is the first video i think i've ever seen from your channel and it is SO timely, because I was bemoaning the existence of the letter Q and utter lack of thorn in our modern alphabet only a couple of weeks back to any poor soul who would listen. It's wild to me that Rome continues to influence our culture and communication in such a significant way even today, and deeply fascinates me

[@thomaslong2804]

40 some odd years ago I learned Anglo-Saxon runes in honour of Professor Tolkien's penchant for them, and I routinely use them in my FRP games as notes to myself that my companions no longer have the capacity to readily read. I fully support the premise of this video even though it threatens the security of my "secret" notations

[@Nick-rs5if]

Sweden had a Runic alphabet still in use in the 1900's. The last runic user died in 1980. They were called Dalcarlian Runes. They were used primarily for Elfdalian in the Dalcarlia province. Swedish also has a number of problems with the Latin alphabet. Namely that there are way more sounds than there are letters for. Also that some sounds are misrepresented or confusing by the letter used to represent them. A common mistake almost every foreigner makes for instance is thinking that Å, Ä and Ö are different variations of A and O, which they really aren't. Ö is the 'I' in Firm or 'E' in Concern. Ä is the 'A' and Handle, or E in Century. Å is the 'OUGH' in Nought, Fought and 'AUGH' in Taught. Reintroducing runes into the standard language would be quite nice, I think. Both for Swedish and for English. 😄

[@boazplays7239]

My circle of friends in school learned Futhorc as a means of passing notes and writing messages (this was before we all had cell phones). I'm still perfectly fluent in the runes. At one point I set the default font in Windows to runes. To this day, if I'm writing in all caps, I will accidentally switch to writing runes instead.

[@LearnRunes]

ᚹᛖ‍ᛚ᛫ᛞᚪᚾ᛭

[@freshfresh5205]

How do you set the default font to runes?

[@boazplays7239]

@@freshfresh5205 I did it in Windows XP in the themes page of Personalize settings. I have no clue if you can still do that in W11

[@freshfresh5205]

@@boazplays7239thanks. Was it called runes?

[@boazplays7239]

@@freshfresh5205 The font itself? I had it custom made. There was a company that I could download a template, and I would draw in all the runes myself. I would mail that template to their office and they shipped back a CD with the font file on it

[@raffaeltaufner]

I clicked this video thinking I'd just entertain myself and ended up falling even more in love with this language. Such well written content, excellent work! Keep it up✨🫡

[@Fooma777]

Rob, my dude, this one was absolutely fascinating. Swapping over to runes asap

[@thecountofgoldmoor1332]

You really knocked it out of the park with this one, Sir Robert!

[@RueRiposte]

Oh! You just runed my morning!!! 😅

[@DouglasJenkins]

...and Rob became a thorn in my side!

[@Andreas_42]

​@@DouglasJenkinsSo that's a wynn-wynn, I suppose?

[@KyleMeyer949]

0:56 I’ve never read runes in my life. I swear I could read that somehow, I think you are onto something

[@Is_this_username_unique]

6:00 Carving symbols on sticks, picking them at random and interpreting their meaning sounds very much like the ancient Chinese i ching divination. Coincidence? ...Yes, yes it is

[@garethgibson6508]

People get weird about the written word throughout history (which I love), in Simon schemas history of the Jews he tells how much Jewish history exists because they saw writing as a gift from god, so to dispose of it was not all allowed, so we end up with rooms full of notes buried for centuries, at least that is what I recall it. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_the_Jews_(book)

[@jacquiehahn4910]

People have always tried to predict the unpredictable, look for divine approval of their actions. Carving characters on sticks or straws and chucking them in the air is so much handier than slaughtering a large mammal, or faffing about counting passing crows or whatever. We still do it today when we toss coins...

