Elder Futhark vs Younger Futhark
The single most consequential fact about runes: the alphabet shrank from 24 characters to 16 just as the Viking Age began. Almost everything people get wrong about runes follows from not knowing that.
The short answer
Around AD 700–800 the runic alphabet used in Scandinavia was cut from 24 characters to 16. This is genuinely strange. Writing systems normally gain characters as a language gains sounds, and Old Norse was gaining sounds at exactly this time. Scandinavia went the other way, and nobody has a fully satisfying explanation for why.
The practical result is that Younger Futhark spelling is heavily ambiguous. One rune covers /k/ and /g/. Another covers /t/ and /d/. Another covers /b/ and /p/. There are no separate runes for e, o, y or w. A reader had to work out from context which sound was meant, which was manageable if you spoke Old Norse and knew the formulaic language of memorial inscriptions, and is considerably harder now.
If you take one thing from this page: the Vikings did not use the Elder Futhark. The changeover ran through the 8th century and was complete by around AD 800, so the 24-rune alphabet was already obsolete in Scandinavia as the Viking Age opened. Most "Viking rune" charts online show the Elder Futhark.
Side by side
The complete rune rows. Click any rune for its dictionary entry.
Point by point
| Elder Futhark | Younger Futhark | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of runes | 24 | 16 |
| In use | c. AD 150–800 | c. AD 800–1100 |
| Used by | Germanic-speaking peoples across northern and central Europe | Scandinavians of the Viking Age and their settlements abroad |
| Language written | Proto-Norse and other early Germanic languages | Old Norse |
| Groups (ættir) | 3 groups of 8 | 3 groups of 6, 5 and 5 |
| Separate rune for /g/ | Yes: ᚷ gebo | No: merged into ᚴ kaun with /k/ |
| Separate rune for /d/ | Yes: ᛞ dagaz | No: merged into ᛏ týr with /t/ |
| Separate rune for /p/ | Yes: ᛈ perthro | No: merged into ᛒ bjarkan with /b/ |
| Separate rune for /o/ | Yes: ᛟ othala | No: written with ᚢ úr, though the nasal ᚬ óss drifted towards /o/ late in the period |
| Separate rune for /e/ | Yes: ᛖ ehwaz | No: written with ᛁ íss |
| Rune names | Reconstructed. No contemporary source records them. | Attested. The Norwegian and Icelandic rune poems name all sixteen. |
| Surviving inscriptions | Fewer than about 400, mostly very short | Several thousand, including the Swedish runestones |
| Graphic variants | Regional variation, but no formal traditions | Long-branch, short-twig and staveless |
| Used in modern divination | Yes: nearly all modern rune practice uses these 24 | Rarely |
Common questions
- Did Vikings use Elder Futhark or Younger Futhark?
- Younger Futhark. The Elder Futhark had gone out of use in Scandinavia by around AD 800, which is roughly when the Viking Age began. Elder Futhark inscriptions are Iron Age and Migration Period, not Viking.
- Why did the alphabet get smaller?
- Nobody knows for certain. It happened while Old Norse was developing more sounds, not fewer, so the reduction runs against what you would expect. Proposals range from a deliberate reform to a gradual simplification driven by carving practice, and none is generally accepted.
- Which one should I use for a tattoo?
- It depends what you want it to say. Younger Futhark is what a Viking-Age carver would have used, but it will spell your text ambiguously. The Anglo-Saxon Futhorc handles English sounds best. The Elder Futhark is the most legible to other people, because it is the one everyone has seen.