Magical Alphabets
Little is known about the origins of the Runic alphabet, which is traditionally known as futhark after the first six letters. In Old Norse the word rune means 'letter', 'text' or 'inscription'. The word also means 'mystery' or 'secret' in Old Germanic languages and runes had a important role in ritual and magic.
Here are some theories about the origins of runes:
The earliest known Runic inscriptions date from the 1st century AD, but the vast majority of Runic inscriptions date from the 11th century. Runic inscriptions have been found throughout Europe from the Balkans to Germany, Scandinavia and the British Isles.
There are a number of different versions of the Runic alphabet including:
Elder Futhark is thought to be the oldest version of the Runic alphabet, and was used in the parts of Europe which were home to Germanic peoples, including Scandinavia. Other versions probably developed from it. The names of the letters are shown in Common Germanic, the reconstructed ancestor of all Germanic languages.
The letter k is also called kēnaz (torch) or kanō (skiff). The meaning of the letter name perţ is unknown.
Gothic, an extinct east Germanic language, was originally written with a Runic alphabet about which little is known. One theory of the origins of runes is that they were invented by the Goths, but this is impossible to prove as very few inscriptions of writing in Gothic runes survive. These runes were replaced with a new alphabet in the 4th century AD.
A number of extra letters were added to the Runic alphabet to write Anglo-Saxon/Old English. Runes were probably bought to Britain in the 5th century by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians (collectively known as the Anglo-Saxons), and were used until about the 11th century.
Runic inscriptions are mostly found on jewellery, weapons, stones and other objects. Very few examples of Runic writing on manuscripts have survived.
Younger Futhork or "Normal Runes" gradually evolved Elder Futhark over a period of many years and stabilized by about 800 A.D., the beginning of the Viking Age. It was the main alphabet in Norway, Sweden and Denmark throughout the Viking Age, but was largely though not completely replaced by the Latin alphabet by about 1200 as a result of the conversion of most of Scandinavia to Christianity.
Three slightly different versions of the alphabet developed in Denmark, Sweden and Norway:
After the arrival of Christianity in Scandinaiva, the Runic alphabet was Latinised and was used occasionlly, mainly for decoration until 1850.
Thanks to Niklas Dougherty for some of the information on this page.
Fađer uor som ast i himlüm, halgađ warđe ţit nama. Tilkomme ţit rikie. Skie ţin uilie so som i himmalan so oh bo iordanne. Wort dahliha brođ gif os i dah. Oh forlat os uora skuldar so som oh ui forlate ţem os skuüldihi are. Oh inleđ os ikkie i frestalsan utan frels os ifra ondo. Tü rikiađ ar ţit oh mahtan oh harlihheten i ewihhet. Aman.
The origins of the Theban alphabet are lost in the mists of time. It is often called "The Runes of Honorius" after its reputed inventor, Honorius of Thebes. It is also known as the 'Witch's Alphabet'.
The Enochian alphabet first appeared during the 16th century. The Court Astrologer and Magician, Dr. John Dee (1527-1608) and his associate, Sir Edward Kelly (1555-1597) claimed that the alphabet and the Enochian language was transmitted to them by angels.
The alphabet is used in the practice of Enochian Magic on Enochian Calls or Keys, which are used to call angels.
The Ogham alphabet is thought to be named after the Irish god Ogma. One theory of its origins is that it evolved out of a system of tallies used for accounting. Ogham is also known as or ogham craobh, beth luis fearn or beth luis nion.
About 500 Ogham inscriptions have been found in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England dating from between the 4th and 7th centuries AD. There are inscriptions in archaic forms of Gaelic and Pictish, which have not been deciphered. A handful of inscriptions featuring the Ogham script and the Latin alphabet have also been found.
While all surviving traces of Ogham are inscriptions on stone, it was probably more commonly inscribed on sticks, stakes and trees. Inscriptions generally take the form of somebody's name and the name of a place and were probably used to mark boundaries.
The Angelic alphabet, which is also known as the Celestial alphabet, is derived from the Hebrew and Greek alphabets. It was created by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa during the 16th Century and was used for communication with angels.
The ancient Egyptians believed that writing was invented by the god Thoth and called their hieroglyphic script "mdwt ntr" (god's words). The word hieroglyph comes from the Greek hieros (sacred) plus glypho (inscriptions) and was first used by Clement of Alexandria.
The earliest known examples of writing in Egypt have been dated to 3,400 BC. The latest dated inscription in hieroglyphs was made on the gate post of a temple at Philae in 396 AD.
The hieroglyphic script was used mainly for formal inscriptions on the walls of temples and tombs. In some inscriptions the glyphs are very detailed and in full colour, in others they are simple outlines. For everyday writing the hieratic script was used.
After the Emperor Theodsius I ordered the closure of all pagan temples throughout the Roman empire in the late 4th century AD, knowledge of the hieroglyphic script was lost until the early 19th century, when a French man named Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832) managed to decipher the script.
Egyptian, an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until about the 10th century AD. After that it continued to be used as a the liturgical language of Egyptian Christians, the Copts, in the form of Coptic.
These glyphs alone could be used to write Ancient Egyptian and represent the first alphabet ever divised. In practice, they were rarely used in the fashion.
By combining the following glyphs, any number could be constructed. The higher value signs were always written in front of the lower value ones.
Transliteration: iw wnm msh nsw, this means "The crocodile eats the king".
