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Rune : A computer program for interpretation of rune stones

Sigurd, Bengt LU and Dahl, Johan LU (1997) In Working Papers, Lund University, Dept. of Linguistics 46. p.217-231
Abstract
The language on Swedish rune stones written in the 16 character alphabet (futhark) constitutes a very special fragment of the Swedish of its time (about 800-1100). Because of the ritual character of the inscriptions the language is rather standardized. The greatest variation is in proper names. As has long been noted the typical formula is (in English translation): N raised this stone after M his P, where N and M are personal names and P is a kinship term. Additional sentences may state where the person died, e.g. He fell in Greece. Depending on the success of the new religion the formula God help his soul is sometimes also added (for safety). There are about 3000 rune stones with text of this type. The purpose of this paper is to describe... (More)
The language on Swedish rune stones written in the 16 character alphabet (futhark) constitutes a very special fragment of the Swedish of its time (about 800-1100). Because of the ritual character of the inscriptions the language is rather standardized. The greatest variation is in proper names. As has long been noted the typical formula is (in English translation): N raised this stone after M his P, where N and M are personal names and P is a kinship term. Additional sentences may state where the person died, e.g. He fell in Greece. Depending on the success of the new religion the formula God help his soul is sometimes also added (for safety). There are about 3000 rune stones with text of this type. The purpose of this paper is to describe a computer program which is able to interpret such typical rune stone texts and translate them into Modern Swedish. In a first step the runes are transliterated into Latin letters. The second step is the parsing of the transliterated text resulting in a functionalsemantic representation showing the analysis in terms of subject, predicate, objects and adverbials functional roles) in addition to word meanings according to Swetra grammar. In a third step this functional representation is then used as an intermediate language (interlingua) in an automatic translation into Modern Swedish. The program may also be run in the other direction translating Modern Swedish into runes. Some stones are offered for demonstration. (Less)
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Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
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in
Working Papers, Lund University, Dept. of Linguistics
volume
46
pages
217 - 231
publisher
Department of Linguistics, Lund University
ISSN
0280-526X
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
a27c4e27-eb88-455c-beef-a0e3613de96a (old id 528780)
alternative location
https://journals.lub.lu.se/LWPL/article/view/2457
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 09:11:46
date last changed
2022-02-24 16:16:01
@misc{a27c4e27-eb88-455c-beef-a0e3613de96a,
  abstract     = {{The language on Swedish rune stones written in the 16 character alphabet (futhark) constitutes a very special fragment of the Swedish of its time (about 800-1100). Because of the ritual character of the inscriptions the language is rather standardized. The greatest variation is in proper names. As has long been noted the typical formula is (in English translation): N raised this stone after M his P, where N and M are personal names and P is a kinship term. Additional sentences may state where the person died, e.g. He fell in Greece. Depending on the success of the new religion the formula God help his soul is sometimes also added (for safety). There are about 3000 rune stones with text of this type. The purpose of this paper is to describe a computer program which is able to interpret such typical rune stone texts and translate them into Modern Swedish. In a first step the runes are transliterated into Latin letters. The second step is the parsing of the transliterated text resulting in a functionalsemantic representation showing the analysis in terms of subject, predicate, objects and adverbials functional roles) in addition to word meanings according to Swetra grammar. In a third step this functional representation is then used as an intermediate language (interlingua) in an automatic translation into Modern Swedish. The program may also be run in the other direction translating Modern Swedish into runes. Some stones are offered for demonstration.}},
  author       = {{Sigurd, Bengt and Dahl, Johan}},
  issn         = {{0280-526X}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  pages        = {{217--231}},
  publisher    = {{Department of Linguistics, Lund University}},
  series       = {{Working Papers, Lund University, Dept. of Linguistics}},
  title        = {{Rune : A computer program for interpretation of rune stones}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/5257904/624470.pdf}},
  volume       = {{46}},
  year         = {{1997}},
}