Keyboard Layouts : Runic

Runic Keyboard Layouts

This page provides various Keyboard Layouts for the Runic script, for use with PCs running Windows NT4, 2000 or XP (N.B. the keyboard layouts cannot be installed or run on systems running Windows 95, 98 or ME).

Please scroll to the bottom of the page for instructions on downloading and installing the Runic Keyboard Layouts.

About the Runic Script

The Runic script was used in Northern Europe to write various Germanic languages from about the 3rd century A.D. up until the close of the Middle Ages. The Runic script is commonly known as the Fuþark or Fuþorc after the first six letters of the script.

The Runic script is clearly releated to the Latin script, as can be seen from the Runic letters for A, B, K, F, H, I, M, R, S and T, although it is believed to be derived from a North Italic script rather than Latin itself.

The original "Common Germanic Fuþark" comprising twenty-four letters was developed on Continental Europe, but spread throughout Scandanavia, as far as Iceland, Greenland and Orkney; as well as to Anglo-Saxon England. As the Runic script spread, it became adapted and modified for use with the particular Germanic language of its users, and so a number of distinct Runic traditions developed, with varying numbers of letters, as few as sixteen or as many as thirty-four. Four main runic traditions can be adduced :

• Common Germanic Fuþark (also known as the "Old Fuþark") : the earliest form of the runic script, comprising twenty-four letters, that is represented in inscriptions dating from the 5th through 8th centuries in Sweden and elsewhere in continental Europe (examples of the Common Germanic Fuþark are inscribed on the Gothic stone from Kylver; bracteates from Vadstena and Grumpan; a silver fibula from Charnay; and a stone pillar from Breza).
• Scandinavian Fuþark (also known as the "Yonger Fuþark") : a reduced form of the runic script, comprising only sixteen letters, that was used in various forms throughout Scandinavia and in areas of Danish and Viking settlement from the ninth century through to the early middle ages. The following variations on the sixteen-letter runic script can be distinguished :
  • Danish Fuþąrk (also known as "long-branch runes" ) : current from the 9th century in Denamark and later spread to Sweden (this Fuþark is typified by the inscription on the Gørlev stone).
  • Swedish-Norwegian Fuþąrk (also known as "short-twig runes" ) : current from the 9th century in Sweden and Norway (this Fuþark is typified by the inscription on the Rök stone).
  • Norwegian Mixed Fuþąrk : a form of the sixteen-letter runic script which supplanted the Swedish-Norwegian Fuþąrk in Norway, and that derives from both the Danish and Swedish-Norwegian Fuþąrks,.
  • Hälsinge Runes (also known as "staveless runes") : a highly simplified form of the sixteen-letter runic script in which most runes have been reduced to a single stroke.
• Scandinavian Pointed Runic Alphabet (also known as "dotted runes") : an extended runic script with additional sounds differentiated by means of dotted and undotted versions of some letters (e.g. dotted T = D, dotted K = G, dotted B = P) that became current throughout Scandanavia from the early 13th century (these "dotted runes" are typified by the inscription on the Saleby stone dated 1228).
• Anglo-Saxon Fuþorc : an extended runic script comprising twenty-eight and later as many as thirty-three letters, that was probably devised in Frisia as early the 5th century (as indicated by several Frisian runic inscriptions from the 5th-7th centuries that use "Anglo-Saxon" runes), and later spread to England (examples of the Anglo-Saxon Fuþorc are found on the Thames scramasax [28 letters], the Vienna Codex [28 letters], the now-destroyed Cotton MS Otho B x [33 letters] and the Ruthwell Cross inscription [31 letters]).

In addition to ordinary runes, cryptic runes known as Hahalruna runes may be found, for example on the Hackness Cross in England. These cryptic runes comprise a single vertical stem with varying numbers of diagonal strokes on each side, which are used to indicate the position of a particular rune in the fuþark of the particular time and place. The fuþark is divided into a number of sections, known in Icelandic as ættir; in the Common Germanic fuþark there are normally three ættir, each comprising eight runes. In hahalruna runes, the number of diagonal strokes on the left side of the vertical stem denotes the ættir, whilst the number of diagonal strokes on the right side of the vertical stem denotes the rune within the ættir. Thus the hahalruna rune which looks like rune ᛏ [U+16CF] denotes the first rune in the first ættir (i.e. the rune ᚠ [U+16A0]).

