# Runic Pronunciation



## elegant_voodoo

Good day all!

I hope this message falls within the acceptable questions. I am starting on a journey to learn more about Runes (the Futhark) and am having some trouble with pronunciations of some of the letters and words. Specifically, I am having problems with how to say "Aett" as in one of the three Aetts and the đ versus the þ.

I believe I found something that helps with the letters, the voiced th versus the nonvoiced th .. the vibration of the vocal cords versus a whispered one. I have been trying to find a site that will let me listen, but haven't been successful thusfar.

As for the pronunciation of aett, I was told by a few people it was pronounced as "A-let". The 'A' as in '-a- barrel of fish' and 'let' as in '-let- me do that', but I can't see how that would be correct as there's no L sound in there anywhere!

Any help or guidance towards the right direction would be greatly appreciated! And if this isn't the type of post that's supposed to be here, I do apologize, no offense is/was intended.

Muchly appreciated!
elegant_voodoo


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## duckie

I didn't even realize there were guides on how to pronounce runes.. I figure the closest in pronounciation must be Icelandic?


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## elegant_voodoo

That would be my thought too... Icelandic.


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## Myha

I would pronounce aett like we do the Norwegian equivalent ætt, that is not quite as broad as the Norwegian letter -æ, but more like Norwegian -e (the -et in wet would be close to how I would say it...)


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## elegant_voodoo

Thank you, Myha .. I was thinking it was probably something close to that. I'd seen that the Icelandic 'ae' was pronounced similar to the i in high, so eye-t is what I'd been able to piece together. But that sounds quite probable as well.

Muchly appreciated!


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## duckie

What does Aett mean? It sounds like a name for a letter in the way you described it?


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## Myha

> The *Scandinavian clan* or *ætt* [IPA: ɛtt] in Old Norse, was a social group based on common descent or on the formal acceptance into the group at a ting.


search for it at wikipedia...

It is also the name of the three groups or families of runes...


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## duckie

Ah, that word is spelt 'æt' in Danish, but I didn't realize it could also refer to the rune families.


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## Myha

I didn't either until I saw it on wikipedia... and I also wasn't aware of the Danish spelling...


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## Sepia

Myha said:


> I didn't either until I saw it on wikipedia... and I also wasn't aware of the Danish spelling...




Anyone who finds this thread interesting will probably also find this website even more interesting

http://www.verasir.dk/

It is a book by the title of 

Asernes Aet


which the author Flemming Rickfors decided not to publish in print, and put it on his website, in stead.


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## Væring

duckie said:


> Ah, that word is spelt 'æt' in Danish, but I didn't realize it could also refer to the rune families.


I don't know if this is important in the context, but yes, the word is "æt" in modern Danish. No one, however, has mentioned that it is pronounced with a 'stød'. This is particularly difficult for non-native Danish speakers in monosyllabic words.


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## pimlicodude

Væring said:


> I don't know if this is important in the context, but yes, the word is "æt" in modern Danish. No one, however, has mentioned that it is pronounced with a 'stød'. This is particularly difficult for non-native Danish speakers in monosyllabic words.


?????
English has extensive preglottalisation (=stød) before p t k and ch at the end of a word too. It wouldn't be difficult for an English speaker to pronounce at all. Try words like bit, stop, clock and church - all with stød in English.


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## Sepia

pimlicodude said:


> ?????
> English has extensive preglottalisation (=stød) before p t k and ch at the end of a word too. It wouldn't be difficult for an English speaker to pronounce at all. Try words like bit, stop, clock and church - all with stød in English.


 You are right. That shouldn't be a problem to anyone who is good a any of the Germanic languages. I have no idea why that should be difficult for non-natives.


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## winenous

pimlicodude said:


> English has extensive preglottalisation (=stød) before p t k and ch at the end of a word too. It wouldn't be difficult for an English speaker to pronounce at all. Try words like bit, stop, clock and church - all with stød in English.


Checking with Google I see that a few sources refer to this, but the only specific examples I found come from South Wales and North-East England, and I am pretty sure I don't preglottalise. It cannot be that usual can it? Or am I overlooking something? It must be a lot more common to totally replace "t" by a glottal stop.

As for difficulty in pronouncing the "stød" - it depends. I never cease to be amazed at the problems most native English speakers have with the pronunciation of any vaguely foreign sounds. And in my experience I find that, even if I can pronounce certain sounds in isolation, or in a specific context, they can be a lot more difficult out of the normal context.


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## pimlicodude

winenous said:


> Checking with Google


You can't check pronunciation on Google. It is just a curated list of sites. I doubt you have interrogated Google properly, though. If you put "pre-glottalisation plosives" in as your search term, all the entries on the first page of results relate to pre-glottalisation in English.


