Peorð

Name	Proto-Germanic	Old English
Name	*Perþō^?	Peorð
Shape	Elder Futhark	Futhorc
Shape
Unicode	ᛈ U+16C8
Transliteration	p
Transcription	p
IPA	[p]
Position in rune-row	14 b

This article contains runic characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of runes.

ᛈ is the rune denoting the sound p (voiceless bilabial stop) in the Elder Futhark runic alphabet. It does not appear in the Younger Futhark. It is named peorð in the Anglo-Saxon rune-poem and glossed as follows:

ᛈ peorð bẏþ sẏmble plega and hlehter / ƿlancum [on middum], ðar ƿigan sittaþ / on beorsele bliþe ætsomne

"ᛈ Peorð is [en]samble playing and laughter / proud in middle, there warriors sit / in beer-hall remain united."

No word similar to peorð is known in Old English. According to a 9th-century manuscript (Codex Vindobonensis 795), the letter of the Gothic alphabet p (based on a Greek Π) is called "pertra." As this name is reconstructed to *pairþra, it could be related to peorð, but its meaning is similarly unknown.^[1]

The Common Germanic name could be referring to a pear-tree (or perhaps generally a fruit-tree). Based on the context of "recreation and amusement" given in the rune poem, a common speculative interpretation^{[by whom?]} is that the intended meaning is "pear-wood" as the material of either a woodwind instrument, or a "game box" or game pieces made from wood.

From peorð, Proto-Germanic form *perðu, *perþō or *perþaz may be reconstructed on purely phonological grounds. The expected Proto-Germanic term for "pear tree" would be *pera-trewô (*pera being, however, a post-Proto-Germanic loan, either West Germanic, or Common Germanic, if Gothic pairþra meant "pear tree", from Vulgar Latin pirum (plural pira), itself of unknown origin). The Ogham letter name Ceirt, glossed as "apple tree", may in turn be a loan from Germanic into Primitive Irish.

The earliest attestation of the rune is in the Kylver Stone futhark row (ca. AD 400). The earliest example in a linguistic context (as opposed to an abecedarium) is already in futhorc, in the Kent II, III and IV coin inscriptions (the personal names pada and æpa/epa), dated to ca. AD 700. On St. Cuthbert's coffin (AD 698), a p rune takes the place of Greek Ρ. The Westeremden yew-stick (ca. AD 750) has op hæmu "at home" and up duna "on the hill".

Looijenga (1997) speculates that the p rune arose as a variant of the b rune, parallel to the secondary nature of Ogham peith. The uncertainty surrounding the rune is a consequence of the rarity of the *p phoneme in Proto-Germanic.

The rune is discontinued in Younger Futhark, which expresses /p/ with the b rune, for example on the Viking Age Skarpåker Stone,

iarþ

Jörð

sal

skal

rifna

uk

ok

ubhimin

upphiminn.

"Earth shall be rent, and the heavens above."

References

A. Bammesberger, G. Waxenberger (eds.), Das fuþark und seine einzelsprachlichen Weiterentwicklungen, Walter de Gruyter (2006), ISBN 3-11-019008-7, 85-98 (Birkhan), 418f. (Schulte).
W. Krause. Die Sprache der urnordischen Runeninschriften, C. Winter (1971), p. 37

References

See also