Peorð

runic|ᛈ is the rune denoting the sound "p" in the Elder Futhark runic alphabet, in the Anglo-Saxon rune poem named peorð. It does not appear in the Younger Futhark. In the poem, it is glossed with the enigmatic::runic|ᛈ "peorð byþ symble plega and hlehter / wlancum [on middum] , ðar wigan sittaþ / on beorsele bliþe ætsomne":"Peorð is a source of recreation and amusement to the great, where warriors sit blithely together in the banqueting-hall."

The name is not comprehensible from Old English. In the Gothic alphabet, the letters .

The Common Germanic name could be referring to a pear-tree (or generally a fruit-tree). A common interpretation is that "peorð" refers to a sort of woodwind instrument. From "peorð", a Proto-Germanic name *perðu, *perþō or *perþaz is sometimes reconstructed, with unknown meaning. 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. Since the Elder Futhark itself is post-Proto-Germanic, attested from the 2nd century, an early loanword as a letter name is perfectly possible). 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, itself due to the rarity of its parent-phoneme "*b" (or glottalised *p’) in Proto-Indo-European.

The rune is discontinued in Younger Futhark, which expresses /p/ with the "b" rune, for example on the Viking Age Skarpaker Stone,:"iarþ sal rifna uk ubhimin"for Old Norse:"Jörð skal rifna ok 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).

ee also

*Runic alphabet
*Rune poem
*Gothic alphabet
*Ogham