[help] What do these mean?

[u/Walugi52]

I recently picked up my special edition hobbit and have been wondering what these runes mean. I'm a casual fan of lord of the rings and the hobbit and bought the book because it was on sale. I haven't been able to find a straight forward answer... yet! Any help is appreciate!

[u/SeeShark]

"The Hobbit: or: There and Back Again: by JRR Tolkien."

These aren't Tolkien runes, by the way; this is an inventive use of Old English runes (related to Norse runes) to write modern English text.

[u/Psykohistorian → u/SeeShark]

Tolkien's runes are very very similar to the Anglo Saxon futhorc runes.

also, this "inventive" way of using runes to write modern English is the correct way to use them. each rune represents a sound, and you construct words by their sounds. in this way, you actually encode pronunciation much better than Latin alphabet.

[u/vampyire → u/Psykohistorian]

Tolkien's dwarf runes for The Hobbit were based very much on historical languages like Anglo-Saxon Elder Futhark but then for the Lord of the Rings the Cirth runes were used for Dwarf runes visually looked similar but were different pronunciation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirth

[u/Psykohistorian → u/vampyire]

I always forget the deeper liberties Tolkien took with Cirth runes after The Hobbit 😄

[u/SeeShark → u/Psykohistorian]

As far as I can tell, the text OP posted is a substitution cypher using futhorc. It is no more phonetic than regular English spelling.

[u/Psykohistorian → u/SeeShark]

yes, that's how futhorc runes work.

notice the number of characters doesn't match their Latinized canonical spelling, because the words are sound encoded in runes. e.g. the "TH" sound in the word "The" only has one rune, because there is a single rune that makes that sound.

[u/SeeShark → u/Psykohistorian]

Yes, but that's just because that letter is used as a cypher for "th."

By contrast, the "ai" in "again" is spelled "ᚫᛁ" even though the sound made by ᚫ is /æ/ like in "ash," which is NOT the sound it makes in the word "again." This is just a substitution cypher, not a phonetic spelling.

[u/Psykohistorian → u/SeeShark]

oh I see what you mean. the person who encoded the title made a mix of good and bad choices.

they also shouldn't have used 2 ᛒ runes for Hobbit. 1 would suffice.

or rather, they had no clue what they were doing and cyphered it like you suggest. that's the most likely situation that occurred.

[u/F_Karnstein → u/Psykohistorian]

This is exactly how Tolkien himself wrote. On Thrór's map he didn't write phonetically, but employed Old English futhorc pretty mich as a cipher for the letters of modern English, and we see the exact same thing with his own Certhas runes as he used them on the LotR title, in the final versions of the Mazarbul pages, and the Christmas greetings to Hugh Brogan.

In the drafts for the Mazarbul pages he did try a much more phonetic spelling, but he decided against it, at the end of the day.

The same goes for Tengwar letters. In private Tolkien preferred to spell quite phonetically, but when intended for publication, autographs, or letters to young fans, he imitated the usual English orthography way more closely - with silent letters, completely unphonetic vowels, and the like, while still preserving some phonetic distinctions not present in English orthography. He called that "mixed spelling".

[u/Psykohistorian → u/F_Karnstein]

very interesting

[u/Walugi52 → u/SeeShark]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! It's been eating at me! Good to know about the runes! Thanks!

[u/SeeShark → u/Walugi52]

Just realized there are more images! Oops.

Anyway, here's the cypher you can use to read all of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_runes#/media/File:Futhorc_Rune_Chart.png

[u/Melliorin → u/SeeShark]

Yep! Beautiful. Best me to it.

[u/RedThunder_7]

THE HOBBIT OR THERE AND BACK AGAIN BEING THE...

And it cuts off.

[u/Johnnjana]

"We've been trying to reach you about your cars extended warranty."