The Peculiar Position of Germanic Runes in the History of Script

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.