Linguistic variation in the early runic inscriptions of Scandinavia

Hans Frede Nielsen

Fri. 11-12:40 B

The early runic inscriptions were written with 24-letter futhark, the majority of the more than 150 runic items stemming from southern Scandinavia. Although this alphabet was represented in the inscriptions from the 2nd century to just after 700 A.D., the language attested in the runic legends remained uniform only up to c. 500.

But even the finds dating back to before 500 A.D. show linguistic variation: this holds true of, e.g., the accented vowel in the weak 3 pt. sg. ind. forms faihido (Vetteland stone, c. 350) and fahido (Rö stone, c. 400) 'painted', which could reflect a shift of *ai to a[[currency]] before h, and the suffix of the weak 3 pt. sg. ind. forms tawide (GarbØlle box, c. 400) 'made' and talgidai (NØvling clasp, c. 200) 'carved', where -ai has been explained either as an inverse spelling (reflecting a change of unaccented *-ai to -e[[currency]]) or perhaps as the phonological predecessor of -e.

The question of linguistic variation in the runic inscriptions before 500 A.D. has been highlighted by the emergence of some very early runic finds in Denmark within the last two decades. The Udby clasp from c. 200 discovered in Sjælland just a few years ago showed yet another weak 3 pt. sg. ind. suffix in talgida 'carved', some scholars identifying the -a with the corresponding Gothic suffix. The most spectacular recent finds, however, have been the Illerup ådal inscriptions (2nd century A.D.) discovered near Århus in Jutland. These legends exhibit what must be assumed to be nsm. n-stem forms in -o (wagnijo, nibijo, personal names) along with nsm. forms in -a (warta, lagubewa, also personal names). Traditionally, -a has been thought to be the nsm. n-stem marker and -o to be the nsf. suffix.

In my paper I shall discuss the implications of such variation for determining the position of the early runic language within Germanic.