The Hungarian Rune Writing
Dr. Gábor Hosszú
e-mail: hageel@freemail.hu
The
rovásírás (rune writing in Hungarian) is a special part of the Hungarian
culture. It came from the oldest ages. Some memories reserved in the Hungarian
Rune Writing point us to the nations of the ancient Middle-East.
The Two Types of the
Hungarian Rune Writings
The relation of the Christian and the previous
culture is a very argued problem of the Hungarian history. The question arose
often whether spreading the Christianity meant destroying the old culture. It
is an interesting thing that the rune writing is known from not the relics of
the pre-Christian Hungarians, but the notes of the Christians, mainly the
priests and the monks. In the middle ages the Hungarian church widely used the
runic writing. Up to the 15th century the so called "pálos
rovásírás" (Pauline Rune Writing) was more frequently used, after then
the so called "székely rovásírás" (Sekler Rune Writing) was
generally practised. The Pálos means the name of a religious order, established
by Hungarians in the 13th century. Székely, or Sekler refers to Hungarians in
Eastern Hungary, currently the land of the Hungarian speaking Székelys, an area
that today is part of Romania. Of course it does not mean that the Sekler rune
writing did not exist before, but we have no scientific proof yet.
The Pauline Rune Writing
Based on the chronicles from the Middle Ages,
we have known only the Sekler Rune Writing. Székely Rune Writing have been used
in Transylvania (currently in Romania) by the Székelys. The Székely Rune
Writing was used only as a secondary, non-official writing. However, as the
historians started to explore the Hungarian past, more and more runic written
notations appeared that cannot be read by the Székely alphabet. Since this type
of runicwriting was used mainly by the Pauline monks, it is called Pauline
Rune Writing. The Pauline Order was established by Happy Özséb, a Hungarian
hermit in the age of the House of Árpád. Árpád was the prince of the Hungarians
who conquered the present land of Hungary. The Hungarian Pauline monks were
invited by the Spanish and Portuguese kings to South America to help to explore
the continent. They had good relations with the Indians, sometimes they
protected the Indians from the authorities. During this endeavour the Pauline
monks used the Pauline Runic Writing in their letters as a secret code,
reporting home about anti-Indian atrocities by the Spaniards and the
Portuguese.
The
Pálos Rune Writing was written Left-To-Right. It is not practised anymore,
apparently it never had an official alphabet, but there exist many remnants.
After the XVIth century, the Pálos Rune Writing was completely forgotten.
The Sekler Rune Writing
In the end of the Árpád Dynasty, in the XIIIth
century, something happened. The Székely people probably used this writing
before this century too, as there are many well dated relics from earlier
times. Maybe the Hungarian intelligentsia developed an interest of the Sekler
writing about this time. From that time the both runic writing was used. In the
court of the great Hungarian Renaissance ruler, King Matthias, the runic
writing was in fashion.
During
the Turkish wars, after 1526, an independent Hungarian state was formed, the
Transylvanian Principality. Here a lot of people wanted to use the Sekler Runic
official correspondence. While the Latin alphabet remained the official one, a
lot of people used the Sekler runic writing.
During
those times Sekler runic was referred to as the "Scythian letters",
because the Seklers believed themselves to be the successors of the Scythians.
The Seklers used both the Left-To-Right and the Right-To-Left directions, but
the latter was clearly the dominant one.
It
should be noted that in the Hungarian runic writing both writing directions
were used. The relics with left-to-right direction e.g. in the Sekler runic
writing the so called Constantinople relic, or the runic letters from Makfalva
(a town in Maros County, Transylvania). The Right-To-Left remnants are, for
example, the Nicolsburger alphabet, the Marsigli runic calendar, or the runic
writing textbook written by János Telegdi. The face of the characters were
opposite in the two kinds of writing directions, that is, they were mirror
images.
Runic Fonts for the Sekler
Rune Writing
The author
created a Sekler Runic font table (called: Rovás Szabvány = Rune Standard)
which can be used to write and print documents in runic writing on modern word
processors. Since in the runic writing both writing directions are allowed,
standard fonts were created for the both directions.
Since
there are small differences in the modern, and in the ancient Sekler runic
alphabet, an additional three different font tables were made. One is called
the Rovás FS, which used the characters of the famous runic scientist
Sándor Forrai, another is the Rovás MA, used by the other highly regarded
expert, Adorján Magyar. Lastly the Rovás V1 table contains a font set for
the special, infrequently used character shapes.
It
is very important that the four fonts use the same code table. So if one writes
a text by using a standard-coded Rovás font (e.g. Rovás Szabvány), it can
be printed by using any other standard-coded Rovás font (e.g. Rovás V1).
Naturally, all of them have left-to-right, as well as right-to-left versions.
All the eight of these character tables use the same code table. The name of
the right-to-left versions: Rovás Szabvány jb, Rovás FS jb,
Rovás MA jb, and Rovás V1 jb. (Note: „jb” is the Hungarian
abbreviation of the Right-To-Left expression.)
The
standard font shape is, however, the Rovás Szabvány, and the
Rovás Szabvány jb. The shapes of the letters are the same but mirror
images in these two cases.
The
Rovás numbers, the ligatures, and the so-called bug-symbols are inherent parts
of the Hungarian Runic writing. Some of the bug symbols are strongly related to
Egyptian hieroglyphs, mainly the symbol: tpru 
. The ancient Egyptians also used
this symbol, its sound was it: chpr or chprw, the meaning was the saint scarabeus
bug. Hence the similarity is very significant. The Seklers did not know the
meaning of these bug-symbols, they called them: "capita dictionum",
the head of the words.
Other
special bug-symbol: 
, its sound was: "nap" (means
"sun" in Hungarian). However, the scarabeus bug was the symbol of the
sun, the god in ancient Egypt. The symbol is very similar to the symbol 
, of
which sound: tprus! The existence of the bug-symbols proves the ancient roots
of the Sekler runic writing.
The
font was developed by the author of this paper, Dr. Gábor Hosszú. The keyboard
map, the code-table, and the shapes of the characters are protected by
copyright, but the alphabet is free of copyright. However, in the case of any
kind of reproduction of the character set or usage of a part of the characters,
the name of Dr. Gábor Hosszú as the author must be included.
The
fonts are downloadable through the Internet in the Word Wide Web from the URL Hungarian Rune Writing Home Page .
The author, Dr. Gábor Hosszú may be contacted on the address hageel@freemail.hu for the standard fonts,
free of charge.
Summary
The two kinds of the Hungarian Runic writing
are not well known by science. However, the already known facts prove that the
runic culture of the Hungarian nation is quite rich. To appreciate these
cultural relics, it is useful for historians to know about Hungary's ancient
runic writing. It is part of the world's cultural heritage.
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