[@DataBeingCollected]

Coincidence? That is probably the safest way to look at it. I wouldn’t completely discount it however, because there is an interesting thing going on with various divination systems like I-Ching, Irk Bitig, or Nigerian Ifa. These are just some examples. They all rely on a memorized oral body of work, organized into an ordinal number based catalog, or a line/verse system. The intent behind these of course is to have them completely memorized. You then use your randomizer (lots, knuckle bones, cowrie shells, moon stones, willow sticks, etc) which gives you the number, and then that number is used to “divine” your answer based off of the sacred oral “text”. It is called Rhapsodamancy. Now if you don’t have a sacred text memorized, you can have a written copy (such as written I-Ching, Irk Bitig or written Ifa, or even the Bible), ask your question, then open that book up to a random spot and randomly select a verse. This is called Bibliomancy, and is a natural extension of the older Rhapsodamancy practice. So yes, coincidence, but this system seems to have either A. Developed independently in a number of locations, or B. Spread in such a way that it replaced other systems. I have another comment on this video discussing the same thing, especially in relation to things like knot calendars/quipu systems/tally sticks, all which seem to be good at cataloging ordinal number data. You see this with the Hawaiian Tax Collectors Knot, and with Okinawan Warazan knots, which are used very similarly. Taxes, census data, family records, how many of a specific item, etc. Chinese knot records are rare, but also written about, during the Warring States period where the author wishes they could go back to knots instead of writing, probably for tax purposes. Dao De Jing / 80.(Standing alone),老子,Laozi/道德經 Translated by James Legge: In a little state with a small population, I would so order it, that, though there were individuals with the abilities of ten or a hundred men, there should be no employment of them; I would make the people, while looking on death as a grievous thing, yet not remove elsewhere (to avoid it). Though they had boats and carriages, they should have no occasion to ride in them; though they had buff coats and sharp weapons, they should have no occasion to don or use them. I would make the people return to the use of knotted cords (instead of the written characters). They should think their (coarse) food sweet; their (plain) clothes beautiful; their (poor) dwellings places of rest; and their common (simple) ways sources of enjoyment. There should be a neighbouring state within sight, and the voices of the fowls and dogs should be heard all the way from it to us, but I would make the people to old age, even to death, not have any intercourse with it. I-Ching is a Hexagram system relying on base 60, the Iliad of Homer is in hexameter, also base 60. Songs, laments, curses, spells, they are connected together in interesting ways, such as the Greek word Siren, σειρά (seirá, "rope, cord") and εἴρω (eírō, "to tie, join, fasten"), resulting in the meaning "binder, entangler" i.e. one who binds or entangles through magic song. (This I just pulled from Wikipedia, so if there are some inconsistencies, please correct me) Norn, the Norse variant, might derive from a word meaning 'to twine', which would refer to their twining the thread of fate. Frigg, Neith, Athena, just a few Weaving Goddesses of Wisdom. There are also stores like the rape of Philomela, who is raped by her brother in law and cuts out her tongue. Philomela weaves her story, which is how her sister Procne finds out what happens. Ultimately Philomela is transformed into a Nightingale, a bird who’s song associated with “lament”. You see a similar parallel with the Incan Mama Ocllo who is a weaving and wisdom Goddess, which makes complete sense in the context of Quipu. Another independent development/coincidence where rope is used in a specific way for ordinal number cataloging.

[@nerfherder4284]

It is perhaps possible that general divination predates both of these ways of divination using specific symbols.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

It's probably not entirely coincidence, but rather convergent evolution. Randomness is a common way to let the supernatural into the world, so people reading into randomness is a fairly natural way to attempt to do divination.

[@letmejustsay]

Another excellent video Rob. And the Bluetooth fact at the end is something I will always remember and use.

[@mdmn-ARCA]

I get the impression this Tolkien fellow knew a thing or two about language...

[@LearnRunes]

What gives you that impression?

[@michaelcherokee8906]

Too bad he apparently either knew nothing about Geography, or didnt care...

[@andrekloer]

15:59 The swastika is not runic in origin, but much older, tracing back to Sanskrit. In Thailand I saw the swastika sign in Bhudist temples. The meaning of swastika is something like 'prosperity', if I remember correctly.

[@SteadfastSoutherner]

Þe fylfot is a olden Germanish symbol aswell þat shoƿed up in þe Germanish rices such as England, Daneland, and Deutschland.

