Same script, different rules? On the alleged different spelling of names compared to other words in runic inscriptions

Abstract

The article deals with the question of whether words with different communicative weight are spelled differently in Viking-Age Swedish runic inscriptions and more specifically with the supposedly more careful spelling of personal names compared to formulaic words. The hypothesis that names appear less frequently in a deviant form than formulaic words is tested empirically in three investigations: 1) A quantitative study of the amount of spelling mistakes in a selection of words from the two aforementioned categories; 2) An analysis of a selection of deviant spellings in the context of the inscriptions where they occur; 3) A study of the inscriptions signed by the rune carver Øpir. The results of the quantitative study reveal a small but statistically significant difference in the proportion of deviant spellings of personal names and appellatives. On average, names are in fact spelled correctly 3% more often than formulaic words. The contextualised analysis of deviant spellings show that misspelled names and misspelled formulaic words often occur together, which indicates that in such cases misspellings depend more on the carver’s skill, than on whether words belong to different categories. The investigation of Øpir’s inscriptions reveals that miscarvings and his typical practice of abbreviating words can be found both in very frequent words and in names, suggesting that the treatment of these two categories is similar as far as their spelling is concerned. A general result regards the overall low occurrence of deviant forms, which calls for a scrutiny of interpretations which presuppose carving mistakes.