Old Hungarian script
Hungarian Runes (Székely Rovásírás) is a type of runic writing system used among the pagan magyars prior to the ruling of St. Stephen I in 1000, the first christian king of Hungary, who ordered that all pre-christian writings be destroyed and that the the latin alphabet be adopted. However, this script remained in use in remote regions of Transsylvania until the late 1850s.
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Origins
Hungarian Runes are not related to Germanic Runes, they derive from the Orkhon or Turkic Runic (Kök Turki) script. They were usually written on sticks in boustrophedon style (alternating direction right to left and then left to right). In some respect they are more suitable for writing hungarian than the latin alphabet, because it includes separate letters for all the phonemes of hungarian. Also note that it does not contain the so called "foreign letters": dz, dzs, q, w, x and y; which only appear in foreign words' hungarianization.
How does it look like?
Today
Theese days, unfortunately, the "rovásírás" has got a political undertone. It's mainly used by far-rightist groups in propaganda or seen on similar grafittis across Hungary.
External links
- Hungarian runic font (http://fang.fa.gau.hu/~heves/runic.html)
- Omniglot entry (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/hungarian_runes.htm)
Category
Categories: Writing systems