[@Andrewnui]

I am a big supporter of the main idea of this video, that runes can be more efficient for writing English, but I feel the need to point out a couple of shortcomings within this video. First, I see that runes were put on the screen a couple times for writing modern English, but they are just using the current spelling we have, like using silent "e" and the not quite matching the actual sounds of the word. If we use runes to just replace the Latin letters, with no real spelling changes, it kinda makes it lose the whole point of writing in runes, which is that it's (mostly) phonetic, so it's much more intuitive and linked with our spoken language, and results in much shorter simpler words. (For example, the end of the video has "take care" written as "ᛏᚪᚳᛖ ᚳᚫᚱᛖ" when those ending ᛖ runes aren't needed because the words don't end in an "eh" sound.) Second, none of the historical rune sets really fully work with modern English. You bring up a really good example about the "ch" and "sh" sounds-- but the runes don't have this either (though in later anglosaxon futhorc, the ᚳ rune, which you've used here for the "k" sound, was changed to make the "ch" sound, and then ᛣ was used for the "k" sound). To get runes to work with modern English, we'll have to do some work, modifying the ones there (like, we have no use for ᚣ anymore) and adding some new ones for sounds the runes didn't have, which are now common in modern English like the "j" in "jump" or in the second g of "garage," plus the "v" sound-- the old runes only had "w" and "f." Third, the argument that what Tacitus was talking about was runes is really not a good take. In that source, Tacitus is talking about something that both priests and just normal heads of the household would do-- and not even close to all the common heads of households would be literate. It also mentions that the cutting is part of the ritual, not something done much before-- do you really think they would, each time, cut a branch into 24 parts, marking runes for all of them, and then just pull three? Tacitus also says in that same source that the Germanic tribes were "addicted" to divination and did it all the time. I don't think this makes sense with using one rune on each token, like it's done today. Cutting a branch into 3 parts, marking their sides with simple "yes/no" symbols, and then throwing those is much closer to a practice that Saxo Grammaticus also described the people of ancient Denmark doing. I would argue that what Tacitus was talking about was more along those lines, not along the lines of using runes. Besides, the person to start this rumor that the part in Tacitus' book was about runes, was from a conspiracy theory nutjob (Ralph Blum) who spouts a ton of other absolute nonsense in his book that popularized using runes for thrown token divination. On that point though, there is a real, actual historical relationship with runes and magic, which we can find references to in old sagas. Egil's saga talks about carving runes into solid surfaces such as wood, bone, and horn, to perform magic a couple of times, and so too does Grettis saga, the Havamal and a couple other parts of the poetic edda (like Rigsthula) and some little mentions here and there in other historical records, like one which recorded a prisoner escaping, and people wondering if he had used runes to break the fetters. This history is really cool and I wish more people talked about it instead of about the misleading argument from Tacitus. Fourth, "ale" is only one guess for the common rune inscription "ᚫᛚᚢ" and it doesn't make perfect sense when trying to interpret all the rune inscriptions with that word on them. It's much more likely that this was a word that just happened to be similar to "ale" and had other meaning which has since been lost to time. Anyway, I'm glad this topic is being talked about! I hope it inspires more people to want to research runes in a genuine way, looking at historical evidence and understanding the cultural context that they were used in! ᚷᚢᛞ᛬ᚺᛖᛚᚦ᛬ᛏᚢ᛬ᚦᛁ᛬ᚹᚩᚾᛉ᛬ᚺᚢ᛬ᚱᛁᛞ᛬ᚦᛁᛉ᛬ᚱᚢᚾᛉ!

[@kakahass8845]

There's also the fact that not having a symbol that can be both "K" and "S" makes writing some words worse for example how would you write "Plastic" and "Plasticity"? Does "K" magically change to "S" sometimes or does "K" sometimes make an "S" sound with no rules as to when?

[@LearnRunes]

ᚦᚫᛝᛣᛋ᛫ᚠᚩ‍ᚱ᛫ᛄᚩ‍ᚱ᛫ᚹᛖ‍ᛚ᛫ᚹᛁᛋᚳᛟᛉ᛭ You make some good points however there are solutions to the problems you perceive. For example, ᚣ is a bindrune originally created to signify the [y] vowel's use of a sound like ᛁ but coupled with the rounded lips used to say ᚢ. Historically, that sound typically unrounded, thus voiding the need for a separate rune, but in some cases it backed instead, hence why "busy" is spelt with a "u" that makes an "i" sound. It was originally [y] but the spelling change and the spoken change ended up splitting. Nonetheless, that happened around the time the vowel in "mouth" split from the vowel in "goose". So the logical sound to use ᚣ for today is the diphthong in "mouth" because that is a reasonable explanation of how it could have been repurposed had runes remained in use.

[@LearnRunes]

​@@kakahass8845If the sound changes the character representing it should too. This is already the case in Latin script with knife and knives.

