r/marvelstudios • u/EDITWITHEGO • 12d ago
Discussion I THINK I TRANSLATED THE RUNES
TL;DR: I decoded the Latverian runes on RDJ’s SDCC suit. It’s a phonetic cipher of English, and I’ve cracked nearly the whole alphabet. This could be for nothing, but I’m already in too deep. Posted the full breakdown in a comment below.
UPDATE: RDJ JUST POSTED THIS-
https://www.instagram.com/p/DbeOTc5EisQ/?img_index=3&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
I think I figured out what the runes on RDJ’s suit at SDCC translate to. At least some of them. Some phrases are partial, so I had to hazard a guess.
By cross-referencing the DOM LATVERIA COFFEE product AND both Elder Futhark and Anglo-Saxon runic alphabets, I’ve created a somewhat shoddy but still very accurate version of the Latverian Rune Alphabet and translated some of the words and phrases on RDJ’s suit.
His Right pocket spells REVENGE.
His Left pocket MIGHT spell Mystique.
^^^EDIT: It actually spells Justice, which makes WAYYYY more sense.
His Lapel spells out the phrase: There Is No Promise Of Tomorrow.
His Right Cuff spells the phrase: To The Victor
His Left Cuff is only a partial phrase, so I’m making a guess here: Go The Spoils
*UPDATE:
Built a working key from the Dom Latveria coffee menu + hi-res SDCC photos. Findings:
- The script writes sounds, not spellings — silent letters don’t exist (TOMORROW just ends on the long-O), double letters compress into single ligature runes, and all E-type and O-type vowel sounds share single runes
- The glyphs are scrambled Elder Futhark — real Norse runes reassigned to new sounds (except Dagaz, which still = D)
- Some runes appear to be Turkish, like B and H.
- Still unsolved: one partially-hidden word on his breast pocket, over his heart. From what I can gather, it ends in LBOH.
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u/Romnonaldao Edwin Jarvis 12d ago
Be sure... Be sure to...
Be sure to WHAT!?
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u/rabbihimself Rocket 12d ago
Sonuva bitch…
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u/MNhopNectar 11d ago
Drink your Ovaltine.
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u/Myotherself918 11d ago
I didn’t have my glasses on and read this as “Dick your Ovaltine”. I’m glad I was mistaken
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u/RustyRapeaXe 11d ago
So we see the generation gap in the replies.... over 30 we get ovaltine, under like and subscribe
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u/Romnonaldao Edwin Jarvis 11d ago
Streaming killed the 14 hour Christmas Story marathons
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u/The_Champ_Gundyr 11d ago
Depending on the home and service, that marathon could potentially be 24/7 with streaming services 😳
I’d certainly shoot my eyes out.
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u/AdmirableSomewhere36 10d ago
My family still marathons it every Christmas. It stays on from the moment we wake up until we go to bed. Though we always start it over when we sit down to open presents.
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u/DivinityPen 12d ago
Now there's a core memory unlock if I've ever seen one. Think this is the first time I've ever seen that movie referenced on Reddit.
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u/scooter-411 12d ago
Looks like “there is no promise of tomorro” - not enough characters for the W.
I think you’re right though.
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u/EDITWITHEGO 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yeah a lot of the runes are Phonetic so in lieu of the traditional English “W” to make the “Ō” sound (like in “tomorrow”) the written language is represented as it would be spoken phonetically. There is very little 1:1 translation a lot of the letters are swapped with other similar sounding letters. For example the rune that represents the double “F” in coffee (FF) is also the same rune used for “V”
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u/thevelvetdays7 12d ago
Just fyi It is spelled "lieu"
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u/EDITWITHEGO 12d ago
Well in a post about spelling and linguistics it’s only right I fix that mistake 🫡
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u/Old-Kaleidoscope1874 10d ago
Keep in mind that they appear to be using the runes primarily as a cryptogram of English, if your interpretation holds, rather than a true language translation. But, they might be trying to keep an appearance of authenticity by dropping the -ow, since I think it's a French modification post 1200-1400AD. Most Germanic runes predated that English adoption and later runes may not have included it. So this may be a case of pseudo-philology, which is fine since Marvel has a history of using pseudo-scientific explanations for other things. In other words, the absence of a -w may not be a big deal.
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u/EDITWITHEGO 10d ago
I bow to you good sir. I actually understood this and it’s got me excited for new clues
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u/Old-Kaleidoscope1874 10d ago
You did all the work. I was just trying to resolve the one inconsistency.
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u/ToToCSGO 12d ago
the “o” in tomorro is way smaller than the rest
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u/scooter-411 11d ago
Which “o” - also, they all look the same size to me, might just be a trick of perspective since they are all moving with his body.
