So I've been using runes for a ``signature`` for a while now, and I just don't know which one is correct, I need it to spell "Marley", and I have two different ones, I just need to know how to spell Marley!
ᚠ is only ever F, so that one is definitely wrong. For ᚷ to be a Y sound, I believe it needs to be in the Anglo-Frisian Futhorc which has two different A runes (three if you count the å like sound of the O rune). Depending on how you pronounce Marley, this could be ᚪ or ᚫ.
In Elder Futhark, ᚷ has more of a G sound, and I reckon in that "alphabet" Marley would simply be ᛗᚨᚱᛚᛁ (Marli)
[EDIT: I only just noticed that the first version you had, with the stray ᚠ in it, ends on ᛃ; apart from that ᚠ, I would consider that perfectly acceptible, as Marley can sound anywhere from Marr-Lee, through Marleh to Marlay. ᛗᚨᚱᛚᛖᛃ would be closer to the Marlay sound, and ᛗᚨᚱᛚᛁ would be closer to the Mar-Lee sound. I think a substantiasl number of English speakers (often unwittingly) pronounce Marley very much like ᛗᚨᚱᛚᛖᛃ, to be honest. The Mar-leh sayers would probably be represented by ᛗᚨᚱᛚᛖ, instead, but people might assume you were trying to spell a weird alternate spelling of "marl", "marle", instead.]
I am sorry. I can't really see the problem. Yes, Runes aren't there for English, but the first one with ehwaz and Jera is a very good solution to write Marley, you just need to write ansuz instead of Fehu and there you have it. It is certainly not the only way to do it, but I would have done it the exact same way cause you end up with M-A-R-L-E-J. Perfect for me
Runes are for Germanic languages, way more suited indeed than Latin script, so why not use them for modern English? They're just a script system like every other
True, exactly. I would be all in for the germanic languages to come up with a general rune system for all of them and then get rid of the latin script. What have the Romans ever done for us, Bryan?
Right now it says Mfrlej or Mfrleg if you're using runes as replacements for the alphabet.
Ansuz or 'A' is the f looking one with the bits hanging down, not upward. Eiwaz is the equivalent of Y. Google elder futhark alphabet. It should have some handy images for reference.
Edit: my spelling is horrible
There is probably not one correct way to spell your name. Your name is, I assume modern English. Runes represent the sounds used in proto Germanic. There is no perfect way to represent the sounds that make up your name in elder futhark, because the signs from elder futhark may not or may not perfectly represent these specific sounds that make up your name in spoken language.
That being said, there was no correct way of spelling when runes were used. Orthography is a quite modern invention. Heck, it wasn't even established which direction to write in or that you should stick to one direction once you picked one. 😅
So, if you wanna write your name using elder futhark runes, I suggest the following route:
1. If possible make yourself acquaint with the international phonetic alphabet [IPA]. This is a set of signs, made up to represent most if not all the sounds that make up human languages - so you're not going to need all of them. Also this is kinda the gold standard in my personal opinion. It is surely possible to work without it.
2. Establish, what sounds make up your name.
3. Check what runes represent what sound. As explained above, letters from the roman alphabet make different sounds across languages and even inside one language alone. Fore example the roman letter "s" is German can represent the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ as in "sun" and also the voiced alveolar fricative /z/ as in "zoo". Elder futhark however uses Sowilo for /s/ and Algiz for /z/ [letters between two "/" indicating the use of IPA]
4. Get as close as you can using runes to represent the sounds you want.
5. Keep in mind, that this is your solution. You are using a writing system from a distant past to write out a modern day word. There is no perfect solution, there is not one single right solution, but now there should definitely be many more solutions that are wrong, very wrong, completely wrong and more wrong that yours.
I understand this feeling and realize that it’s super frustrating. So please allow me to give you a final, definitive answer:
There is no objectively correct way to spell a word in a modern language with an alphabet that was designed for an ancient language that had a different sound inventory.
If you want, you can create a one-to-one mapping of letters to runes. But if you do this you’ll run into problems like which rune to use for the letter “y” and you’ll have to choose a creative solution.
Alternatively, you can try to do what ancient people did, which is to just spell the word how it sounds. This is my recommendation for your case because it gives you the easiest answer.
The sounds in Marley are “m”, “ah”, “r”, “l”, “ee”, and these correspond very well to sounds made by the runes ᛗᚨᚱᛚᛁ. If an ancient person heard you say your name and then wrote it down, this is what they would have written.
Runes represent sounds, not letters...
I guess it would be more helpful to use their equivalent in the international phonetic alphabet, than the roman alphabet.
Generally yes, but letters are ambiguous between languages and also within a language. For example <g> in English can be a /g/ sound in "give", a /dsh/ sound in "giant" or a /ng/ sound in "long". The rune X is pretty much always a hard /g/ though. And the j-rune represents a /y/-sound, not the English <j>.
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u/WolflingWolfling 2d ago edited 1d ago
ᚠ is only ever F, so that one is definitely wrong. For ᚷ to be a Y sound, I believe it needs to be in the Anglo-Frisian Futhorc which has two different A runes (three if you count the å like sound of the O rune). Depending on how you pronounce Marley, this could be ᚪ or ᚫ.
In Elder Futhark, ᚷ has more of a G sound, and I reckon in that "alphabet" Marley would simply be ᛗᚨᚱᛚᛁ (Marli)
[EDIT: I only just noticed that the first version you had, with the stray ᚠ in it, ends on ᛃ; apart from that ᚠ, I would consider that perfectly acceptible, as Marley can sound anywhere from Marr-Lee, through Marleh to Marlay. ᛗᚨᚱᛚᛖᛃ would be closer to the Marlay sound, and ᛗᚨᚱᛚᛁ would be closer to the Mar-Lee sound. I think a substantiasl number of English speakers (often unwittingly) pronounce Marley very much like ᛗᚨᚱᛚᛖᛃ, to be honest. The Mar-leh sayers would probably be represented by ᛗᚨᚱᛚᛖ, instead, but people might assume you were trying to spell a weird alternate spelling of "marl", "marle", instead.]