[@kakahass8845]

@@LearnRunes The difference in "Knife" vs "Knives" is that it's a voicing change that happens to almost all English words while "Plastic" vs "Plasticity" is an unpredictable sound change since it comes from a loan from French.

[@LearnRunes]

@@kakahass8845 I understand but I think it doesn't matter. Etymology only exists because words do change their spelling as their sounds change.

[@justadummy8076]

This might be a blessing for dyslexic people who struggle with phonetics

[@michael3088]

As a dyslexic and a nerd for Anglo-Saxons 100%!

[@oakstrong1]

I use phonetics specifically to teach dyslexic kids, because it is more successful than other methods I have also taught. I am mildly dyslexic myself, but my language being almost 100% phonetic saved me, to a point I use the method for learning the spelling of other languages, including English, which isn't my native tongue (but English is what I teach for my support students). Yes, there are many exception words and choices to make between alternative spellings (ai - digraph in the middle of the word, ay at the end. Same rule with oi/oy) But even common exception words at in part phonetic, with one or two letter changes. Even with all the exception words (around 15- 20%) I believe there's still less to memorise than every possible syllable. What I have found is that dyslexic people often have poor phonemic awareness, meaning they have hard time to hear individual phonemes that make the syllable. Ear training can be a long process teachers at school do not have enough time for and not every parent know how to teach their kids (which they should have done before school age)

[@AlisonReacts]

I was JUST watching one of your other videos about the other alphabets etc, sitting on Google looking at every different interesting alphabet I could find and here this video pops up right in the middle of it all Ahah! Thank you!

[@larapollock4510]

This presents an important message. Much Love & Appreciation for your commitment to sharing these insights.

[@Saviarai-Dravolika]

I don't know if the Runes should fully replace the alphabet that we have. Most likely not, but it would be crazy but make some sense if they were used _alongside_ the Latin alphabet in scripts and such, as it helps us, maybe relearn the English language's history and their old texts, as well as the other Scandinavian languages's old texts by being able to read them.

[@g4_61]

It’d be a nice aesthetic touch. Perhaps in the same way we sometimes use Roman Numerals alongside Hindu-Arabic ones.

[@LearnRunes]

The sheer number of people who write English makes radical reform currently impossible. Your idea of writing in runes alongside Latin script is a better first step.

[@KusacUK]

The strange thing about Tolkien’s map is that the secret message is supposed to be in Dwarvish, but of course is just English written in the futhork. But when you do actually run into some Dwarvish (Balin’s tomb in Moria), it’s like a Caesar cypher - all the futhork runes are there, but they represent different sounds.

[@yeasr7781]

You always release your video before I go to bed Your videos always make me smile. I can't tell if it's because I love your topics, your witty presentation, or simply your contagious smile I fall asleep with a smile on my face, after finishing the video of course Thank you

[@valhyr]

Thank you for tackling the misuse topic so professionally and with a lot of care, some people straight throw modern pagan people into the bunch with these misusing hateful bunch, so its so refreshing seeing that there is people out there that understand we dont stand for hate! And also thanks so much for including my rune translator/transcriber/converter thingy at the end - I was so surprised, been following you for years so this made my day!:D

[@Idkpleasejustletmechangeit]

You made that thing? That's pretty cool!

[@jennyirelan]

That's pretty cool 😎

[@Nick12_45]

As the two people above said, that's actually pretty cool!

[@valhyr]

haha thank you everyone, i'll frame these comments on my wall and look at them when i feel down

[@michaeltrueblood2545]

Imagine completing a carved poem only to discover something misspelled.

[@AnotherDuck]

People have been writing with non-erasable letters since forever. And still do, since ink is hard to erase.

[@valhyr]

thats how bindrunes came to be :D

[@turquoisewitch.wild-owl]

😂

[@bradnelson3595]

One supposes they must have had something like Rune-Out correction plaster...or should have.

[@ThSkBj]

Oh well. It goes in the firewood pile. Next stick plz.

