or is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the ''l''-

rune Runes are the letter (alphabet), 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, a ...

, meaning " water" or " lake" and meaning "

leek The leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of ''Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek ( syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a stem or stalk. The genus ''Alli ...

". In the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

rune poem, it is called " ocean". In the Younger Futhark, the rune is called " waterfall" in Icelandic and "water" in Norse. The corresponding

Gothic letter Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...

is 𐌻 ''l'', named . The rune is identical in shape to the letter ''l'' in the

Raetic alphabet The Old Italic scripts are a family of similar ancient writing systems used in the Italy, Italian Peninsula between about 700 and 100 BC, for various languages spoken in that time and place. The most notable member is the Etruscan alphabet, ...

. The "leek" hypothesis is based not on the rune poems, but rather on early inscriptions where the rune has been hypothesized to abbreviate , a symbol of fertility, see the Bülach fibula.

References

Runes {{writingsystem-stub

See also

References