All runic alphabets compared
Thirteen centuries of runic writing in one table. Which alphabet, when, where, how many runes, and what each one could and could not write.
The short answer
Runic writing lasted roughly thirteen centuries, from the second century AD into the later Middle Ages. Over that span it was not one system but several, each adapted to a particular language at a particular time.
Popular writing tends to flatten all of this into "the runes", usually illustrated with the Elder Futhark and captioned as Viking. The table below is the corrective: four systems, four sets of dates, four different answers to the question of how many runes there are.
The medieval system is the one almost nobody mentions, and it is the one that produced the most surviving material. The Bergen wharf alone yielded hundreds of runic messages on wood. Runes did not end with the Vikings; they carried on as an ordinary everyday script for another four hundred years.
Side by side
The complete rune rows. Click any rune for its dictionary entry.
Point by point
| Elder Futhark | Younger Futhark | Anglo-Saxon Futhorc | Medieval runes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of runes | 24 | 16 | 29–33+ | No fixed count: the sixteen plus dotted and borrowed additions, varying by region and century; 27 on our chart |
| In use | c. AD 150–800 | c. AD 800–1100 | c. AD 400–1100 | c. AD 1100–1500 |
| Region | Northern and central Europe | Scandinavia and the Viking world | England and Frisia | Scandinavia |
| Language | Proto-Norse, early Germanic | Old Norse | Old English, Old Frisian | Old Norse and Latin |
| Direction of change | The original | Reduced | Expanded | Expanded again, with dots |
| Rune-name evidence | Reconstructed only | Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems | Old English Rune Poem | Inherited from the Younger Futhark |
| Surviving inscriptions | Fewer than about 400 | Several thousand | Fewer than about 200, plus several hundred runic coins counted separately | Several thousand |
| Distinguishes /t/ from /d/ | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Distinguishes /k/ from /g/ | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Religious context | Pre-Christian | Spans the conversion | Largely Christian | Christian |
| Commonly called "Viking runes" | Frequently, and wrongly | Correctly | No | No |
| Used in modern divination | Almost exclusively | Rarely | Occasionally | No |
Common questions
- How many runic alphabets are there?
- Four main ones are usually distinguished: the Elder Futhark, the Younger Futhark, the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc and the medieval Scandinavian runes. There are also regional and specialised systems, including cipher runes, that sit alongside these.
- Which runic alphabet is the oldest?
- The Elder Futhark. The earliest securely runic inscriptions date to around the middle of the 2nd century AD, and every later runic alphabet descends from it.
- When did people stop using runes?
- Much later than most people assume. Medieval runes were in everyday use in Scandinavia until roughly 1500, and Dalecarlian runes were still being cut in Dalarna in Sweden into the 20th century, some four hundred years after runes had died out everywhere else.