The Peculiar Position of Germanic Runes in the History of Script

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Published: Dec 10, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.47743/lincu-2020-2-0169
Keywords:
visual communication Danube script folklore runes divination ideography phonography

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Adrian Poruciuc
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania

Abstract

The present article is based on the material of a keynote presentation that was delivered at the International Conference From Runes to the New Media and Digital Books, which took place at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi on 30-31 May, 2019. In order to make that material more coherent, the author of that presentation will add supplementary clues and comments, all meant to sustain the idea that the Old Germanic runes – although commonly considered to be just alphabetic signs – have peculiar features that resemble the ones of much earlier historical scripts, and even of prehistoric ones, such as the now much discussed Danube Script. The issues and illustrations of this paper may be of interest not only for linguistic and cultural studies, but also for the domain of European history.

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How to Cite
Poruciuc, A. “The Peculiar Position of Germanic Runes in the History of Script”. Linguaculture, vol. 11, no. 2, Dec. 2020, pp. 13-26, doi:10.47743/lincu-2020-2-0169.
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Vol. 11 No. 2 (2020)
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Articles
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Author Biography

Adrian Poruciuc, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania

Adrian Poruciuc began his career in 1971, at the Department of English of  Universitatea “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iaşi (UAIC). He got his full  professorship in 2008. Before he retired from teaching, in 2013, he had taught  ten different courses at UAIC. He presented at many congresses and  conferences, in Romania and abroad. He also worked (half-post) for the Romanian Institute of Thracian Studies (Bucharest) and, subsequently, for the  Institute of Archaeology (Iaşi). At present he still supervises PhD theses at the Faculty of History of UAIC. Most of Professor Poruciuc’s books and articles  represent the fields of historical linguistics, Indo-European studies and  archaeomythology. Some of his most significant volumes are the following:  Prehistoric Roots of Romanian and Southeast European Traditions (Sebastopol,  CA, 2010), A Concise History of the English Language (Iaşi, 2004), Limbă şi  istorie engleză (Iaşi,1999), Archaeolinguistica (Bucureşti, 1995). He lectured at  a number of foreign universities, including University of Chicago (as Fulbright  Visiting Scholar, 1990-1992), Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg,  Universidad de la Laguna, Nov Bălgarski Universitet. He became Fellow per la Letteratura, Compagnia di San Paolo – Bogliasco, Italy (2003) and Fellow of the  Institute of Archaeomythology, Sebastopol, California (2005). He also belongs  to the editorial boards of The Journal of Indo-European Studies and Mankind  Quarterly.

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