OT: Need help on Ancient European Languages...

Hibuke

Hibuke

Joined
Mar 28, 2002
Messages
317
Hey Ferrous, etc.

This is a general call to all those in the know...

After seeing the awesome work done on the HI Seaxes, I wanted to try it out on my own.....

Now here's the big question: What are the ancient languages of either Poland or Ukraine? Were they runic? Can anyone help me out here?

I'd appeciate all the assistance here!





Much Thanks in advance...
 
If you go back far enough, you will find a "mother tongue" called "Proto Indo-European" that was the basis for western languages from Farsi to French.
We need more information on what you mean by "ancient"?
Can you give us a century or general period ?
 
Lemme explain myself here!

Here's where I need most help in... I have a female friend. Polish/Ukrainian decent.

Anyhoo, I came up with an interesting gift idea. She's really quite interested in her culture/heritage in general, so I'm trying to find a traditional Polish knife and etch/carve her name into the blade... Don't get more historic, traditional or cultural than that, eh?

So, I hope any of you can help me out here!

I'll need help in:
What is a traditionally Polish Knife? Anything similar to it available, like a Puukko?

I need Polish/Ukrainian characters (if they that's a proper term) of that period...




Thanks alot, I really need it!
 
Wasn't the Cyrllic alphabet invented around 1200 AD? Don't many slavic cultures/languaues use that?

Sorry, don't know much.

Tom
 
but any single bladed utility knife is pretty representative of knives of the area.

According to my research, they used the Viking runesets, as well as the Younger and Elder Futharks. So pretty much you can take your pick on the runes you want to use, Elder and Younger cover everything but late medieval and Gothic runes (which were more talismanic in nature, and not used as a written language).

If you want to email me the english version of the inscription, I can translate it into runes for you, and mail it back to you as a jpeg or such.

Cyrillic was invented in 864 by two missionaries, Cyril and Methodius. They came from Constantinople and created an alphabet (loosely based on latin characters) that was adequate for translating the bible into the Slavonic languages. It spread throughout Slavonic Orthodox churches.
Cyril and Methodius were initially sent to convert the Turkic Khazars of the Crimea, so that religious ties would bind them more closely to the Holy Roman Empire than the political ties which were being undermined at the time by the newly arrived pagan Rus of Kiev.

Even today, the old ways have never been ousted from the Baltic regoins. They always felt that spirituality was the onus of the inidividual, so that there were usually 3-4 religions or practices goin in any region.

Hope this helps!

Keith
 
Ferrous Wheel said:
but any single bladed utility knife is pretty representative of knives of the area.

According to my research, they used the Viking runesets, as well as the Younger and Elder Futharks. So pretty much you can take your pick on the runes you want to use, Elder and Younger cover everything but late medieval and Gothic runes (which were more talismanic in nature, and not used as a written language).

If you want to email me the english version of the inscription, I can translate it into runes for you, and mail it back to you as a jpeg or such.

*SNIPPING*

Hope this helps!

Keith
Click to expand...

It does! Very much so! Thanks! Will email you shortly...

BTW, how do you get the translations?




Much Thanks!
 
Easy--the Runic alphabet was the basis for the germanic and anglo frisian (and other) languages, like english. There are 24 runes in the Elder Futhark, and 26 English alphabet characters. It is pretty much a direct translation which anyone could do or learn.

Sometimes there may be phonetic transliterations, like for the modern English letter "C". There is no "C" rune. "C" was borrowed from the Mediterranean and other parts of central Europe and adopted into English. The "C" represents an "S" sound (as in "City") or a "K" sound (as in "Cat"). There are S and K runes.

I have about 1/2 dozen books on runic alphabets, and can point you to some websites with good translations. About half of the runes (or more) look like the letter they represent in english. Othrer runes found their use in Old English, like the "Thorn" rune (þ) for a Th sound.

Check this out:

hungarian_alph.gif

"Hungarian runes (Székely Rovásírás) are descended from the Kök Turki script used in Central Asia. They were used by the Székler Magyars in Hungary before István, the first Christian king of Hungary, ordered all pre-Christian writings to be destroyed. In remote parts of Transylvania however, the runes were still used up until the 1850s. Hungarian runes were usually written on sticks in boustrophedon style (alternating direction right to left then left to right). The runes include separate letters for all the phonemes of Hungarian and are in this respect better suited to written Hungarian than the Latin alphabet. "
hungarianrunes.gif


From
http://sunnyway.com/runes/origins.html
Great stuff there for translation.

Keith
 
As the Ukrainian area was part of the Rus-realm (more or les Vikings who settled there along the Djepr with Kiew as their capital) I would expect runes before the middle of the 9th century and cyrillic afterwards. Before and during the existance of the realm of Kiew the "Polanes" ( --> Poland, it means people of the plains) are known as an autochtonous people of Poland but also the Pruzzi (--> Prussians) used to live where now is Poland. (Poland was "pushed" westwards by Stalin after WWII. It lost territory to the USSR and gained areas from the German Reich

Before this Poland was kind of a territory of Germanic peoples (Vandals, later (5th century) Langobards and the Neuri, a slavic people.

Andreas
 
Thanks for the info on the Hungarian runes, Ferrous! Got that bookmarked now.
 
I hate to come into a discussion so late ... I just came across this after seeing Hibuke had been so unfortunately hospitalized :( I hope he has a quick and complete recovery.

Cyril and Methodius most likely developed the glagolitic alphabet, and they based it on uncial Greek letters, with some Hebrew letters thrown in for sounds the Greeks didn't use but the Slavs did. Cyrillic was developed later from capital Greek letters. Poles were Catholic, and used the Roman alphabet. Ukrainians were largely Orthodox and used Cyrillic. Complicating this, Poland ruled over large areas, including at various times pagan Lithuania (a joint Kingdom with Poland), White Russia, and Ukraine.

You can get all kinds of alphabets at Omniglot: a guide to writing systems.
 
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