[@LordNorthern]

I like how letters/characters tell the story of how they were used historically. So, Chinese/ Japanese characters were originally mostly painted on with a brush. That's why they're always rounded, and the segments start sharp and kind of widen as you go because that's what you'd naturally get if you tried to paint them with a brush. That's also why in Japanese (and I assume in Chinese as well, seeing as the Japanese characters are originally from China) there are no dot segments in any of its characters. They use a small circle as a fullstop. That's because - try painting a dot with a brush and you'll end up with a very ugly asterisk at best. A circle is easy to paint with a brush. The same seems to be true with runes. As Rob says, they would originally carve them into hard surfaces which is why the lines are straight and sharp. Semi circles like in the character P look like a triangle. Try carving even modern letters into a stone today and many of the rounded letters will end up looking sharper and less circular. So even though later, some of these limitations became irrelevant (today not many people in Japan use a brush to write), still that historic heritage shapes the way the letters look to this day. Just makes my inner nerd happy!

[@3personal5me8]

If I remember correctly, the whole "ye old" whatever whatever is from the Thorn. I guess printers didn't have a symbol for it, so they used the Y letter instead. "Ye" was just "The".

[@ICXCTSARSLAVY]

Yes. He did a video about this.

[@steveaustin2686]

3:27 The Sauron whisper after you named the sounds made me laugh.

[@lukefriesenhahn8186]

Now that I watch it a second time, it is recognizable.

[@ClintonSinclair]

Creep me the freak out!

[@timtanason7250]

I was hoping to see down here what it was from. It was giving me Eternal Darkness vibes.

[@gaufrid1956]

I think that Viking guy was pissed as a fart, Rob! I've also got to say that here in the Philippines, the original script was "Baybayin". Since the Filipino languages are phonetic, each symbol represents a consonant and a vowel, apart from initial vowels, and of course "ng", which is common both at the end of words, and in some cases, within words, or at the beginning of words. "For example, "Ngayon ang bagong bagyo na sa Pilipinas, at apektado na ang isla ng Luzon" (Now there's a new storm in the Philippines and the island of Luzon is affected"). Unfortunately I don't have a Baybayin keyboard, but suffice to say Baybayin is in many ways similar to Futhorc. Much more suitable for rendering the languages here. Filipinos sometimes get tattoos in Baybayin, and Baybayin appears on the covers of music albums as well. It's not just the Germanic languages that had a pre-Latin alphabet system. Of course, in the Philippines at the time when Baybayin was in regular use, the majority of people were illiterate. Nowadays, as with Futhorc in Europe, it has become an interest for some people.

[@RobWords]

Thanks for this. Fascinating.

[@N192K001]

True, but Baybayin was mostly designed for Tagalog. Many other languages had their own counterpart, like my father's Kapampangan had Kulitan. Still, some characters were common, though somewhat altered for each script. I tend to use it with native Filipino words, but not loanwords (since transliterate weirdly).

[@gaufrid1956]

@@RobWords Sure is! In the precolonial version, final consonants in words were never written, and there were only three vowels, "a", "i", and "u". Each Baybayin consonant represented the consonant plus "a", for example, "ba", "ka", "da". A tilda above the consonant changed the "a" to "i", and a tilda below the consonant changed the "a" to "u". I'm sure you'd appreciate the simplicity, Rob!

[@gaufrid1956]

@@N192K001 Yes. If I remember correctly, there was also "Badlit" in the Visayas, descended from the Brahmi script from India. My wife is Higaonon, and I am fairly sure her tribe originally didn't have their own script.

[@N192K001]

@@gaufrid1956 Yeah, not every language had/has a script of their own today. (And I thought I misspelled "Hiligaynon", but apparently not! I now see it's yet another language altogether. Thanks for the info!) Still, on the Baybayin, the dots above/below can have 2 different readings, depending on context: For example, plain ᜃ ("ka") vs ᜃᜒ ("ke" or "ki") or ᜃᜓ ("ko" or "ku"). It _is_ simpler… but depends on enough familiarity with the language to not need things in writing to read it. That's why the Spanish overlords added the vowel-marks, when the original had no dots altogether and didn't even mention to write consonant-sounds if they lacked an accompanying ending-vowel sound.

[@Christopher_Gibbons]

It is worth noting that the addition of curves to runic languages neatly coincided with the popularization of the use of gouges (a curved carving chisel), and wood block printing. I can’t be sure, but there is a very good chance that we might still be using runes today if the Chinese hadn’t invented sandpaper. (This made it possible to sharpen gouges without the help of a smith.)

[@Richard_Nickerson]

I taught myself Tolkien's Dwarvish runes & I use those to journal/keep things secret for myself. I'd love if more people knew them & could communicate with me. I adore that diphthongs tend to have a single character.

