Pan-Germanic Logograms

A forum for discussing linguistics or just languages in general.
Ephraim
sinic
sinic
Posts: 386
Joined: 15 Nov 2013 13:10
Location: Sweden

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Ephraim »

My suggestion is that the characters henceforth be referred to as runes (in PG, nom.sg. rūnō, nom.pl. rūnôz; MSw runor). These can be divided by function into sound runes (phonograms, hleuþa-rūnôz; MSw ljudrunor) and word runes (logograms, wurda-rūnôz; MSw ordrunor). A special type of word runes are the name runes (namna-rūnôz; MSw namnrunor) which are used for a few proper names.

The runes can also be divided by age into old runes (furna-rūnôz; MSw fornrunor), which were introduced roughly in Proto-Germanic times and were inherited by all Germanic languages (although some may have fallen out of use) and new runes (newja-rūnôz; MSw nyrunor) which were invented later and may have a limited geographic spread.

Certain runes are ligatures composed of other runes. These are called bind runes (banda-rūnôr; MSw bandrunor or bindrunor). These can also be divided by function. For example, a word bind rune may be composed of two word runes to suggest a combined meaning, or a sound rune and a word rune with one suggesting pronunciation an one meaning. Multiple sound runes can be combined to form a sound bind rune, which is common in endings etc. The bind runes can of course be new and old.

Certain runes are clearly derived from other runes, but if they're not clearly composed of more than one other rune, they should not be considered bind runes.

Note that due to the fact that the runes have variable width, simple horizontal stacking is not possible. The characters need to be bound together (that's why they're bind runes, I guess).

I've composed a sorted sheet of all runes in my library, which should include almost all proposals in this thread. It does not include sound bind runes (phonographic ligatures) used for endings, though.

The sound runes are basically the Elder Fuþark. Two Fuþark-runes have somewhat uncertain use. I also added two additional sound runes borrowed from the Gothic alphabet in the uncertain category.

I made some changes to a few proposals:
  • <maht/iz> ‘ability; strength’ is reassigned to <meg/anan> ‘to be able’ (> ME may) as I think the most basic meaning ‘ability’ can be transparently derived from ‘to be able’ with the *-þiz-suffix. I think <*stad/iz> can have it's own rune though as the derivation from *standanan or *stānan is not as transparent due to the strange behaviour of this root and the Verner voicing of the suffix. The meaning isn't as clearly derived from the verb either.
  • The <*munþ/az>-rune received some extra lines to differentiate it from <ŋ>.
  • I reinterpreted some of k1234567890y's compound glyphs as ligatures.
  • The water rune with a <w> was reinterpreted as a wave, borrowing part of the wind character.
I may have missed some proposals.

Image
Last edited by Ephraim on 27 Sep 2015 00:19, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
Ahzoh
mongolian
mongolian
Posts: 4191
Joined: 20 Oct 2013 02:57
Location: Canada

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Ahzoh »

I especially like the glyph for "yon".
I shall have something like that in the Taksheyut logograph.
Image Śād Warḫallun (Vrkhazhian) [ WIKI | CWS ]
Prinsessa
runic
runic
Posts: 2647
Joined: 07 Nov 2011 14:42

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Prinsessa »

I just want to throw it in there that "binderunor" sounds much more natural to me than "bindrunor". [:x]

I think some of these look way too cluttered and odd but I like the basic æsthetic, especially of the simpler runes! [tick] And I like how the north and south runes seem to be pointing in their ancient directions and not their modern ones.

I wouldn't be too afraid of having some potentially more complex characters be similar or nearly identical to the sound runes; there are kanji and kana characters in Japanese that look almost identical as well (sometimes only differing somewhat in size or proportion, a near-artificial distinction which I can imagine easily gets erased in handwriting or cursive variants anyway) — having the 'hand' rune look more like the simple <z> sound rune or perhaps like the 'south' rune without the bottom lines on the sides, would look more pleasing IMO.

Basing the ability rune on the hand rune makes a lot of sense BTW, at least to me — there's a similar connection in my conlang. [B)]

As for the more complex ones, I like 'blow', 'ice' and 'Sleipnir' a lot!