All human beings are born free
and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and
should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Sanskrit is the classical language of Indian and the liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is also one of the 22 official languages of India. The name Sanskrit means "refined", "consecrated" and "sanctified". It has always been regarded as the 'high' language and used mainly for religious and scientific discourse.
Vedic Sanskrit, the pre-Classical form of the language and the liturgical language of the Vedic religion, is one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family. The oldest known text in Sanskrit, the Rigveda, a collection of over a thousand Hindu hymns, composed during the 2nd millenium BC.
Today Sanskrit is used mainly in Hindu religious rituals as a ceremonial language for hymns and mantras. Efforts are also being made to revive Sanskrit as an everyday spoken language in the village of Mattur near Shimoga in Karnataka. A modern form of Sanskrit is one of the 17 official home languages in India.
Since the late 19th century, Sanskrit has been written mostly with the Devanāgarī alphabet. However it has also been written with a number of other alphabets, including the Brahmi, Kharosthi, Sharda, Siddham and Bengali alphabets.
Since the late 18th century, Sanskrit has also been written with the Latin alphabet. The most commonly used system is the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST), which was been the standard for academic work since 1912.
There are about a thousand conjunct consonants, most of which combine two or three consonants. There are also some with four-consonant conjuncts and at least one well-known conjunct with five consonants.
You can find a full list of conjunct consonants used for Sanskrit at: http://sanskrit.gde.to/learning_tutorial_wikner/P058.html
Transliteration
Sarvē mānavāḥ svatantratāḥ samutpannāḥ vartantē api ca,
gauravadr̥śā adhikāradr̥śā ca samānāḥ ēva vartantē. Ētē sarvē
cētanā-tarka-śaktibhyāṁ susampannāḥ santi. Api ca, sarvē’pi bandhutva-bhāvanayā
parasparaṁ vyavaharantu.
All human beings are born free
and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and
should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Thanks to Arvind Iyengar for providing the above sample text.
The Malachim alphabet is derived from the Hebrew and Greek alphabets. It was created by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa during the 16th Century and is still used by Freemasons to a limited extent. This version is from Bartolozzi's Biblioteca Magna Rabbinica, 1675.
The Daggers alphabet or Alphabet of Daggers, is cypher based on the Latin alphabet and used for magical purposes. It appears in Aleister Crowley's The Vision and the Voice.
The Passing the River or Passage du Fleuve alphabet is derived from the Hebrew alphabet and was created by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa during the 16th Century.
The Alphabet of the Magi was invented by Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (also known as Paracelsus) in the 16th century. He used it to engrave the names of angels on talismans which he claimed could treat illnesses and provide protection. It was probably influenced by the various other magical alphabets that were around at the time and also by the Hebrew script.
The Phoenician alphabet developed from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, during the 15th century BC. Before then the Phoenicians wrote with a cuneiform script. The earliest known inscriptions in the Phoenician alphabet come from Byblos and date back to 1000 BC.
Phoenician, a Semitic language which originated in about the 11th century BC in what is now Lebannon, Syria and Israel, an area then known as Pūt in Ancient Egyptian, Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew and Aramaic, and Phoenicia in Greek and Latin.
Phoenician spread around the Mediterranean, particularly to Tunisia, southern parts of the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal), Malta, southern France and Sicily, and was spoken until the 1st century AD.
A variant of Phoenician, known as Punic, was spoken in Carthage, a Phoencian colony in what is now Tunisia, until the 6th century AD.
The native name for the language was (dabari-m) Pōnnīm/Kana'nīm, which means "Punic/Canaanite (speech)"
The Greek alphabet has been in continuous use for the past 2,750 years or so since about 750 BC. It was developed from the Canaanite/Phoenician alphabet and the order and names of the letters are derived from Phoenician. The original Canaanite meanings of the letter names was lost when the alphabet was adapted for Greek. For example, alpha comes for the Canaanite aleph (ox) and beta from beth (house).
At first, there were a number of different versions of the alphabet used in various different Greek cities. These local alphabets, known as epichoric, can be divided into three groups: green, blue and red. The blue group developed into the modern Greek alphabet, while the red group developed into the Etruscan alphabet, other alphabets of ancient Italy and eventually the Latin alphabet.
By the early 4th century BC, the epichoric alphabets were replaced by the eastern Ionic alphabet. The capital letters of the modern Greek alphabet are almost identical to those of the Ionic alphabet. The minuscule or lower case letters first appeared sometime after 800 AD and developed from the Byzantine minuscule script, which developed from cursive writing.
Greek (Ελληνικά), an Indo-European language spoken by about 14 million people mainly in Greece and Cyprus, where it is an official language. Greek is also recognised as a minority language in parts of Turkey, Italy and Albania.
Today the Greek alphabet is used only to write Greek, however at various times in the past it has been used to write such languages as Lydian, Phrygian, Thracian, Gaulish, Hebrew, Arabic, Old Ossetic, Albanian, Turkish, Aromanian, Gagauz, Surguch and Urum.
Óli i ánthropi yeniúnde eléftheri ke ísi stin aksioprépia ke ta dhikeómata. Íne prikizméni me loyikí ke sinídhisi, ke ofílun na simberiféronde metaksí tus me pnévma adhelfosínis.
All human beings are born
free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and
conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights)
The colorAlphabet is a method of writing English using colours invented by Christian Faur. It is made of 26 distinct colours which map to the 26 letters of the English alphabet. This alphabet is designed to allow Christian, as an artist, to construct meaning out of color directly and unambiguously using the English system of language that he is already familiar with.
How the colours map to the letters, and their RGB coding.
All human beings are born free
and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and
should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
