Schreibpraktiken und Schriftwesen in südgermanischen Runeninschriften: Zur Funktionalität epigraphischer Schriftverwendung by Michelle Waldispühl (review)

Foremost among this book’s several aims is the establishment of a framework with which one can investigate runic inscriptions as objectively as possible. Arising from her 2011 dissertation, Waldispühl presents a systematic and inductive approach to the study of German runic epigraphy that can deal equally with the linguistic aspects of an inscription as well as the social function of inscribed objects (whether their inscriptions are intelligible or not).

Waldispühl establishes the scope of her work in the initial pages of the book with a quick overview of the nature of the corpus of southern Germanic runic inscriptions (pp. 11–26). Eighty-three inscriptions are included, and Waldispühl presents a quick overview of the place of each find along with a table that charts the type of object (e.g., fibula, seax, sword, spearhead) against the material the object is made of (gold, silver, bone, metal, and such) (pp. 14–19). Part B, an overview of the methods, sets up the current state of affairs for runology in general, as well as for associated archaeological considerations. One of the key developments of Waldispühl’s work is her emphasis not only on autopsy of finds (pp. 41–43) but also the use of more sophisticated means of examination, such as the scanning electron microsope, surface scan, and computerized tomography of objects (pp. 39–41).

Most innovative within the work is Waldispühl’s creation of a self-contained analytical system for cataloging and describing the relevant characteristics of a piece of runic epigraphy (Part C). The approach taken to this system is very reminiscent of Jakobsonian structuralism, which lends the perspective of an indifferent observer, thus attempting to minimize the investigator’s interpretation of epigraphic material. In part, the initial discussion of this section revolves around what constitutes writing and nonwriting, and their relationship to language (pp. 47–60). Subsequently, Waldispühl establishes a set of descriptive criteria for inscriptions along three levels. The first level concerns itself with the inscribed characters themselves, including stroke depth, stroke profile, stroke path, stroke on- and off-set, and stroke ornamentation. Each of these characteristics is then further broken down with appropriate illustrations for each (pp. 60–66). The next level of description extends outside of the single character to attributes shared between characters: character height, character width, character orientation, and spacing between characters or groups of characters (pp. 66–67). On the broadest end of the spectrum, Waldispühl defines a set of characteristics related to the location of characters upon the object: writing area, framing, and orientation of lines (pp. 67–68).

Following the descriptive criteria is a section with a more theoretical bent. Before addressing the forms and shapes of the runic characters, Waldispühl engages in a discussion on the interrelationship between language and writing. It is worth noting that the author provided a thorough examination of an expansive topic in a relatively short amount of space. Important concepts brought into view are the graph, type of graph, class of graph-types, allograph, grapheme, and their interrelationship with other units such as the phoneme and element of the futhark. Waldispühl brings the notions of graph-type and graph-type-class. The former consists of characters with a similar structure, and the latter of grouping of such groups (pp. 70–75). With this categorization in mind, one can deal with inscriptions that may or may not convey linguistic material (pp. 75–83). A description of notation for the graphemic characteristics of an inscription appends the discussion (pp. 83–87). Narrowing from the broad treatment of graphemes, Waldispühl provides an overview of the runic letters employed in most German runic inscriptions, as well as their variant shapes and relationship to the phonemes they represent (pp. 88–95).

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