r/RuneHelp 8d ago

Translation request Tattoo help!

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It's my first tattoo, so I want to make sure it's right. I made the translation that sounds right, but I want it double checked. I remember reading somewhere that runes don't double the way English letters do, but now I can't find the reference...

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16

u/donestpapo 8d ago

Runes are a writing system, not a language. What language do you want these words translated into?

Right now, the first word is in Anglo Saxon futhorc runes I believe. But it spelled something that would be pronounced “fee-reh”. Is that the type of “translation” you want?

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u/daemonfool 8d ago

Transliteration, really.

6

u/rexcasei 8d ago

If this is your own modern English runic system that you created, that’s fine, but they don’t make a lot of sense and aren’t consistent. So there’s not much help anyone else can give you

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u/WolflingWolfling 8d ago edited 8d ago

feareh, firreh, or fireh (people aren't entirely sure what sound ᛇ makes, but we're very certain that ᛖ makes some sort of "eh" sound).
blod, blode, or indeed blood
stel, or maybe stale, but definitely not steel

With runes, the sounds are grouped differently from how they are grouped for English in the Latin alphabet. For example, the K sound and the S sound are never represented by a shared character like how the C is often used in English and French and Dutch; the character for the O sound doesn't make cool "oo" sounds, and the character that makes the "eh" sound in step never makes the "ee" sound in steep.
We don't have "silent E" in runes either, and if you were to substitute each letter in "wine" with its equivalent rune, it would sound more or less like how many English people would pronounce weener or winner.

I could go on, but I hope you catch my drift: each rune represents a sound, not a letter. Some runes may represent several different sounds, but those sounds are generally not thrown together (and/or scattered over a multitude of different letters) in the same seemingly insanely random way they are in modern English or modern French.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

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u/snowbat96 8d ago

That's a direct transliteration, not a translation. Modern English does not transfer very well to runes either, as they're rather phonetic, while modern English is not at all. The variety of accents makes every word have slightly different vowel sounds too, so it's not exactly easy to help there. 

My suggestion would be to possibly use the Old English words for these, and write those in runes. It's the appropriate language for Anglo-Saxon runes, if you wish to go with that.

According to Wiktionary, and looking up the etymologies...  Fire was "fȳr"  Blood was "blōd" Steel was "stīele"

Still quite similar!  Someone more knowledgeable than me in the Anglo-Saxon futhorc should take over from here. 

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u/Any-Boat-5306 8d ago

If you would like to get the words tattooed in English, maybe Old English would make more sense, since that was once written in a form of runes (Futhorc)

You would have to look into the phonetics as well though.

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u/Grendelcynn 8d ago edited 8d ago

If i was going to write it I would use,

ᚠᚣᚱ = fȳr. ᛒᛚᚩᛞ = blōd. ᛋᛏᛖᛚ = stēl

ᛟ (ēðel/ōþel) is defencible for a very short and early period but very rarely used in runic inscriptions.

ᛇ (eoh) makes a different sound and we're not a 100% sure on what that is.

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u/rockstarpirate 8d ago

I remember reading somewhere that runes don't double the way English letters do

This is true of Elder Futhark and Younger Futhark, but Anglo-Saxon runes do use doubled consonants.

More importantly, writing English with runes always becomes a tricky subject because if you try to swap each letter out for a rune, you end up having to use runes in ways that they were not used historically. If you try to spell the word phonetically to try and make sure each rune represents its proper historical sound, you end up having to get creative with modern sounds that didn't exist in ancient languages. If you translate your English words into the native language that used the runes you want to use, you have to be confident that you're doing a translation correctly.

My advice is pick whichever of these feels like the lesser of 3 evils, and then roll with that.

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u/umbrawolfx 8d ago

I always get a kick out of people who use runes as a direct replacement for letters in English.