---

Also a random personal suggestion for a rune that came to my mind just now (done quick and dirty so you can clean it up if you like it; I used the <t> sound rune and duplicated the top part — perhaps one side should be rounded in line with the north/south ones but I guess it'd have to be the top, which would be a bit weird):

Image

<*arhw/ō>

Perhaps a combined character could be made for the Scandinavian word 'pil' by combining the character for the tree, whatever that will be, and this character.
Ahzoh wrote:I especially like the glyph for "yon".
I shall have something like that in the Taksheyut logograph.
Heh, that's one I didn't like much at all.
clawgrip
MVP
MVP
Posts: 2257
Joined: 24 Jun 2012 07:33
Location: Tokyo

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by clawgrip »

Here is my version of those glyphs (including an updated version of the water rune):



Image


I also propose the following new runes:

Image
*hundaz/hound, *fuglaz/fowl, *trewą/tree, *tungǭ/tongue

Also, just so we know, the rune for "stone" is extremely transparently based on Chinese (cf. 石; the archaic forms of this character are even more similar). I know some people were complaining about Chinese origins, and that one kind of sticks out to me.

EDIT: It occurs to me that "stand" and "location" should have the foot-like serifs that appear in the "fish" rune. I will fix that later.
Ephraim
sinic
sinic
Posts: 386
Joined: 15 Nov 2013 13:10
Location: Sweden

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Ephraim »

Some of the earliest proposals may stick out a bit because the style hadn't been quite nailed down. On the other hand, it's good to have a bit of variation in design for readability.

The <*hand/uz> rune was actually based on <*hald/anan> rather than the other way around, and the latter was first drawn with only straight lines. Design-wise, these runes actually stick out a bit because they have arcs that are not divisible by 90°. So below are rune closer to <z> along with other derived runes. I think the updated <*hand/uz> rune fit better into in with the other runes, but I'm not quite sure what to do with <*hald/anan>.

I'm not actually too fond of the <*jain/az> rune either but I think the way I drew it is a bit off. The idea is that it represents an arrow being shot and landing on a far away place. I think arrow-symbols for pointing in a direction is a bit of an anachronism. According to Wikipedia, arrows as a symbol for pointing developed in the 18th century. But my thinking is that this isn't just an arrow symbol, it's really supposed to be an arrow flying through the sky. I tried some new variants, which are somewhat closer to clawgrip's variant.

I also thought that the <*gast/iz> rune really stood out form the other in a text. I like the basic pictographic nature of it, though. Below are two slightly modified version.

The unassigned <!person> rune is based on a transitional form of the <m>-rune found in the early younger Fuþark:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannaz
I think the closest to a gender and age-neutral word for person in Early Germanic is in fact the word *mannaz/*mannô, which is also the root of the adjective *manniskaz (> MG Mensch, MSw människa, both nouns meaning ‘human being’) but I think it may have had the specific sense of ‘adult male’ already in the earliest languages, alongside the more general sense of ‘human’.

The <!person>-rune is also found in <*dew/anan> which is supposed to be an upside down person pierced by an arrow.

Image
Prinsessa wrote:Also a random personal suggestion for a rune that came to my mind just now (done quick and dirty so you can clean it up if you like it; I used the <t> sound rune and duplicated the top part — perhaps one side should be rounded in line with the north/south ones but I guess it'd have to be the top, which would be a bit weird):

Image

<*arhw/ō>

Perhaps a combined character could be made for the Scandinavian word 'pil' by combining the character for the tree, whatever that will be, and this character.
Good idea! Makes sense for "pil", I think.

I would draw the lines straight. I tend to use curved upwards pointing branches and straight downward pointing (althought there are multiple exceptions). There's not much of a reason for this except I think I've noticed a tendency towards this distribution in runic inscriptions (may be imagined).
clawgrip wrote:I also propose the following new runes:

Image
*hundaz/hound, *fuglaz/fowl, *trewą/tree, *tungǭ/tongue
They look nice!
clawgrip wrote:(including an updated version of the water rune):
Looks much better!
clawgrip wrote:Also, just so we know, the rune for "stone" is extremely transparently based on Chinese (cf. [...]; the archaic forms of this character are even more similar). I know some people were complaining about Chinese origins, and that one kind of sticks out to me.
I guess it's fine to borrow ideas from archaic Chinese for how to represent certain concepts, but this one does stick out a bit to me as well, because the Chinese character seems very idiosyncratic in it's attempt to represent a stone. According to Wiktionary originated as:
"Pictogram ([...]): a stone beneath a cliff ([...]). The cliff was subsequently distorted into [...]. Alternatively, a cave set into the side of a cliff or mountain."

