Runic is a Unicode block containing runic characters. It was introduced in Unicode 3.0 (1999), with eight additional characters introduced in Unicode 7.0 (2014). The original encoding of runes in UCS was based on the recommendations of the "ISO Runes Project" submitted in 1997.

The block is intended for the representation of text written in Elder Futhark, Anglo-Saxon runes, Younger Futhark (both in the long-branch and short-twig variants), Scandinavian medieval runes and early modern runic calendars; the additions introduced in version 7.0 in addition allow support of the mode of writing Modern English in Anglo-Saxon runes used by J. R. R. Tolkien, and the special vowel signs used in the Franks Casket inscription.

Background The distinction made by Unicode between character and glyph variant is somewhat problematic in the case of the runes; the reason is the high degree of variation of letter shapes in historical inscriptions, with many "characters" appearing in highly variant shapes, and many specific shapes taking the role of a number of different characters over the period of runic use (roughly the 3rd to 14th centuries AD). The division between Elder Futhark, Younger Futhark and Anglo-Saxon runes are well-established and useful categories, but they are connected by a continuum of gradual development, inscriptions using a mixture of older and newer forms of runes, etc. For this reason, the runic Unicode block is of very limited usefulness in representing of historical inscriptions and is better suited for contemporary runic writing than for palaeographic purposes.

The original publication of the Unicode standard is explicitly aware of these problems, and of the compromises necessary regarding the "character / glyph" dichotomy. The charts published show only "idealized reference glyphs", and explicitly delegates the task of creating useful implementations of the standard to font designers, ideally necessitating a separate font for each historical period. Glyph shape was taken into consideration explicitly for "unification" of an older rune with one of its descendant characters. On the other hand, the Younger Futhark era script variants of long-branch, and short-twig, in principle a historical instance of "glyph variants", have been encoded separately, while the further variant form of staveless runes has not.

The ISO Runes Project treated the runes as essentially glyph variants of the Latin script. Everson argued that the native futhark ordering is well established, and that it is unusual for UCS to order letters not in Latin alphabetical order rather than according to native tradition, and a corresponding sorting order of the runic letter Unicode characters was adopted for ISO/IEC 14651 in 2001.

Characters The original 81 characters adopted for Unicode 3.0 included 75 letters, three punctuation marks and three "runic symbols".

The names given to the runic letter characters are "a bit clumsy" in a deliberate compromise between scholarly and amateur requirements. They list simplified (ASCII) representations of the three names of a "unified" rune in the Elder Futhark, the Anglo-Saxon and the Younger Futhark traditions, followed by the letter transliterating the rune (if applicable). The ordering follows the basic futhark sequence, but with (non-unified) variants inserted after the standard Elder Futhark form of each letter, as follows:

Code point Rune Name Elder Futhark Anglo-Saxon Younger Futhark(long-branch) Younger Futhark(short-twig) Medieval Dalecarlian16A0 FEHU FEOH FE F 16A1 V 16A2 URUZ UR U 16A3 YR 16A4 Y 16A5 W 16A6 THURISAZ THURS THORN 16A7 ETH 16A8 ANSUZ A 16A9 OS O 16AA AC A 16AB AESC 16AC LONG-BRANCH-OSS O 16AD SHORT-TWIG-OSS O 16AE O 16AF OE 16B0 ON 16B1 RAIDO RAD REID R 16B2 KAUNA 16B3 CEN 16B4 KAUN K 16B5 G 16B6 ENG 16B7 GEBO GYFU G 16B8 GAR 16B9 WUNJO WYNN W 16BA HAGLAZ H 16BB HAEGL H 16BC LONG-BRANCH-HAGALL H 16BD SHORT-TWIG-HAGALL H 16BE NAUDIZ NYD NAUD N 16BF SHORT-TWIG-NAUD N 16C0 DOTTED-N 16C1 ISAZ IS ISS I 16C2 E 16C3 JERAN J 16C4 GER 16C5 LONG-BRANCH-AR AE 16C6 SHORT-TWIG-AR A 16C7 IWAZ EOH 16C8 PERTHO PEORTH P 16C9 ALGIZ EOLHX 16CA SOWILO S 16CB SIGEL LONG-BRANCH-SOL S 16CC SHORT-TWIG-SOL S 16CD C 16CE Z 16CF TIWAZ TIR TYR T 16D0 SHORT-TWIG-TYR T 16D1 D 16D2 BERKANAN BEORC BJARKAN B 16D3 SHORT-TWIG-BJARKAN B 16D4 DOTTED-P 16D5 OPEN-P 16D6 EHWAZ EH E 16D7 MANNAZ MAN M 16D8 LONG-BRANCH-MADR M 16D9 SHORT-TWIG-MADR M 16DA LAUKAZ LAGU LOGR L 16DB DOTTED-L 16DC INGWAZ 16DD ING 16DE DAGAZ DAEG D 16DF OTHALAN ETHEL O 16E0 EAR 16E1 IOR 16E2 CWEORTH 16E3 CALC 16E4 CEALC 16E5 STAN 16E6 LONG-BRANCH-YR 16E7 SHORT-TWIG-YR 16E8 ICELANDIC-YR 16E9 Q 16EA X

The three "punctuation marks" are three variant forms of separators found in runic inscriptions, one a single dot, one a double dot and one cross-shaped. Code point Rune Name16EB RUNIC SINGLE PUNCTUATION16EC RUNIC MULTIPLE PUNCTUATION16ED RUNIC CROSS PUNCTUATION

The three "runic symbols" are the Arlaug, Tvimadur and Belgthor symbols used exclusively for enumerating years in runic calendars of the early modern period. Code point Rune Name16EE RUNIC ARLAUG SYMBOL16EF RUNIC TVIMADUR SYMBOL16F0 RUNIC BELGTHOR SYMBOL

The eight additional characters introduced in Unicode 7.0 concern the Anglo-Saxon runes. Three are variant letters used by J. R. R. Tolkien to write Modern English in Anglo-Saxon runes, representing the English k, oo and sh graphemes. Code point Rune Name16F1 RUNIC LETTER K16F2 RUNIC LETTER SH16F3 RUNIC LETTER OO

The five others are letter variants used in one of the Franks Casket inscriptions, "cryptogrammic" replacements for the standard Anglo-Saxon o, i, e, a and æ vowel runes. Code point Rune Name16F4 RUNIC LETTER FRANKS CASKET OS16F5 RUNIC LETTER FRANKS CASKET IS16F6 RUNIC LETTER FRANKS CASKET EH16F7 RUNIC LETTER FRANKS CASKET AC16F8 RUNIC LETTER FRANKS CASKET AESC

Fonts Numerous Unicode fonts support the Runic block, although most of them are strictly limited to displaying a single glyph per character, often closely modeled on the shape shown in the Unicode block chart.

Free Unicode fonts that support the runic block include: Junicode, GNU FreeFont (in its monospace, bitmap face), Caslon, the serif font Quivira, and Babelstone Runic in its many different formats. Commercial fonts supporting the block include Alphabetum, Code2000, Everson Mono, Aboriginal Serif, Aboriginal Sans, Segoe UI Symbol, and TITUS Cyberbit Basic.

Microsoft Windows did not support the Runic block in any of its included fonts during 2000—2008, but with the release of Windows 7 in 2009, the system has been delivered with a font supporting the block, Segoe UI Symbol. In Windows 10 the Runic block was moved into the font Segoe UI Historic.

Chart

History The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Runic block:

Version Count UTC ID L2 ID WG2 ID Document 3.0 U+16A0..16F0 81 N1210 N1222 N1229 N1230 N1239 txt) N1262 N1330 N1382 N1353 txt) N1443 N1453 N1542 N1620 N1603 N1695 N1771 N1772 N1763 N1703 7.0 U+16F1..16F8 8 N4013R N4103 doc)

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References