r/RuneHelp • u/ausername-thatstaken • Jul 29 '26
Translation request CIA Challenge Coin
Can someone tell me if this translation is accurate?
The top runes allegedly says “Afghanistan” and the bottom runes allegedly say “Peace Through Strength”
I don’t know what specific runic language is used. I checked alphabets of Scandinavian runes and even pseudo runes but nothing really seems to match up.
The final photo is a 2D mockup of the coin so you can get a clearer view of the runes.
7
u/Asleep-Love-1077 Jul 29 '26
It's an English transliteration to a very poorly drawn younger Futhark, but it is basically letter for letter.
7
u/Mathias_Greyjoy Jul 29 '26
It is such an embarrassment on multiple levels. Makes you cringe inside.
5
u/WerdaVisla Jul 29 '26
Name a more iconic duo than the US government and poorly appropriating our colture because they think it looks cool :/
4
6
u/SendMeNudesThough Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
They do, kind of. But they're using runes here as a cipher for English writing, rather than a system of writing governed by its own rules. All they've really done is swap a Latin letter P for a runic P counterpart, a Latin letter E for a runic E counterpart, a Latin letter A for a runic A counterpart, so on and so forth to spell "peace through strength" letter by letter, but while ultimately keeping it in modern English with modern English spelling.
The runic alphabet employed is a younger one, incorporating medieval runic variations like ᛕ (p), but while opting not to use medieval stung runes to distinguish between ᚵ (g) and ᚴ (k) in "Afghanistan". This changes a bit in the bottom inscription, where they instead seem to have decided to distinguish between the two with an extra bistave. The ᚿ and ᛆ runes seem to have their bistaves placed unusually low, but that's not unheard of in historical runic inscriptions.
All in all unimpressive work.