The design itself actually works pretty good for a rune, I think, but perhaps it should be assigned to something else. Stone seems like a very significant concept for a culture that wrote a lot in stone. On real life rune stones, it's quite possible that stæinn (specifically the accusative singular stæin) is the most common word as they typically just tell you who raised a particular stone after whom. So perhaps the <stain/az> rune should depict a raised runestone?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runestone

I think i did borrow the idea for guest from of a chinese character which according to Wiktionary was originally an "Ideogrammic compound ([...]): [...] ‎(“roof”) + [...] ‎(“individual”) – a individual ([...]) under a roof ([...]) – a guest. Oracle bone script used [...] instead of [...]." The <gast/iz> rune does look a bit like early versions of the chinese character, if only for the fact that it's something that's under a roof. Although it's a person in a house who is offered a table or something similar.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%AE%A2

I had to edit out all Chinese characters because trying to post them yielded a MySQL error. I've been told the forum doesn't handle all of Unicode.
tezcatlip0ca
hieroglyphic
hieroglyphic
Posts: 59
Joined: 05 Jun 2014 07:24

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by tezcatlip0ca »

Do you have any idea about how number roots could be represented beyond about three or four?
clawgrip
MVP
MVP
Posts: 2257
Joined: 24 Jun 2012 07:33
Location: Tokyo

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by clawgrip »

This should do: Pentimal system

The positional system listed there would make it easier than a Roman-numeral style system. The Wikipedia page suggests they may not be authentic, but then, neither are pan-Germanic logograms, so we could just go ahead and use those. They are over 100 years old at least.
tezcatlip0ca
hieroglyphic
hieroglyphic
Posts: 59
Joined: 05 Jun 2014 07:24

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by tezcatlip0ca »

Would it be more appropriate to use these for 1-10, for example, then {1,2}+"leave", {3-9}+10, and then logograms for "-ty" and "hund-"?
clawgrip
MVP
MVP
Posts: 2257
Joined: 24 Jun 2012 07:33
Location: Tokyo

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by clawgrip »

I don't think there's any reason to make it that complex. This would be like writing 9ty (90ty?) and 100red (1red?), which seems excessively redundant and confusing. Numeral glyphs can adapt quite readily to linguistic variation. You will notice how so-called Arabic numerals are understood more or less worldwide with no fiddling; if you write <90>. its meaning will be understood by anyone familiar with these numerals, regardless of what language they speak and what morphemes make up their spoken numbers, and I think it should be so with the runic numerals as well.

If the numbers are positional then they will function identically to Arabic numerals, and only suffixes like -th will need to be marked explicitly.

If they are not positional, then they will most likely function similar to Roman numerals.
Ephraim
sinic
sinic
Posts: 386
Joined: 15 Nov 2013 13:10
Location: Sweden

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Ephraim »

I like the suggestion of using something close to the pentimal system. Apparently, there many ways to actually write the numbers but the basic idea seem to be that a I-shape represent 1 and a U-shape 5 (or V-shape, I suppose) much like Roman numerals.
Spoiler:
Image
Image
Image
I imagine that the Pan-Germanic numerals may have had a similar development to the real life Pentimal system: they started out like an additive system much like Roman numerals (but I don't think there should be a subtractive rule like with Roman numerals) but the numerals 1–9 was later reused in a new positional numeral system influenced by the Hindu-Arabic numeral system used in the Romance speaking Europe. I think a new number 0 should be borrowed from this system, rather than using the number 10.

So something like this, drawing the numerals in a way so that they don't collide with established runes:
Image

There should also be a symbol for a hundred and a thousand, possibly half a hundred and half a thousand but I'm not sure what the best design is.

Note that in some older Germanic languages, hundred actually means 120 and thousand means 1200. For example, in Pre-Christian Old Norse, 90=níu tigir, 100=tíu tigir, 110=ellifu tigir and 120=hundrað. In Old English, 100, 110 and 120 (!) was often treated like the decades but I think 200 was still "tū hund". So originally (at least in some languages), the symbol for a hundred might have represented 120 but it probably shifted to meaning 100 along with the shift in meaning of the word.

Even after the shift to a positional system, the numerals 10-20, as well as a hundred and a thousand, might still be used as logograms. In English, we still have the possibility of spelling out the numbers, so I imagine this would often be done in Pan-Germanic logograms outside of more scientific or mathematical contexts.

