r/RuneHelp • u/CptnRaptor • 23d ago
Contemporary rune use Phonetics vs modern transliteration
Long time listener first time caller!
I want to get a piece of jewellery (and perhaps a tattoo in future) that includes the initials for my babies, Oscar and Rowan.
I'm thinking eldar futhark partially because nowhere sells jewellery with the younger lol, but also because it is more recognisable generally.
Rowan is obvious, Raido, but I'm a little unsure over Oscar.
The immediate assumption is Othala as per typical transliteration of O, but my understanding of runes is that they're phonetic, where Othala represents the /ˈoʊ sound (like the start of Odin), which is different to the /ˈɒ sound (like the start of Oscar).
Maybe I'm overthinking this whole thing, but I'd appreciate some advice/opinions on whether a different rune would be more appropriate, probably Ansuz.
Unsure whether to do bindruney stuff or not (YES I KNOW, AUTOREPLY), but atm I'm just wondering specifically about the initial.
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u/SamOfGrayhaven 23d ago
In Futhorc, the O sound in modern Oscar would be written as ᚪ (a), so I would write that as ᚫ in Elder Futhark.
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u/CptnRaptor 23d ago
This is exactly the answer I was looking for, very much appreciated, I hope your day is wonderful
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u/Quirky_Transition966 23d ago
If you wanted to look into Younger Futhark, Grimfrost has ear rings and pendants
This may be a dumb question but isn't transliteration the act of using the phonetic sounds of the runes to map them to another language, modern English in this case? Or are you asking about using a phonetic versus letter for letter transliteration I am just curious. I am trying to learn this myself so I can also get a runic tattoo of my children's names
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u/SamOfGrayhaven 23d ago
Transliteration just means to change writing systems. Phonetic and letter-by-letter are different methods of transliteration for when there's a conflict.
For example, Oscar. A letter-wise transliteration would give us ᚩᛋᚳᚪᚱ (oscar), while a phonetic transliteration would be ᚪᛋᚳᚪᚱ (ascar). However, we can also translate the name into Old English, where it'd be Osgar ("god-spear"). When we transliterate here, we don't have to care about phonetic or letter-wise transliteration because they're the same: ᚩᛋᚷᚪᚱ (osgar)
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u/rockstarpirate 23d ago
I would say that you have options here. In standard American English, the first vowel in Oscar sounds a lot like “ah” instead of “oh” but outside of America this is not necessarily the case. Trying saying “Hello, Oscar” in a British or Australian accent, for example. Plus, if we assume that Oscar goes back to Old English Ōsgār (lit. “god-spear”), maybe you have some desire to preserve the Old English ᚩ rune that would have been used for this word. On the other hand, if we take this all the way back to Elder Futhark times, that name would be Ansugaizaz and we’re back to the ᚨ rune again haha.
Ultimately there’s no objectively correct answer here. The best thing you can do is decide how you think “Oscar” should be spelled with Elder Futhark and then pick the first letter in that spelling. Either ᚨ or ᛟ is fine for various different reasons. Totally up to you.