The prevalence of vertical and diagonal strokes, and the absence of horizontal strokes suggests that runes were originally devised specifically for carving on wood (with the grain running horizontally). Surviving Runic inscriptions are found on a wide range of materials, from sword blades (known as scramasax) to whalebone caskets, but the largest number are found engraved on stone monuments. There are relatively few usages of the Runic script in surviving manuscripts, although in Anglo-Saxon texts runes are sometimes used as shorthand abbreviations for their name (e.g. ᛗ for mann "man") , and the rune ᚦ Thorn was used to represent "th" in English well into the Middle Ages.

Unicode Encoding of the Runic Script

The Runic block (16A0..16FF) of Unicode comprises 81 characters, of which 75 are runic letters, three are runic punctuation marks (Runic Single Punctuation [᛫], Runic Multiple Punctuation [᛬] and Runic Cross Punctuation [᛭]), and three are runic symbols used in mediaeval Scandinavian calendar staves (Runic Arlaug Symbol [ᛮ], Runic Tvimadur Symbol [ᛯ] and Runic Belgthor Symbol [ᛰ]).

The 75 Unicode runic letter characters are intended to represent all of the various shapes and forms of runic letters that are found in the various fuþarks and runic alphabets. Each runic letter form is only encoded once regardless of how many runic fuþarks or alphabets it occurs in, so that, for example, the character U+16A0 ᚠ [RUNIC LETTER FEHU FEOH FE F] represents the Common Germanic rune fehu, the Danish rune feu, the Norwegian rune fé, the Scandinavian runic letter F and the Anglo-Saxon rune feoh. On the other hand, if the form of a rune representing a given phonetic value varies substantially from one runic fuþark or alphabet to another, then each distinct form is encoded separately. Thus, U+16BA ᚺ [RUNIC LETTER HAGLAZ H] represents the Common Germanic rune hagalaz, U+16BC ᚼ [RUNIC LETTER LONG-BRANCH-HAGALL H] represents the Danish rune hagal, U+16BD ᚽ [RUNIC LETTER SHORT-TWIG-HAGALL H] represents the Swedish-Norwegian rune hagall, and U+16BB ᚻ [RUNIC LETTER HAEGL H] represents the Anglo-Saxon rune hægl. Each of these four runes could be considered to be simply graphic variants of the same runic letter (as suggested by their common name, which is the word for "hail" in the various languages), but as they are graphically distinct they are each encoded as separate characters.

The characters encoded within the Unicode Runic block are sufficient to represent most runic texts and inscriptions, but there are some points that must be born in mind when encoding runic texts :

