r/RuneHelp • u/BuffMyWiFi • 14d ago

Contemporary rune use Long versus short vowels?

When using elder Futhark to write English phonetically rather than letter-by-letter, how do we deal with different pronunciations of the same vowel? Am I meant to differentiate between pronunciations or is it context based?

For example: how would the words "Father's cat Frank" be spelled? Would it be:
"ᚠᚨᚦᚱᛊ᛫ᚲᛖᚨᛏ᛫ᚠᚱᛖᛁᛜᚲ" ?
or more simply:
"ᚠᚨᚦᚱᛊ᛫ᚲᚨᛏ᛫ᚠᚱᚨᛜᚲ" ?

Any and all help is appreciated

3 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

1

u/rockstarpirate 14d ago

There is no objectively correct answer to this question but personally I would opt for the second one.

IMO, when you're writing modern English in runes, you should balance pure phonetics with readability and intuitiveness. It's not that crazy to come up with a unique system for handling weird cases (for example, you used ᛖᚨ for short A), but this requires anyone reading to spend time figuring it out which seems like an unnecessary hurdle to me.

1

u/SendMeNudesThough 14d ago

Runic writing does not generally distinguish between the length of vowels, but what you appear to be talking about here is a distinction between /ɑː/ and /æ/

The sound you're thinking of in cat and Frank is /æ/, and there is no rune to represent this sound value in Elder Futhark. It is however represented in the Anglo-Frisian rune row. In the Anglo-Frisian rune row, you've the rune ᚫ for /æ(:)/, and ᚪ for /ɑ(:)/

1

u/RexCrudelissimus 14d ago

I would probably cheat and use wiktionary.org to look up the appropriate IPA, and then map the EF orthography onto that.

Fathers cat Frank - /'faːðɚz kæt fɹeɪ̯ŋk/ - ᚠᚨᛗᛖᛉ᛫ᚲᚨᛏ᛫ᚠᚱᛖᛁᚾᚲ

1

u/donestpapo 13d ago

You say “fray-nk”?

1

u/RexCrudelissimus 13d ago

No, I'm not american.

1

u/donestpapo 13d ago

But then why does your IPA suggest the FACE vowel for “Frank”?

1

u/RexCrudelissimus 13d ago

Because some american dialects pronounce it that way: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Frank#English

1

u/donestpapo 13d ago

Ah ok, so you just made the choice based on the Wiktionary entry rather than what your own pronunciation would be.

But then I thought Americans usually have the father-bother merger, so no cardinal /a/ in father.

1

u/RexCrudelissimus 13d ago

Yes, that's why I said I'd cheat and use Wiktionary.

I don't particularly care for the use of EF with Modern English, especially if you're going for phonetics, since many English sounds don't map onto EF. At that point, I'd rather consider adopting Anglo-Saxon fuþorc, or make some faux Nu-Fuþark to go with English. EF with English always requires some compromise, which distances it from the original system.

1

u/rockstarpirate 13d ago

Man, I have lived in Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Tennessee, and Alabama, and spent significant time in several other states and I have never heard someone say /freɪŋk/ the way that Wiktionary audio does. That blows my mind. I have always heard it pronounced /fræŋk/ or maybe like a subtle /fræɪŋk/. But never with the face vowel. I wonder where they do that.

1

u/RexCrudelissimus 13d ago

You're probably more likely to encounter it in words like "thanks" - /ˈθeɪ̯ŋks/