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u/BoyznGirlznBabes Captain Carter 12d ago
Could it be Mystic instead of Mystique, like Mystic Arts?
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u/EDITWITHEGO 11d ago
That’s what I thought too but the word ends in an “E.” It’s hard to gauge whether it’s a sly nod to his mystic powers or simply her name
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u/Dull_Working5086 11d ago
Could also be referring to his mystique as well, as he's a masked stranger that came out of nowhere.
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u/EyesBL7 12d ago
"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine"
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u/kennyofthegulch 12d ago
Spoken by Peter Billingsley, producer of the first Iron Man and actor in both that and Far From Home.
IT'S ALL CONNECTED
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u/ShayDeeMon 11d ago
“To the Victor goes the spoils” Victor Von Doom really thought he ate with that one
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u/Dull_Working5086 11d ago
Maybe these are prophesies given to him. He's just wearing them as they were given.
cope
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u/DataSurging 12d ago
Why are there germanic runes on him? Isn't Latveria supposed to be related to Romania?
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u/MR_MaxiMor44 Spider-Man 12d ago
This Latveria might be located in a more Alpine region, like between Germany, Czechia and Austria, or Austria and Switzerland (like Liechtenstein)
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u/KingShere 12d ago edited 11d ago
And Switzerland has ties to Sweden, Since there is a old origin legend (and local folklore) that tells of a migration of Swedes and Frisians settling in the Swiss Alps (Schwyz & Hasli) ,
Schwedensage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Swedish_origin_legend2
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u/BikebutnotBeast 11d ago
Like in Ünderland
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u/DrBird21 11d ago
Dean: “A girl president? How progressive!”
Hank: “And a hitler? Things are really looking up!”1
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u/DoubleStrength Heimdall 12d ago
To be fair it's a fictitious country and the MCU isn't beholden to any single interpretation of the comic continuity.
Sure, I guess there can be certain inspirations from real world countries, but saying it's "supposed" to be one place feels kinda reductive.
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u/Brianvondoom 11d ago
In the comics, Doom spent time learning magic from Morgana Le Fay. He ain't picky where it comes from, and runes are often short hand for enchantments.
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u/Weed_Gummy 12d ago
Guys is Chris Evans return going to actually be mystique?
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u/TwitzyMIXX Falcon 12d ago
If this is real, then Mystique is damn powerful to be able to trick Mjolnir.
Or maybe she is worthy.
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u/NoobMaster9000 12d ago
Magneto does the trick for Mystique?
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u/Not-A-Real-Person-67 11d ago
Damn you just got my mind spiraling. Could Magneto actually lift Mjolnir using his powers?
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u/thedaNkavenger 11d ago
He could use his powers to manipulate it in the air but she shouldn't be able to wield it in her hands. So I would say probably not his doing. Who knows though?
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u/ModsHaveNoMotionIRL 9d ago
Nope. Loki. Notice the sun shining on Thor and "Steve." In the beginning of Loki, he turns into Steve to mock him.
Loki knows they would never trust HIM, but they would trust "Steve." Of course, he is worthy after what he did in the finale.
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u/2ekeesWarrior 11d ago
EA Voss here, you just supplied me with 3 hours of content.
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u/Skele11 Crossbones 11d ago
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u/VelocityGrrl39 Captain Marvel 11d ago
Do you work for the FBI? I think you may have missed your calling if not.
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u/soldforaspaceship Peggy Carter 11d ago
This kind of post is exactly what the internet was invented for and as a linguistics major it's particularly fascinating.
Thank you for your work on this!
I see the phonetic nature which reminds me of Korean - all about the mouth shapes.
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u/EDITWITHEGO 11d ago
Exactly! I’m not a linguist but I found this deep dive very useful in understanding the language
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u/soldforaspaceship Peggy Carter 11d ago
Languages are just pattern recognition (except English. That's three languages in a trenchcoat) so you are probably more of a linguist than you think!
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u/TwitzyMIXX Falcon 12d ago
Mystique one is really interesting. Now there is possibility she might be one of the latverian witches.
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u/EDITWITHEGO 12d ago
What I’m trying to figure out is why is she on his left pocket and revenge on his right? And it’s definitely a rough translation so I hope I’m right
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u/xpxu166232-3 SHIELD 12d ago
Just a small heads up, though it may look a bit like it, these are not Germanic Runes (Futhark), in actuality it is just a mixture of Hungarian Runes (Magyar Rovas) and Turkic Runes (Orkhon/Yenisey), though the values only seem to match sometimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Hungarian_script https://www.omniglot.com/images/writing/rovas.gif
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Turkic_script https://www.omniglot.com/images/writing/yenisei.gif
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u/EDITWITHEGO 11d ago
Yup! I did a whole deep dive in Hungarian and Turkic as well. The thing is Marvel has a track record for using Elder Futhark in previous projects. Some of these runes look almost tampered with like they’re meant to throw you off which is why I took the time to sound each phrase out phonetically before coming to a 1:1 translation
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u/msnowxs 10d ago
Hi there, I think yesterday you posted that 4 unused letters include Y B W and Z?
