According to my friend the Futhorc was the original writing system for English. But apparently we don’t have lot of evidence of it being used.
But then I find pages mapping out the whole alphabet. I’ll give such an example so you know what what I’m talking about.
How does the writer of this know about all of these runes to tell us how the written language was when we don’t have a lot of information about it. It seems like another one of those cases, like with British pagan gods, where everything we know about them is assumed from nearby regions and by what little extremely biased sources have said about it and the names of places.
Yet there are people who seem to prefer pretend when it comes to these subjects. They don’t like admitting we don’t know, so they just make things up.
Usage and commonality is unclear. From at least five centuries of use, fewer than 200 artifacts bearing futhorc inscriptions have survived.
But in everything that I read about this subject, this stands out to me the most. And I wonder if I’m the only one that is skeptical of all of it. It seems like they are saying they have more information that it makes sense that they could possibly have.
I understand I’m ignorant about the subject but I want to be able to understand how confidently they are reading the runes and their meaning. Identified, I believe. Interpretted correctly, I doubt.
We have enough to know it was used. I mean, those 200 artefacts aren’t all forgeries.
And there’s more there, than there is for Elder Futhark on the continent. Hell, relative to area, there’s way more there than for all Elder Futhark, Scandinavia included.
The current interpretations account for regional and temporal variations in the writing, already. But when some artefacts like the Frank’s casket and Cuthbert’s coffin have mixtures of Latin script and runes, it’s not actually that hard to work out.
Also, it’s similar to many other writing systems (including the one we still use). If you see a rune and you’re not sure what it means, but it looks a lot like some letter that you do know, it’s a reasonable guess, at least as a starting point.