Alpha-whaaa?
Ever wondered how the ABC’s became the ABC’s? Was English always written like it is today? The answer is a resounding “Nope!” The Alphabet of today has gone through a lot of changes over the centuries. To catalog all of those changes would take a lot more time than I have available at the moment, so in this installation, I’ll just show you a couple of interesting things about Runes and their relationship to our current writing system.
The Runic alphabet is sometimes called “fuþorc” [futhorc] after the first 6 letters, much like our “ABC’s” comes from the first 3 letters and “Alphabet” comes from “Alpha Beta” from the Greek writing system. Futhorc was used by the Anglo-Saxons to write Old English and other languages. Can you see any similarities between the Runes and modern English letters?
Here’s a brief glimpse into the history of a couple of letters that are no longer used in modern English.