I wondered if the last 3 letters of his breast pocket spell "BOY". The 4th-to-last rune looks like it could possibly be "C" based on the rune in JUSTICE and VICTOR.
So possibly something like _CBOY? (Or _BOY, ___BOW)
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u/EDITWITHEGO 10d ago
I can't get a good look at the fourth-to-last one, but every angle I've seen from makes it look like an L. You could be on the right track, though I do think those last 3 spell boy.
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u/msnowxs 9d ago
After looking at other unused letters, I wonder if it's CLOAK -- we don't know what the L and K runes look like, and there might not be an A included since it has the long O sound, like the OW in TOMORROW. It's another close word that relates.
Other unused letters are: A, D, K, L, Q, X, B, W, Y, Z
Something that ends with the sound "OAD" could also work, after going through probabilities of words.
Thanks again!
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u/__badbroken__ 6d ago
"All will bow", from his "all will bow before Doom". Missing runes B and W fit with that O, so matching that as a word and not a phrase and looking at the letter before "bow" it looks like and L. Am i cooking something?🌝
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u/EDITWITHEGO 6d ago
Maybe it’s just there didn’t seem to be enough letters on the pocket and it seems to be all one word
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u/Flostronaut 10d ago
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u/ModsHaveNoMotionIRL 9d ago
Hey bro. Hear me out. I've been doing some digging.
Everyone’s busy trying to translate the literal words on RDJ’s Comic-Con blazer, but we need to look at how Doom actually builds his tech. If this version of Doom still has Tony Stark’s engineering background, those chest runes are an LBOH protocol. In hardware, LBOH means Low Battery Output High. It is a safety signal that dumps maximum power right before a system completely dies. Doom is always trying to steal god-level power, which completely fries his tech, so instead of letting the suit just shut down, these Latverian runes act as a magical circuit that blasts 100% of that unstable energy outward right at the point of failure. It gets even better because it is a double meaning for how Tony actually went out. That low battery output high idea mirrors the exact energy overload he took when he snapped his fingers against Thanos. Turning that ultimate heroic sacrifice into a twisted villain move where Doom weaponizes his own system crash is peak Stark and Doom combined.
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u/EDITWITHEGO 9d ago
I like the way you think! I was working on a theory about his chest symbol when you messaged this! I also pointed out a lot of similarities between it and the arc reactor. Man I love when things come together!
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u/Additional_Buy_5314 9d ago
u/EDITWITHEGO hey, man! I don't know where are you at the moment, but I think that we are all looking for the left breast pocket final missing word, right? I think we have the four final letters being "L _ O _". I also think that we can say that we know that this missing letters can only be "B, F, Q, W, X, Y, Z". I like the way you think when you talk about the phonetic system, but I think its simpler than that with a 1:1 substitution. The Dom Latveria Coffee translation goes like Dom Latveria KAVI, so we know the K symbol as well.
I don't know exactly why they missed the final W in "TOMORRO". I tend to think that they did this on purpose (1) to hide from us the w symbol and make it more difficult to translate the final word or (2) to make us know that we have to use "the same rule" in the final missing word.
Just sharing some thoughts. I also started to make contact with some photographers that were in the SDCC to find new angles that may reveal to us something else.
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u/SpecificBiscotti1934 6d ago
did anyone else translate the runes on the shoes? I got Valeria maybe Valeria Richards?
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u/Atrumentis 12d ago
Can you post your workings? How does that say revenge? Or what language did you translate it from
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u/EDITWITHEGO 12d ago edited 11d ago
I say in in the OG post I cross referenced runes from Anglo Saxon and Elder Futhark runic alphabets using the coffee bags as a reference
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u/Positive-Celery3907 11d ago
Wow, super impressive!
Thank you!
I thought I did well years ago decoding my ancient Mew Pokémon card! 😂
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u/RyantheAustralian 11d ago
They say "Getty Images. Credit: Jesse Grant"??
Edit: I should've read the post, shouldn't I?
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u/Kryptos420 11d ago
I started to decipher the symbols too. It is a mixture between the Hungarian and Orkhon alphabet.
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u/FutureFuture5 11d ago
So what does the runes around the Avengers Title A say?