[@alexcallender]

The LOTR movies came out when I was in elementary school, and my friends and I fell in love with Tolkien, and Middle Earth as a whole. I don’t remember if my friends also read the entire LOTR trilogy (I did - and while it was pretty challenging for a 5th grader, it was immensely rewarding as well), but we all read the Hobbit, and we used that book as a key to learn the Runic script it contained. We were so into it we used to pass notes written in runes in class lol, and treated it like it was our own secret language. It was a good time. Can’t believe it’s been 20 years since then. Thank you (and thanks to Rob of course) for allowing me to reminisce on those warm childhood memories. I agree that more people should learn to write English with runes.

[@Richard_Nickerson]

@@alexcallender The movies came out each of the 3 years I was in middle school (6, 7, 8 grade). Unfortunately, no one in my life has ever been as much a fan as I am myself. I read The Hobbit in 6th grade. Then I learned about the movies. I watched FotR before I read any of LotR, but Tom Bombadil stopped me in my tracks. Luckily, I had a teacher who encouraged me to keep trying. I started over, barreled through the Old Forest, and never looked back. I wasn't quite done with TTT by the time the movie came out, but I did finish RotK in time.

[@WayneKitching]

I also learnt Dwarvish runes from the Hobbit. I even made a custom font for Printshop using it. This would have been around 1992.

[@Richard_Nickerson]

@@WayneKitching The Hobbit runes are *not* Dwarvish runes. The Angerthas he invented after the fact & used in LotR *are* Dwarvish runes. The runes in The Hobbit, as he explained in this video, are the real runes used in our real history. What he failed to explain is that Tolkien then created his own rune system, and the fact that he keeps calling the runes from The Hobbit "dwarf runes" is inaccurate. He actually loved my comment explaining this.

[@gretahoostal8565]

Then it couldn’t be secret anymore. 😄 I can take notes in runes for when I need to go to Confession, then the kids can’t read it.

[@franklarin8100]

I often wished I could read the runes in Tolkien's works. Thank you for a very entertaining examination of runes.

[@davidwright7193]

He gives you a key to the sounds. So it is possible from just what is in the books.

[@LearnRunes]

Why can't you?

[@gravygraves5112]

I like the idea of bringing runes back for English. Also of developing Anglish further.

[@SamSonicVideos]

Yes! Someone else who knows about Anglish! Feels like a niche corner of the internet.

[@TheSpookiestgoose]

@@SamSonicVideosi love the idea, but it can feel a little clunky sometimes, i was wondering if maybe taking anglo saxon words amd making them a little easier to pronounce would feel more natural 🤔 what do you think?

[@imaginablemedium]

A video Game Series I played in the 80's used Runes (Ultima I-VII). By the time I was playing Ultima V, i could easily read and write using runes. Ageing out of video games, I had left that all behind, but this video is inspiring me to refresh and adopt the use of it. (I started learning Shavian/Shaw as a lark earlier this year, but the Runic Futhark seems easier to have a community and use cases for. (and will probably be easier!) Thank you for the video.

[@flix599]

In German we call the letters „Buchstaben“ which might be translated as „sticks of birch“ and to collect several small objects from the ground is called „etwas auflesen“ which is litterally [!] translated „to read something up“.

[@Diotallevi73]

Don't forget that in German, we also read wine ;-)

[@AlexJonesSuperSoldier]

"Buchstabe" would be calqued as "bookstaff". That would be the English word for "letter" had the Old English word _bōcstæf_ left itself an heir.

[@AlexJonesSuperSoldier]

Extending from there, "literacy" might be calqued as _bookstaffliness_ and "illiterate" might be calqued as _unbookstaved_ .

[@TrevorJC]

Interesting! I'm learning Cornish and I noticed, just for fun, how a lot of orthographic issues disappear when writing Cornish in the Ogham script. It's super-simple and ends up looking amazing as a decoration. Also fun about learning/using Ogham is that it is very easy to read from different angles, which only became clear to me after doing many transcriptions with it by hand.

[@LupusSapien]

It's almost like a language works better in a native script developed specifically for it and related languages /s. The struggle to put Ogham into computers via unicode is really funny though.

[@servantofaeie1569]

​@@LupusSapienOgham wasn't designed for Cornish but for the incredibly different Primitive Irish though.