> I see that a few sources refer to this, but the only specific examples I found come from South Wales and North-East England


No. Pre-glottalisation is found through the south. Try words like "thatcher". There is a fleeting glottal stop before the "ch".


> I am pretty sure I don't preglottalise.


People can't always analyse their own pronunciation.


> It must be a lot more common to totally replace "t" by a glottal stop.


Yes, it is. You can replace the t by a glottal stop. But where the t is used, it is preglottalised. This has nothing to do with words like clock and stop that don't have a t in them. Lock has a preglottalised t, but locking doesn't. It seems to relate to whether the p, t or k is word-final. Church and churches both have preglottalised ch. It seems that medial ch is preglottalised and so varies from p,t,k which are only pre-glottalised finally.
Compare lock, locking, church and churches in Forvo.
[/QUOTE]


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## winenous

Thank you for your reply, @pimlicodude.

However I searched, I don't dispute that pre-glottalisation exists in English. The few academics sources I found were sufficient to convince me of that. I am just trying to understand what it sounds like, and the extent (in terms of speaker geography and age) to which it is used.

I can certainly hear differences on Forvo with the words you mention, and when I say the words there is the same difference as far as I can tell. But to me the difference sounds to me more like how the last consonant is aspirated. Maybe I am misunderstanding the term pre-glottalisation, but when I say the words, the back or my throat is not invovled in any of them.

Of (slightly) more relevance to this thread, to me none of these English pre-glottalisations sounds anything like the Danish stød. On the other hand the Estuary English glotal stops in water and bit do.


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## berndf

winenous said:


> However I searched, I don't dispute that pre-glottalisation exists in English. The few academics sources I found were sufficient to convince me of that. I am just trying to understand what it sounds like, and the extent (in terms of speaker geography and age) to which it is used.


If you compare the strongly pre-glottalised /t/ in BrE _that_ as pronounced by user enfield here with the stød between /u/ and /l/ in Danish _gul _here, I think the similarities but also the dissimilarities become clear. I hear the Danish stød much closer to being a segment in its own right thand pre-glotalisation in English and other Germanic languages, which is much closer linked to the stop it introduces. Also compare here with Arabic رأس, where [ʔ] counts as a separate consonant [rɑʔs].


winenous said:


> On the other hand the Estuary English glotal stops in water and bit do.


I understand _t_-glottalisation in Cockney and Estuary accents essentially as a separation of the pre-glottalisation from the [t] and dropping of the latter.


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## winenous

Thank you @berndf - I hear that, and understand. It seemed less clear in other examples. 

I still don't think I pre-glottalise in my English - air flows smoothly through my mouth until the consonant. Similarly there is absolutely no way I'd replace the "t" in "water" by a glottal stop, though it might be slightly voiced in sloppy speech. I was brought up in the North Midlands (England).


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## berndf

Indeed. Pre-glottalisation is frequent but not universal. Also, the glottal closure is often not complete and the effect is the addition of "vocal fry" to the preceding vowel as you can hear in TopQuark's and palashdave's recordings. I believe the same often happens with the Danish stød.


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## Segorian

Since this thread was brought back to life, buth without an actual answer having been provided, here goes:



elegant_voodoo said:


> I am starting on a journey to learn more about Runes (the Futhark) and am having some trouble with pronunciations of some of the letters and words. Specifically, I am having problems with how to say "Aett" as in one of the three Aetts and the đ versus the þ.


From what you write, you seem to be looking for the Old Norse pronunciation. I will answer based on that.



elegant_voodoo said:


> I believe I found something that helps with the letters, the voiced th versus the nonvoiced th .. the vibration of the vocal cords versus a whispered one.


The futhark uses only one rune for both sounds, but transcriptions may distinguish between Þ/þ (th as in ‘thing’) and Ð/ð (th as in ‘rather’). As a general rule, the first was used in initial positions — for example ᚦᚢᚱ or ᚦᚢᛦ — and the second in other positions — for example ᛒᛅᚦᛅ.



elegant_voodoo said:


> As for the pronunciation of aett, I was told by a few people it was pronounced as "A-let". The 'A' as in '-a- barrel of fish' and 'let' as in '-let- me do that', but I can't see how that would be correct as there's no L sound in there anywhere!


That must be a misunderstanding. In Old Norse, the pronuncation of _ætt_ was close to the pronunciation of the descendants of the word in modern Norwegian (ætt) and Swedish (ätt) — approximately [ɛtː]. The modern Icelandic pronunciation has deviated from the original one and is of little help.

(With the main exception of the th sound, which was lost, central Norwegian and Swedish dialects have arguably retained more of the pronunciation of Old Norse than modern Icelandic has. For example, Icelandic merged y with i and transformed a number of long vowels into diphthongs. It turned -ll- into -dl- and added a very conspicuous preaspiration to some voiceless consonants — although this last also exists in certain Norwegian and Swedish dialects.)


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