The rune for 1 would of course be used for the indefinite article in many Germanic languages.
Prinsessa wrote:I just want to throw it in there that "binderunor" sounds much more natural to me than "bindrunor". [:x]
Well, that's a third possibility. In Icelandic, they're called bandrúnir and I sort of like the idea of calling them bandrunor, like they're a string of runes. But I get only a few hits searching for bandrunor in Swedish. Bindrunor seems to be the most common form, but binderunor does occur as well.
tezcatlip0ca
hieroglyphic
hieroglyphic
Posts: 59
Joined: 05 Jun 2014 07:24

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by tezcatlip0ca »

I would like to offer the Anglo-Saxon stan rune for "stone". It certainly looks like an erected runestone, and its name is already a reflex of *stainaz. Besides, it’s not like we could use it for anything else; any /st/ clusters would be represented by a *sowilo+tiwaz bindrune.
clawgrip
MVP
MVP
Posts: 2257
Joined: 24 Jun 2012 07:33
Location: Tokyo

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by clawgrip »

Sounds like a good idea to me.
clawgrip
MVP
MVP
Posts: 2257
Joined: 24 Jun 2012 07:33
Location: Tokyo

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by clawgrip »

Just a couple more:

Image
*nusō/nose, *naglaz/nail, *mēnô/moon, *hurną/horn, *stainaz/stone

Acceptable?
User avatar
Thrice Xandvii
runic
runic
Posts: 2698
Joined: 25 Nov 2012 10:13
Location: Carnassus

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

Those look pretty nice, though I'm not a big fan of 'nail' for some reason. Maybe it's the two vertical lines that are so close together?
Image
User avatar
Lambuzhao
korean
korean
Posts: 5405
Joined: 13 May 2012 02:57

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Lambuzhao »

Good Lord, how this is developing!
[+1] [O.O] [:'(] :mrgreen:

Although this is a late suggestion, French conlanger Ziecken Azuris developed a sort of cursive~non-hewn version of the Futhark for his conlangs Elko , Urque, et al.

http://i48.servimg.com/u/f48/12/18/56/51/futhar10.jpg

http://saiwosh.pagesperso-orange.fr/runes.jpg


Zeiken Azuris' conlang Wikia on the same
http://www.europalingua.eu/ideopedia/in ... exicologie

These might or might not inform how to reduce strokes for bindrunes, mebbe Elkan is the 'Arial' sans serif Futhark....whatevs.

A couple of suggestions about numbers.

Considering the mirror-runes for 10 and 20, consider 100 as a "big ten", i.e.


which is, ironically, an alternate Roman glyph for M (1000).

I have no idea how to accommodate slashes for 2000, 3000, etc., except by putting them inside the ↀ, which may well become very cramped/confusing. Well, I'm throwing it out here, just the same.

A possible glyph for the concept of hundrað could be to take that glyph above and absorb into it a mirrored /r/ rune, which would basically look like a conjoined version of these:

ЯR
... or the mid-section of this pretty famous glyph (and a fair nod to its maker, I might add):

Image

after all, he has inspired a hundrað x hundrað :con: ideas at the very least [;)]

This would much easier to accommodate strokes for 2-hunrað, 3-hundrað, etc. : just lengthen the tail at the bottom and diagonal-stroke away!



For þusand, I could think of nothing else but the þorn with stroke rune:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_with_stroke

I propose it for these two reasons:
1) - It shares the visual vertical-stroke + bump aesthetic of the 5,10 pentimals (but goes in the other direction)
2) - It happens to already be an existing brevigraph in Old English runology (for the definite article).

Really nice collective work, folks!

:mrgreen:
clawgrip
MVP
MVP
Posts: 2257
Joined: 24 Jun 2012 07:33
Location: Tokyo

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by clawgrip »

You really only need a single glyph for hundred.

Brahmi and descendants had numbers for 1 through 10, the powers of ten up to 100, glyphs for 200 and 300, and a glyph for 1000. The Brahmi system worked pretty much the same as Chinese.
Ephraim
sinic
sinic
Posts: 386
Joined: 15 Nov 2013 13:10
Location: Sweden

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Ephraim »

The larger numbers can be placed horizontally on the line and added together. For example, 35 can be written as 20+15.

For hundred and thousand, only one rune each is needed but I think it's neat to have two version where on is "double" the other. This saves a lot of space, and I think it aids in reading numbers because it doesn't involve as much counting large rows of identical symbols.

I'm not sure if we should have one hundred and two hundred, or half a hundred and one hundred, though:
Image

The designs are based on Lambuzhao's suggestions, with some modifications.

Whether a hundred in 120 or 100 probably depends on the language, as the actual words had different meanings.
Ephraim
sinic
sinic
Posts: 386
Joined: 15 Nov 2013 13:10
Location: Sweden

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Ephraim »

I've changes some of the hleuþa-binda-runôz (phonetic ligatures), based on previous suggestions. Some of them have become simpler. Many sound runes have simplified variants used in ligatures. I use clawgrip's squished <ō> in ligatures where a vertical stave is required.

