Runic alphabet (Elder Futhark)
Rúnar
The Runic alphabet — more precisely called the Elder Futhark — is the oldest Germanic writing system, used across northern Europe from roughly 150 to 800 CE. Its 24 angular letters were carved into stone, wood, and metal by the peoples we now call Goths, Saxons, and early Norse. Later variants include the 16-rune Younger Futhark used by the Vikings and the 33-rune Anglo-Saxon Futhorc used in Old English.
All 24 letters
History
The word "futhark" comes from the first six letters of the runic sequence — ᚠ ᚢ ᚦ ᚨ ᚱ ᚲ — F U Th A R K. The Elder Futhark was used by the Germanic peoples on the fringes of the Roman Empire and likely descends, distantly, from an Italic script like Etruscan or Old Italic. Runes were carved, not written, which is why their shapes avoid horizontal lines (hard to carve along wood grain) and curves (hard to chisel). Each rune had a name, a sound value, and a symbolic meaning — ᚠ was "fehu" (cattle, wealth), ᛏ was "tiwaz" (the god Tyr). The Viking Age saw the shorter Younger Futhark replace it, and Christianization eventually replaced runes entirely with the Latin alphabet, though runic inscriptions persisted in rural Sweden into the 19th century.
Things you might not know
- Each rune has a name in the Old Germanic language — ᚠ is fehu (cattle/wealth), ᚢ is uruz (aurochs/strength), ᚦ is thurisaz (giant).
- The rune ᛒ (berkanan, birch) gave us the letter B — not from Phoenician, but possibly by coincidence of shape.
- The rune ᚦ (thurisaz) was borrowed into Old English as "thorn" (þ) and is still the reason Icelandic uses þ today.
- There is no runic "alphabet" per se — Anglo-Saxon, Elder, and Younger Futhark differ substantially in which runes they contain.