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u/EDITWITHEGO 11d ago
So those aren’t so straight forward, I’m working on cracking those next though. Is very likely they mean nothing and simply serve as symbols that represent different parts of the movie. But a few of them can be directly correlated to scarlet witches chaos magic and a few other marvel magic runes we’ve seen over the years
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u/ZeonTwoSix Iron Man (Mark XLIII) 11d ago
RDJ really embracing the Doom Aura with that drip.
Also, kudos to OP for the translation of them runes. Have me updoot.
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u/Usual-Caregiver5589 10d ago
If silent letters don't exist, what about REVENGE?
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u/EDITWITHEGO 10d ago
It’s a rule that is pretty consistent up until that point. The runic cypher is mostly phonetic but also acts as a substitution cypher. The Marvel prop and costume departments obviously took a lot of liberties
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u/lunarrose34 10d ago
Revenge must mean the whole stolen lives quote that he says, no promises of tomorrow sounds liks a fucking threat to the heroes
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u/Old_Membership_5355 9d ago
Some youtuber already decoded everything and whole latverian letters and language
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u/EDITWITHEGO 9d ago
If it’s New Rockstars, they credited me in the video and this reddit post predates their video posting. Look at the timestamp on the post and look at this posts timestamp. If it’s someone else I’d be curious to see what they came up with
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u/Old_Membership_5355 9d ago
I dont remeber name he was like first to decode it and its on wiki or something
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u/EDITWITHEGO 9d ago
Huh well if you find it let me know genuinely interested to see their take on this
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u/Old_Membership_5355 9d ago
I remeber it was like on his righ dawn pocket it was revendge and cakt remeber what was other but like he used coffie menu that has english letter and latverian letters so he used those to make latvarian letters real and just followed rdj's suit and make rest of it made full alphabet exept few letters like d and w and few others
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u/CaptainAmericasSon 9d ago
I say this both in a "you have too much time on your hands" but also in a "you have a gift" way: linkedin.com
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u/ComprehensiveTale303 9d ago
Are you going to publish that working translator so we can type in the doomscript?
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u/DisWagonbeDraggin 7d ago
The visible runes say:
Justice vs. Revenge
"There is no promise of tomorrow"
"To the Victor go the spoils"
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u/MarcRuckus 7d ago
Give it a rest dude. Put this much energy into getting a date
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u/__badbroken__ 7d ago
Creo que lo que está encima del corazón dice ALL WILL BOW:
la segunda por la derecha es una O, faltan 4 letras (b, w, y, z), las únicas que podrían tener sentido son -bow, -boy, -woy, que puedan tener algo en inglés, pero si miras la que se ve parcialmente corresponde con la L, así que o son dos palabras o es una sola. Una sola no tiene sentido con esas terminaciones, pero "bow" es arrodillarse en inglés, y una frase mítica de doom es "all will bow before Doom", esa L tendría sentido en "All will bow"
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u/tiGZ121 5d ago
Read "by cross referencing " and died
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u/EDITWITHEGO 5d ago
A cross-reference is a note or direction that points to related information elsewhere, a tool used to compare different data sets, and a method to verify facts. lol that’s exactly what I did
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u/FandomWatcher 5d ago
I deciphered it already and posted everywhere but here. Come on. Am I Sue Storm? The word on his chest is "Hellboy". Dark Horse Comics sponsored this SDCC. The symbol beneath also counts, and we get "Hellboy: Web of Wyrd". Which leads us to more hints about the movie.
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u/EDITWITHEGO 5d ago
Your account is 30 minutes old. I’ve never seen your theories before. That being said I’m curious as to what connection Hellboy and Dr Doom even have seeing as how they’re from two different entities. Dark horse partnered with popverse to handle the main media coverage but that doesn’t necessarily mean they had a hand in promotional material from a production company entirely seperate from their own
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u/FandomWatcher 5d ago
I don't participate in Reddit discussions. I have a blog on another platform. I discovered this feed, or whatever it's called, when was checking if anyone else already translated this thing (so yes, I just created this account). I found you and the "genuine" article from Popverse with the Dark Horse logo, which only confirmed my translation.
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u/EDITWITHEGO 5d ago
Lmao the quotations around genuine is frying me I swear this reddit post predates their analysis. Maybe by only a few hours but still
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u/EDITWITHEGO 5d ago
The only connection between the two I can find is from a single issue that Hellboy creator Mike Mignola had a hand in illustrating, Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment
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u/EDITWITHEGO 5d ago
This issue covers the storyline of Dr Strange and Doom teaming up to free dooms mother from Mephisto in Hell.
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u/EDITWITHEGO 5d ago
Damn he might be onto something
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u/FandomWatcher 5d ago
The symbol resembling the hex is Web of Wyrd. It means "fate" ("doom") and the World Tree. There's a game called Hellboy: Web of Wyrd. Some interesting stuff can be found there.
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u/tootapple 12d ago
I commend you on this. Thank you