• Not all runic letter forms are separately encoded. If the form of a rune in a given text does not appear among the reference glyphs in the runic block, this does not mean that the rune is unrepresentable in Unicode, but that it should be represented with the runic character that is most closely related. For example, the form of the runic letter man in the Danish Fuþąrk that is written as a circle with a vertical line going through it and extending down below it should be encoded as U+16D8 [RUNIC LETTER LONG-BRANCH-MADR M] (which looks like ᛘ); likewise the form of the runic letter ár in the Swedish-Norwegian Fuþąrk that is written with an upward diagonal stroke on the right-hand side of the vertical stem should be encoded as U+16C6 [RUNIC LETTER SHORT-TWIG-AR A] (which looks like ᛆ). Although the reference glyph in the Unicode code charts for the encoded rune may differ from the letter form in an actual text or inscription, it is quite permissible to render the character with a font that mimics the appearance of the runes in the actual inscription. Indeed it advisable to have separate fonts for each runic tradition, or even separate fonts for individual inscriptions, so as to render the runic text with the most appropriate glyphs for the context.
• The refernce glyphs in the Unicode code charts are intended to be physically distinct from each other, so in some cases a less common form of a particular rune has been chosen for the reference glyph to avoid confucion with the reference glyph for another rune. Again it must be emphasised that a font designer does not need to be constrained by the form of the reference glyph for a given runic character, but may design a glyph that varies from the reference glyph if this is considered appropriate.
• The extremely simplified Hälsinge runes (also known as "staveless runes") are not encoded separately, but are unified with the corresponding Nordic runes. That is to say Hälsinge runes should be encoded with the corresponding runes from the Swedish-Norwegian fuþąrk, and a special Hälsinge (or staveless) font should be used to render them correctly.
• Ligatured runes (also known as "bind runes"), where two, or rarely three, adjacent Runic letters are joined together (usually by sharing the same vertical stem), are common. These may be represented within Unicode by means of the Zero Width Joiner character [U+200D] (ZWJ), which should be inserted between runic letters that the rendering engine or font should render with a ligatured glyph. For example, the Unicode sequence <16D6, 200D, 16B1> would be used to represent a ligature of the Common Germanic runes ehwaz and raiđō (or the Anglo-Saxon runes eh and rād). However, the correctly ligatured glyph will only be displayed if the selected font supports the encoded Runic ligature.
• Runic inscriptions are commonly written Left-To-Right (LTR), but may be written Right-To-Left (RTL), or with a combination of LTR and RTL lines, as is the case on the Franks Casket. When written from right to left, the runes are normally mirrored so that the individual letters face from right to left. Unicode has the concept of LTR and RTL scripts, and Runic is by definition an LTR script. However, it is possible to override the normal LTR behaviour of a runic text by prefixing an RTL section of runic text with the RIGHT-TO-LEFT OVERRIDE [U+202E] control character, which will ensure that the rendering engine displays the text following the RTL Override character up to the end of the line (or until a POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING [U+202C] control character is encountered) as if it were an RTL script such as Arabic or Hebrew. This enables bidirectional runic texts such as those on the Franks casket to be encoded in logical order, but displayed in visual order. However, Unicode does not provide a mechanism for ensuring that RTL formatted runic text is rendered with mirrored glyphs.
• Individual runes in a particular inscription may be written upside down or reversed with respect to the Unicode reference glyph for that rune. Unicode does not provide a mechanism for representing such orientations.
• Cryptic hahalruna runes, such as those used on the Hackness Cross, are not currently encoded within Unicode.

Keystroke Mappings

The following tables show what keystroke is used to produce what Unicode character in the various runic keyboard layouts. It should be noted that all keystrokes are case sensitive (i.e. t and T will generate different runic letters); alphabetic keystrokes not listed will be ignored; and all other non-alphabetic keystrokes will behave as for the English (UK) keyboard layout.

The following keyboard layouts are currently available :

• Common Germanic Fuþark (Old Fuþark)
• Danish Fuþąrk (long-branch runes)
• Swedish-Norwegian Fuþąrk (short-twig runes)
• Nordic Mixed Rune Keyboard Layout (combined keyboard layout for both long-branch and short-twig runes)
• Scandinavian Pointed Runic Alphabet (dotted runes)
• Anglo-Saxon Fuþorc

1. Download the required keyboard layout :
   • Runic_CG.zip (Common Germanic Fuþark)
   • Runic_DA.zip (Danish Fuþąrk)
   • Runic_SN.zip (Swedish-Norwegian Fuþąrk)
   • Runic_NM.zip (Norwegian Mixed Fuþąrk)
   • Runic_DR.zip (Scandinavian Pointed Runic Alphabet)
   • Runic_AS.zip (Anglo-Saxon Fuþorc)
2. Unzip Runix_XX.zip to a temporary folder.
3. Double-click on the file setup.exe in the extracted Runix_XX folder, and follow the instructions.

If you are running Vista the keyboard layout will be installed and ready to use under the OL ("Other Languages") icon of the language bar. If you have installed multiple BabelStone keyboard layouts then you will need to select the particular layout to use by clicking the keyboard icon next to OL.

If you are running 2000 or XP you will need to map the keyboard layout to an unused input locale from Control Panel : Regional Option before you can use it.

Please note that these keyboard layouts cannot be installed or run under Windows 95, 98 or ME.

Gothic | Ogham | Phags-pa

BabelStone Home Page