Ideographic runes (, , 'term/notion runes') are runes used as ideographs instead of regular letters, that is, instead of representing their phoneme or syllable, they represent their name as a word or term. Such instances are sometimes referred to by way of the modern German loanword (singular ), but the descriptive term "ideographic runes" is also used.
Ideographic runes appear to have mainly been used for saving space, but they were also mainly used without inflection. Some potential inscriptions might have used such cryptically. The criteria for the use of ideographic runes and the frequency of their use by ancient rune-writers remains controversial. The topic of has produced much discussion among runologists. Runologist Klaus Düwel has proposed two criteria for the identification of ideographic runes: A graphic argument and a semantic argument.
One of the earliest potential ideographic rune finds stem from the Roman Iron Age in Nordic archeology. On the Elder Futhark inscription on the Lindholm amulet, dated to between the 2nd to 4th centuries, several runes repeat in a sentence to form an unknown meaning. Various scholars have proposed that these runes represent repeated ideographic runes.
The Ring of Pietroassa, part of the Pietroasele Treasure found in southern Romania, dated to between 250 and 400, features an Elder Futhark inscription in the Gothic language (an East Germanic language). This object was cut by thieves, damaging one of the runes. The identity of this rune was debated by scholars until a photograph of it was republished that, according to runologist Bernard Mees, clearly indicates it to have been the rune á (Othala). Using it as an ideographic rune gives something akin to the following:
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(Gothic) </blockquote>
The translation, however, is still up for debate.
From the Vendel Period, the Stentoften Runestone in Blekinge, Sweden, is known to feature an ideographic rune. It has a segment which reads (haþuwolafÃÂgafj), which is thought to be divided as Haþuwolafàgaf j ("Heathwolf gave j"). The j-rune was named something akin to jÃÂra in Proto Norse (Haþuwolafàgaf j[ÃÂra]), which is the same root word as 'year', but at the time rather used in the sense of 'yearly harvest' (compare the Swedish descendants: = 'year', = "yearly growth/harvest"). The preceding text, not covered here, is assumed to mention working animals, thus, the text says something akin to "(with working animals) Heathwolf brought [yearly harvest]".
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(Proto Norse)<br/> (Modern Swedish)<br/> Heathwolf brought [yearly harvest]. </blockquote>
From the early Viking Age, the Younger Futhark inscription ÃÂg43, from ÃÂstergötland, Sweden, features a unique case of an ideographic rune, namely an Elder Futhark d-rune á (early ), used to represent the carvers name. The inscription is thought to have been made around the 9th century, and therefore shows that the elder runes survived in folk memory, despite such being out of use since the late 8th century.
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<br/> â (Modern Swedish)<br/> Solse made the sun (decoration on the stone) â [Dager] hewed this into the cliff </blockquote>
During the later Viking Age and Early Nordic Medieval Period (the European High Middle Ages), ideographic runes also appear in texts written using Latin script. Early Norse examples include: the Icelandic poem Hávamál in Codex Regius, and the Swedish law fragment: OkvädingamÃÂ¥l (Old Swedish: Heþnalagh, "heathen law"), both written around the 11th century, and featuring the Younger Futhark rune á (, 'man') to save space. Use of ideographic runes in latin script texts continued into the High Middle Ages. Like the earlier Swedish heathen law fragment, the later provincial Westrogothic law from the 13th century also use the m-rune á for 'man'.
The Swedish heathen law, for example, begins with:
<blockquote> (Old Swedish)<br/> (Modern Swedish)<br/> Gives [man] insult to another: You are not man's equal nor [man] in the chest. â I am [man] like you. </blockquote>
The rune is avoided where the word 'man' is used in the inflected form.
An example from Codex Regius, fol. 3v, reads:
<blockquote> '<br> the unwise [man] is awake every night, and thinks about anything </blockquote>
Ideographic runes also appear in Anglo-Saxon texts, then as Anglo-Saxon runes; for example, in manuscripts such as the Nowell Codex (Beowulf) and The Exeter Book, the rune á (, "man") and á (, "ancestral turf") was sometimes used ideographically.
An example from the Nowell Codex reads:
<blockquote> '<br> from there he sought out his beloved [homeland] </blockquote>
Runologist Thomas Birkett summarized the following about Viking Age ideographic instances as follows:
In Fragmentum Runico-Papisticum (, 'Mary-lament'), written in the 14thâÂÂ15th century, in either Denmark or Scania (then part of Denmark), a unique ideographic rune is used: a medieval g-rune áµ, otherwise known as "stung kaun" (compare Old Swedish: stungen kaghen, or geir/gir, of many variants), as an ideograph for 'God'. Whether this represents some conventional period use is unknown. In contemporary Sweden, runes carried many regional names and variations, thus a name like 'God' for the g-rune is not unrealistic, despite the text being in Old Danish or Old Scanian.
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(Old Danish)<br/> (Modern Swedish)<br/> [God] in heaven, Jesus Crucifixus, mild mother, give me that I long for. </blockquote>
The Greenlandic runic inscription GR 43 (14th century) is a cryptic inscription in , which uses both a Q-rune (mirrored ), and a Z-rune (a stung short-twig S : Hanging Sun), and what appears to be an ideographic rune: ᧠(ÃÂ, Stung Thurs), but with double stings. The Norse name for the unstung rune is , meaning "evil supernatural being", like Jötunn, but the stung variant, especially this unique double stung one, has no recorded orthodox name, thus its use here is unclear.
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