Author : Richard L. Morris
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027272913
Total Pages : 191 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)
Book Synopsis Runic and Mediterranean Epigraphy by : Richard L. Morris
Download or read book Runic and Mediterranean Epigraphy written by Richard L. Morris and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1988-01-01 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Runic and Mediterranean Epigraphy examines the past 100 years of runic scholarship to show that previous investigations on the origin of the runes have been hampered by a series of ad hoc postulates, the greatest being that the runes cannot have come into existence before the birth of Christ. If one examines the runic, Greek, and Latin alphabets on the basis of letter shapes, graphic-phonological correspondences, direction of writing, the orthographic treatment of nasals, the use of ligatures, interpuncts, and double letters, without any regard to time, striking similiarities appear. These similarities occur between the runes on the one hand and the archaic, pre-classical Greek and Latin writing systems, but not the Latin and Greek writing systems after the birth of Christ. While comparison yields a definite relationship between the runes and the archaic Greek and Latin writing systems, the runes seem to have more in common with the Greek than with the Latin. Runic and Mediterranean Epigraphy demonstrates that the question, 'Where did the runes come from?' has not yet been answered.