Ideographic Runes

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 appears 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.See discussion in for example : 123–124 and : 17. 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.

Roman Iron Age (c. 1–350 AD)

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.

Migration Period (c. 300–550)

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 ᛟ (Othala). Using it as an ideographic rune gives something akin to the following:

(Gothic)

The translation, however, is still up for debate.

Vendel Period (c. 550–800)

From the Vendel Period, the Stentoften Runestone in Blekinge, Sweden, is known to feature an ideographic rune. It has a segment which reads (''haþuwolafʀgafj''), which is thought to be divided as ''Haþuwolafʀ gaf j'' ("Heathwolf gave j"). The j-rune was named something akin to ''jāra'' in Proto Norse (''Haþuwolafʀ gaf j �ra'), 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 early harvest.Henrik Williams, §2 in Eva Nyman Henrik Williams, the headword �
Lister
�� in Rosemarie Müller, Heinrich Beck och Dieter Geuenich (redaktörer) Duisburg Heiko Steuer,''Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde'', 2nd ed., band 18. Berllin och New York 2001. Pages: 508–512.

(Proto Norse)

(Modern Swedish)

Heathwolf brought early harvest

Viking Age (c. 800–1100)

From the early Viking Age, the Younger Futhark inscription Ög43, from Östergötland, Sweden, features a unique case of an ideographic rune, namely an Elder Futhark d-rune ᛞ (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.

→ (Modern Swedish)

Solse made the sun (decoration on the stone) → agerhew this into the cliff

During the later Viking Age and Early Nordic Medieval Period, ideographic runes also appear in texts written using Latin script. Such examples include: the Icelandic poem ''Hávamál'' in Codex Regius, and the Swedish: Codex Regius">he H ...