[@servantofaeie1569]

How did you adapt Ogham for Cornish? It wasn't originally designed for it. Coelbren y Beirdd was designed for Welsh but I'd imagine that would work much better for Cornish than Ogham since Cornish is so much closer to Welsh than to Primitive Irish.

[@LupusSapien]

@@servantofaeie1569 ah, I thought they were more similar than that. Categorizing them into language 'families' can gloss over some large differences.

[@servantofaeie1569]

@@LupusSapien Goidelic and Brythonic, while both "Celtic", have been apart for a very long time, almost as long as Celtic has been apart from Italic. They are extremely different today, and in some cases can be as different as they are from Romance. I personally consider them to be two separate branches in the same capacity as Baltic vs Slavic or Indic vs Iranic.

[@TheD3cline]

you already conned me into toki pona, wont work twice pal

[@janmusi]

ha

[@namelessvideos]

toki pona li pona ala pona tawa sina?

[@TheD3cline]

@@namelessvideos jan pi nasin awen 😶‍🌫

[@бебравоз-будоражник]

a a a jan ken toki kepeken toki pona li lon ni

[@lordofchaosd327]

I almost wanna learn Toki Pona just to find out what y'all are saying 😂

[@bekahmay6820]

Subscribed @ Hardcore Thorn! This video was phenomenal! Your point placement, editing, and pause were all top tier. Your passion and knowledge are honestly inspirational. Thanks, so much, for the content!

[@yinyinthan2525]

We can tell that Most of his Fans(including me) love him very much because there over 1k like Just in a hours with 5k View's

[@mumenrider2481]

I like the idea of using a runic alphabet! I'll make two suggestions to help it become popular: we need a cursive form that is easier to write, and we need stories written in runic letters for people to read. That last idea is from Tolkien. He created his world for his languages. People won't learn a language of there are no stories in it to read.

[@jboss1073]

The Roman alphabet also started all pointy and straight because they also only carved it at first. Then later they learned to carve it rounded along with writing. You can take how they adapted their pointy letters as an example for how to make cursive runes.

[@nunyabiznes33]

Is there already a Rune keyboard in GBoard?

[@LearnRunes]

We recently released the font Wulþus Runic Calligraphy which is intended to be a step towards a cursive form of runes.

[@Simple_But_Expensive]

Stone = Lithos, Writing = Graphos. Combine them and you get lithography, or stone writing, which is what runes were developed for. Strangely enough, lithography is the method used to create computer chips, so we are already using extremely complicated runes to perform what would considered wizardry by any pre-1800 person. As far as English spelling, Goerge Bernard Shaw wrote an amusing treatise on why we are stuck with our current spelling.

[@MotoHikes]

As someone with an elder futhark script tattoo, I whole heartedly agree

[@coolbrotherf127]

As a programmer, implementing Rune support for every product sounds like a nightmare. Like many aspects of life, we often use things because they work well enough, not because it's the best. There are so many things we use everyday that are inefficient, but getting hundreds of millions of people to change is almost impossible.

[@doigt6590]

I'm a programmer too, Rune support is relatively easy because it's already part of UTF-8. pb TcC1J2s3

[@coolbrotherf127]

@@doigt6590 But it's not ASCII compliant which would cause certain issues in legacy systems and low level systems not compatible with UTF or Unicode standards.

[@doigt6590]

@@coolbrotherf127 most of the world needs utf-8 anyway to be functional. The minute you need diacritics that aren't covered in extended ascii, you need utf-8. Ascii is not "legacy", it's obsolete and a legal liability to companies. And that also impacts places where only english is spoken; there's more than one legal precedent about this. Obviously there's the wells fargo incident where they lost the lawsuit for not representing the name of a foreign customer accurately because their machine was not up to date. But thus far, organisations have failed in courts multiple time when they used the "our legacy system can't encode the name properly" excuse. The law obliges, so your point is largely irrelevant even in the real world. Btw I don't know what low level systems you are referring to, but as far I can draw from my own experience - like a semi smart lamp running on a 6502 which displays the "strength" of the current lighting settings with numbers or whether it si something much more advanced like an rpi, there's a world of difference in their applications, yet, I don't see an obvious major stopping force here. We can just switch out the images we're using for displaying the characters on the small systems - they're not even using ascii in many cases anyway. As for something like an rpi, well they're basically a computer and already support utf-8. Maybe you have an argument to make that you are not making, probably because merely listing them off just feels compelling to you?