I've added two special letters which are also often found in ligatures: <ᴛ> and <ɴ>. These represent word-final unstressed *t and *n respectively, that were later lost. At the earliest stage, Proto-Germanic Proper, these would have been written and pronounced the same as regular <t> and <n>. But at a relatively early stage, *n was dropped in word-final position in unstressed syllables (nasalization of the vowel preceding vowel remained). Later, the same happened to *t after sonorants which created new word-final *n from clusters *-nt#. This appears to have happened after the split of Northwest and East Germanic (which is why the sound change is not included in Proto-Germanic Proper) but it is nevertheless common to all Germanic languages. The reconstructions found on Wiktionary include these changes, so *-an# is written as <ą>, *-unt as <un> and *-at as <a>. Some descriptions of PG (Orel for example) don't include these changes, so it's good to be aware of this difference.

To a certain extent, lost *t was analogically reintroduced in the later Germanic languages but apparently not the same way in all languages. This is the reason for the difference in neuter adjectives, where some languages have a t-form, some a zero-form (from *-a#) and some both. The *t was regularly lost, but it must have been reintroduced in analogy with monosyllabic pronouns where it remained. Gothic and North Germanic t-forms are hard to reconsile so they are probably independent innovations.

I guess the idea is that at the same stage where the ligatures was created, silent <t> and <n> (the later still indicating nasalization) came to be written differently from regular <t> and <n>. In the spirit of orthographic conservatism, they couldn't just be dropped at this stage, though. But unless they stood on their own, they where mostly just written as a diacritical mark on the preceding rune.

Especially <ᴛ> is mostly of interest for writing Proto-Germanic itself. I think this letter and the diacritic form can simply be dropped at some point in the later languages. In cases where *t was analogically reintroduced, a normal <t> should be used, and the *-at-ending with silent *t can be written <ᴀ> (or not at all depending on the language). Final *-nt can be written <n> as this is still different from <ɴ>. The weak past indicative 3sg ending *-dēt can drop the <ᴛ>-diacritic. But if in this fictional universe, there was a lot of Proto-Germanic writing around (like old religious texts), perhaps <ᴛ> still has some use for making texts look deliberately archaic.

There is more use for <ɴ> as nasalized final vowels sometimes develop differently from other vowels.

Perhaps *j should also get a similar treatment because it was often lost between vowels and before unstressed *j (most prominently in verbs). This lost *j was also often analogically reintroduced, especially in West Germanic (to the point where some think it wasn't lost in the first place) but to a lesser extent in other branches as well. Note that Ringe/Wiktionary don't include the lost *j (but Orel does) which means a lot of *j:s reappear in the later languages if you start from this reconstruction.

Image
tezcatlip0ca wrote:I would like to offer the Anglo-Saxon stan rune for "stone". It certainly looks like an erected runestone, and its name is already a reflex of *stainaz. Besides, it’s not like we could use it for anything else; any /st/ clusters would be represented by a *sowilo+tiwaz bindrune.
This is a good idea!
clawgrip wrote:Just a couple more:

Image
*nusō/nose, *naglaz/nail, *mēnô/moon, *hurną/horn, *stainaz/stone

Acceptable?
Yes, looks good I think.
tezcatlip0ca
hieroglyphic
hieroglyphic
Posts: 59
Joined: 05 Jun 2014 07:24

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by tezcatlip0ca »

Is there an online source where I can find Proto-Germanic endings reconstructed with final *-n and *-t and medial *-j- conserved, like we are using here? I found Orel’s "A handbook of Germanic etymology" on Gutenberg, but that just shows the lexemes, not the endings.
Prinsessa
runic
runic
Posts: 2647
Joined: 07 Nov 2011 14:42

Re: Pan-Germanic Logograms

Post by Prinsessa »

Some of them might be fairly easy to figure out based on the forms without these endings compared to the PIE forms and the fact that they remain in most modern West Germanic languages (North Germanic mostly lost -n even when it was a true stop and not nasalisation of the preceding vowel, but West Germanic including English generally did not at least in monosyllabic words).

For example, the word 'ten' in English might be listed as PG *tehun but was *tehunt even earlier, which you can figure out based on the fact that the n remains as a stop in most modern West Germanic varieties and by looking at the PIE etymon, *déḱm̥t.

The ones with j might require more work, tho, seeing as they pop in and out of existence...
Post Reply