Runic (Unicode block)

Runic
Range U+16A0..U+16FF
(96 code points)
Plane BMP
Scripts Runic (86 char.)
Common (3 char.)
Major alphabets Futhark
Assigned 89 code points
Unused 7 reserved code points
Unicode version history
3.0 (1999) 81 (+81)
7.0 (2014) 89 (+8)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note:

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 Dalecarlian
16A0 ᚠ FEHU FEOH FE F check check check check check check
16A1 ᚡ V check
16A2 ᚢ URUZ UR U check check check check check check
16A3 ᚣ YR check
16A4 ᚤ Y check
16A5 ᚥ W check
16A6 ᚦ THURISAZ THURS THORN check check check check check check
16A7 ᚧ ETH check
16A8 ᚨ ANSUZ A check check
16A9 ᚩ OS O check
16AA ᚪ AC A check
16AB ᚫ AESC check
16AC ᚬ LONG-BRANCH-OSS O check
16AD ᚭ SHORT-TWIG-OSS O check
16AE ᚮ O check
16AF ᚯ OE check check
16B0 ᚰ ON check
16B1 ᚱ RAIDO RAD REID R check check check check check check
16B2 ᚲ KAUNA check
16B3 ᚳ CEN check
16B4 ᚴ KAUN K check check check check
16B5 ᚵ G check
16B6 ᚶ ENG check
16B7 ᚷ GEBO GYFU G check check check
16B8 ᚸ GAR check
16B9 ᚹ WUNJO WYNN W check check check
16BA ᚺ HAGLAZ H check
16BB ᚻ HAEGL H check
16BC ᚼ LONG-BRANCH-HAGALL H check check
16BD ᚽ SHORT-TWIG-HAGALL H check
16BE ᚾ NAUDIZ NYD NAUD N check check check
16BF ᚿ SHORT-TWIG-NAUD N check check check
16C0 ᛀ DOTTED-N check
16C1 ᛁ ISAZ IS ISS I check check check check check check
16C2 ᛂ E check
16C3 ᛃ JERAN J check
16C4 ᛄ GER check
16C5 ᛅ LONG-BRANCH-AR AE check check check
16C6 ᛆ SHORT-TWIG-AR A check check check
16C7 ᛇ IWAZ EOH check check
16C8 ᛈ PERTHO PEORTH P check check
16C9 ᛉ ALGIZ EOLHX check check
16CA ᛊ SOWILO S check
16CB ᛋ SIGEL LONG-BRANCH-SOL S check check check check
16CC ᛌ SHORT-TWIG-SOL S check check check
16CD ᛍ C check
16CE ᛎ Z check
16CF ᛏ TIWAZ TIR TYR T check check check
16D0 ᛐ SHORT-TWIG-TYR T check check check
16D1 ᛑ D check
16D2 ᛒ BERKANAN BEORC BJARKAN B check check check check check
16D3 ᛓ SHORT-TWIG-BJARKAN B check
16D4 ᛔ DOTTED-P check
16D5 ᛕ OPEN-P check
16D6 ᛖ EHWAZ EH E check check
16D7 ᛗ MANNAZ MAN M check check
16D8 ᛘ LONG-BRANCH-MADR M check check check
16D9 ᛙ SHORT-TWIG-MADR M check check
16DA ᛚ LAUKAZ LAGU LOGR L check check check check check check
16DB ᛛ DOTTED-L check
16DC ᛜ INGWAZ check
16DD ᛝ ING check
16DE ᛞ DAGAZ DAEG D check check
16DF ᛟ OTHALAN ETHEL O check check
16E0 ᛠ EAR check check
16E1 ᛡ IOR check
16E2 ᛢ CWEORTH check
16E3 ᛣ CALC check
16E4 ᛤ CEALC check
16E5 ᛥ STAN check
16E6 ᛦ LONG-BRANCH-YR check check check
16E7 ᛧ SHORT-TWIG-YR check
16E8 ᛨ ICELANDIC-YR check
16E9 ᛩ Q check check
16EA ᛪ X check

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 Name
16EB ᛫ RUNIC SINGLE PUNCTUATION
16EC ᛬ RUNIC MULTIPLE PUNCTUATION
16ED ᛭ 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 Name
16EE ᛮ RUNIC ARLAUG SYMBOL
16EF ᛯ RUNIC TVIMADUR SYMBOL
16F0 ᛰ 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 Name
16F1 ᛱ RUNIC LETTER K
16F2 ᛲ RUNIC LETTER SH
16F3 ᛳ 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 Name
16F4 ᛴ RUNIC LETTER FRANKS CASKET OS
16F5 ᛵ RUNIC LETTER FRANKS CASKET IS
16F6 ᛶ RUNIC LETTER FRANKS CASKET EH
16F7 ᛷ RUNIC LETTER FRANKS CASKET AC
16F8 ᛸ 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

Runic
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+16Ax ᚠ ᚡ ᚢ ᚣ ᚤ ᚥ ᚦ ᚧ ᚨ ᚩ ᚪ ᚫ ᚬ ᚭ ᚮ ᚯ
U+16Bx ᚰ ᚱ ᚲ ᚳ ᚴ ᚵ ᚶ ᚷ ᚸ ᚹ ᚺ ᚻ ᚼ ᚽ ᚾ ᚿ
U+16Cx ᛀ ᛁ ᛂ ᛃ ᛄ ᛅ ᛆ ᛇ ᛈ ᛉ ᛊ ᛋ ᛌ ᛍ ᛎ ᛏ
U+16Dx ᛐ ᛑ ᛒ ᛓ ᛔ ᛕ ᛖ ᛗ ᛘ ᛙ ᛚ ᛛ ᛜ ᛝ ᛞ ᛟ
U+16Ex ᛠ ᛡ ᛢ ᛣ ᛤ ᛥ ᛦ ᛧ ᛨ ᛩ ᛪ ᛫ ᛬ ᛭ ᛮ ᛯ
U+16Fx ᛰ ᛱ ᛲ ᛳ ᛴ ᛵ ᛶ ᛷ ᛸ
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 15.1
2. ^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

History

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

Version Final code points Count UTC ID L2 ID WG2 ID Document
3.0 U+16A0..16F0 81 N1210
X3L2/95-117 N1222
UTC/1995-xxx
N1229
N1230
N1239
X3L2/95-090 N1253 (doc, txt)
X3L2/95-118 N1262
X3L2/96-035 N1330
X3L2/96-051 N1382
N1353
UTC/1996-027.2
X3L2/96-100 N1417 (doc, txt)
X3L2/96-101 N1443
N1453
X3L2/96-123
L2/97-048 N1542
N1620
L2/97-288 N1603
L2/98-077 N1695
L2/98-132 N1771
L2/98-134 N1772
N1763
L2/98-286 N1703
L2/01-023
7.0 U+16F1..16F8 8 L2/11-096R N4013R
N4103
L2/12-007
N4253 (pdf, doc)