is the rune denoting the sound ''p'' ( voiceless bilabial stop) in the

Elder Futhark The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Peri ...

runic alphabet Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...

. It does not appear in the

Younger Futhark The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet and a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, with only 16 characters, in use from about the 9th century, after a "transitional period" during the 7th and 8th centuries. The r ...

. It is named peorð in the Anglo-Saxon rune-poem and glossed enigmatically as follows: : ''peorð byþ symble plega and hlehter / ƿlancum n middum ðar ƿigan sittaþ / on beorsele bliþe ætsomne'' :"Peorð is a source of recreation and amusement to the great, where warriors sit happily together in the beerhall." The name is not comprehensible from

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

, i.e. no word similar to ''peorð'' is known in this language. According to a 9th-century manuscript of Alcuin (

Codex Vindobonensis 795 The Codex Vindobonensis 795 (Vienna Austrian National Library Codex) is a 9th-century manuscript, most likely compiled in 798 or shortly thereafter (after Arno of Salzburg returned from Rome to become archbishop). It contains letters and treatises ...

), written using the

Gothic alphabet The Gothic alphabet is an alphabet used for writing the Gothic language. Ulfilas (or Wulfila) developed it in the 4th century AD for the purpose of translating the Bible. The alphabet essentially uses uncial forms of the Greek alphabet, wit ...

in Britain, the letters ''p'' (based on a Greek Π) and ''q'' (an inverted Π) are called "pairþra" and "qairþra", respectively. One of these names clearly is derived from the other. However, the names are not comprehensible in Gothic either, and it is not clear which is derived from which, although it is known that the Elder Futhark had a ''p'', but no ''q'' rune. In any case, it seems evident that peorð is related to pairþra. The Anglo-Saxon futhorc adopted exactly the same approach for the addition of a labiovelar rune, ''cƿeorð'', in both shape and name based on peorð, but it is not known if the

Gothic runes Very few Elder Futhark inscriptions in the Gothic language have been found in the territory historically settled by the Goths (Wielbark culture, Chernyakhov culture). Due to the early Christianization of the Goths, the Gothic alphabet replaced rune ...

already had a similar variant rune of ''p'', or if the labiovelar letter was a 4th-century creation of

Ulfilas Ulfilas (–383), also spelled Ulphilas and Orphila, all Latinized forms of the unattested Gothic form *𐍅𐌿𐌻𐍆𐌹𐌻𐌰 Wulfila, literally "Little Wolf", was a Goth of Cappadocian Greek descent who served as a bishop and missionary ...

. The Common Germanic name could be referring to a

pear Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in the Northern Hemisphere in late summer into October. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the family Rosaceae, bearing the p ...

-tree (or perhaps generally a fruit-tree). Based on the context of "recreation and amusement" given in the rune poem, a common speculative interpretation is that the intended meaning is "pear-wood" as the material of either a

woodwind Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed ...

instrument, or a "game box" or game pieces made from wood. From ''peorð'',

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...

form *perðu, *perþō or *perþaz may be reconstructed on purely phonological grounds. The expected Proto-Germanic term for "pear tree" would be ''*pera-trewô'' (''*pera'' being, however, a post-Proto-Germanic loan, either West Germanic, or Common Germanic, if Gothic ''pairþra'' meant "pear tree", from

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...

''pirum'' (plural ''pira''), itself of unknown origin). The Ogham letter name

Ceirt Ceirt (''Queirt'') ᚊ (Primitive Irish ''cert'') is a letter of the Ogham alphabet, transcribed as Q. It expresses the Primitive Irish labiovelar phoneme. The 14th century '' Auraicept na n-Éces'' glosses the name as ''aball'', meaning "apple ...

, glossed as "apple tree", may in turn be a loan from Germanic into

Primitive Irish Primitive Irish or Archaic Irish ( ga, Gaeilge Ársa), also called Proto-Goidelic, is the oldest known form of the Goidelic languages. It is known only from fragments, mostly personal names, inscribed on stone in the ogham alphabet in Ireland ...

. The earliest attestation of the rune is in the Kylver Stone ''futhark'' row (ca. AD 400). The earliest example in a linguistic context (as opposed to an ''

abecedarium An abecedarium (also known as an abecedary or ABCs or simply an ABC) is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria (or abecedaries) are practice exercises. Non-Latin alphabe ...

'') is already in futhorc, in the Kent II, III and IV coin inscriptions (the personal names ''pada'' and ''æpa''/''epa''), dated to ca. AD 700. On

St. Cuthbert's coffin What is usually referred to as St Cuthbert's coffin is a fragmentary oak coffin in Durham Cathedral, pieced together in the 20th century, which between AD 698 and 1827 contained the remains of Saint Cuthbert, who died in 687. In fact when Cuthber ...

(AD 698), a ''p'' rune takes the place of Greek Ρ. The Westeremden yew-stick (ca. AD 750) has ''op hæmu'' "at home" and ''up duna'' "on the hill". Looijenga (1997) speculates that the ''p'' rune arose as a variant of the '' b'' rune, parallel to the secondary nature of Ogham ''

peith The ''forfeda'' (sing. ''forfid'') are the "additional" letters of the Ogham alphabet, beyond the basic inventory of twenty signs. Their name derives from ''fid'' ("wood", a term also used for Ogham letters) and the prefix ''for-'' ("additional"). ...

''. The uncertainty surrounding the rune is a consequence of the rarity of the ''*p'' phoneme in Proto-Germanic, itself due to the rarity of its parent-phoneme ''*b'' in

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...

. The rune is discontinued in

, which expresses /p/ with the ''b'' rune, for example on the

Viking Age The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Ger ...

Skarpåker Stone The Skarpåker Stone, designated by Rundata as Sö 154, is a Viking Age memorial runestone that originally was located in Skarpåker, Nyköping, Sörmland, Sweden. It dates to the early eleventh century. Description The runestone was discovered ...

, :iarþ sal rifna uk ubhimin for

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

:'' Jörð skal rifna ok upphiminn.'' :"Earth shall be rent, and the heavens above."

References

*A. Bammesberger, G. Waxenberger (eds.), ''Das ''fuþark'' und seine einzelsprachlichen Weiterentwicklungen'', Walter de Gruyter (2006), , 85-98 (Birkhan), 418f. (Schulte). *W. Krause. Die Sprache der urnordischen Runeninschriften, C. Winter (1971), p. 37

References

See also