[@user-na1ma3ga6e]

"Getting hundreds of millions of people to change" is pretty possible through laws, schools, TV and such stuff. It's just a matter of rulers' will.

[@coolbrotherf127]

@@user-na1ma3ga6e Everything ever written in modern English is already written in Latin letters. It seems impractical to not teach children the same writing system we've used for over 1000 years, just to go back to the older one.

[@jeffspaulding9834]

I've been interested in runes for years, but still learned a few things in this video. One of my bucket list items is to carve a walking stick with an excerpt from the English translation of the Poetic Edda in runes. I think it'd look cool as hell and be a nice Easter egg for anyone who happens to know how to read them.

[@LearnRunes]

Have you spent much time investigating runes?

[@jeffspaulding9834]

@@LearnRunes Other than read the Wikipedia article and a few other websites, not really. I figured I'd learn as I go if I ever get around to carving the walking stick. Then life kept happening and all my SCA friends moved away, so it's really more of a "it'd be a neat thing to do" sort of thing now.

[@alandjenkins]

Rob, fifty years ago this year, at the age of seventeen, I began the relationship I still have with my wife of now forty-five years. At school, we were both massive fans of J R R Tolkein (and C S Lewis), and we used to leave notes for each other in runes. We still have them - and all the actual letters we wrote to each other entirely in runes… it became our “thing”. We haven’t written them for years, but I am pretty sure we still could!😊

[@Dreoilin]

As an Irish speaker I often use Ogham. Sometimes though my kids and I use the elder futhark for notes like back and forth. Stuff like, Dad please buy more snacks! Lol 😅

[@ferncat1397]

Is sárathair thú ❤

[@shawncayton2889]

These runic alphabets could have been amazing for language, poetry, and especially puns

[@christopherstein2024]

You can still use them

[@Scott-if3ce]

While we're at it, let's go the extra mile and use more Ænglish words (the modern movement). I think it would be super cool :D and it would make using runes easier since most words would be native English words and would phonetically work using runes

[@Scott-if3ce]

@@Yidhra23 Exactly and I ᚦink including ᚦ (thorn) would be an easy addition. But I was even thinking, like instead of using "author" you could use "wordsmith" or "lawyer" becomes "lawman". Since words derived from old Ænglish would fit perfectly with rune spelling pronunciation

[@LearnRunes]

​@@Scott-if3ceÞere's a viewer who comments on my channel who uses Latin þ all þe time. Note how it's shaped slightly differently from the rune ᚦ.

[@Scott-if3ce]

@@LearnRunes Þat's awesome, I like his spirit haha. Interesting, does the Latin þ have a shared origin wiÞ Þ?

[@LearnRunes]

@@Scott-if3ce Yes, Latin þ was derived from ᚦ.

[@servantofaeie1569]

Fullech (completely)!

[@myfaceismyshield5963]

They're definitely better for English. But as a Finnish person I love the Latin alphabet because the only things it is missing for representing our language are the vowels we represent with Ä and Ö (our version of the alphabet also includes Å, but it's a holdover from the Swedish alphabet, but we never use it) and the sound that happens with "ng" and "nk". But other than that, we can pronounce everything exactly as written. So the ng is a problem for us too, but fixing it would actually make Finnish more difficult to write because ng and nk looking similar helps out as many conjugations and declensions hold ng and nk as different forms of the same word. (The word "bed" for example has forms such as sänky, sängyn, sängylle, sänkyyn, sängyt, sänkyjä, and so on. So the ng and nk need to be connected... perhaps they could be replaced by two similar looking consonants) We even have extra letters in the alphabet we don't even need, like C, F, Q, W, X, and Z. The Finnish alphabet only has two extra letters (and Å but as I said, it doesn't count) and six extra ones we only use for loanwords. And before anyone corrects me, W and X were being used in medieval and pre-modern Finnish, but they didn't represent sounds that couldn't be V and KS. The reason W was used was to separate it from the German V, which is pronounced closer to F.

[@theograice8080]

5:53 that is the face of "decisions have been made" 😅 great voice change, btw!

[@thogarrathikarthik2006]

Waiting for this video, since the time it was mentioned in Word's Unravelled Podcast

[@deborahhulme5137]

Ooooh! Sounds like it will be good!

[@LearnRunes]

We're working on it ;)

[@deborahhulme5137]

Glad to hear it!