ᛦ

ᛦ U+16E6, ᛦ RUNIC LETTER LONG-BRANCH-YR ← ᛥ [U+16E5] Runic ᛧ → [U+16E7]

Translingual

Etymology

From Elder Futhark ᛉ. The rune was flipped upside down around the 400s-500s, as can be seen on the inscription of the Järsberg Runestone.

Letter

ᛦ

1. A letter of the Younger Futhark, Yr (“yew”), representing /r/ and transliterated as ʀ.

Coordinate terms

• ᛉ

See also

• ᛣ

Further reading

• Algiz § Younger Futhark on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

German

The "life rune" and "death rune" on a grave marker in Niederaula, Germany.

The runes on a grave in Hamburg.

Etymology

From the interpretation as Todesrune (“death rune”).

Symbol

ᛦ

1. (obsolete, Nazism) died, dead (replacing †)

   Coordinate term: ᛉ

Usage notes

The rune is part of the Armanen runes, which are based on the Younger Futhark. The visual representation of the rune in the original publication is closer to ⟨ᛣ⟩, with straight arms to mirror ⟨ᛉ⟩, but this denotes a different letter, Old English calc /k/, and not yr. There is currently no specific codepoint in Unicode for straight-armed yr as opposed to curved-armed yr, so both are conventionally encoded as ⟨ᛦ⟩. It should be noted that the distinction between round and straight runes is purely graphemic, and not historically something that distinguishes one runic script from another.