New Order of the Serpent logo

[Desert Snake]

And you called me incoherent.

Symbolism.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

ᛋᚼᚢᚱ ᚦᛁᚾᚴ ᛋᛁᚾᚴᚱᛁᛏᛁᚴ.

 

[Liu]

It does look nice!
But it got clear that it might be a bit too confusing for some.
E.g. I think some here haven't understood that the letters aren't to be read in order of following the circle but following the lines of the pentagram.

The dagaz rune is fine by me. However, @The Ragin Pagan is right that it's not the only rune used for the sound of d (albeit the most typical choice, at least in older futhark), and from what I remember of its esoteric associations, those might be not that fitting for your order.
I mean, just look at its literal meaning: "day".

Also regarding the Sumerian cuneiform, that's more or less a syllabic script. I don't think they have a sign standing for "k". Where did you get yours from?

And I can't read Chinese either, but theirs is a syllabic script as well I think. Okay, you wrote it's from a dialect, but at least standard Chinese doesn't even have the sound r if I'm informed correctly.

 

[Liu]

ᛋᚼᚢᚱ ᚦᛁᚾᚴ ᛋᛁᚾᚴᚱᛁᛏᛁᚴ.

Any reason you write in younger futhark? I'd prefer the older, if just because it has more letters.
If you'd use that, you could use ᛜ instead of ᚾᚴ in the second word and it would become clearer that you meant "thing" instead of "think".

 

[Tonstad39]

The Order of the Serpent has a new main logo! The previous logo, with it's featuring of Set, Taweret, and Egyptian hieroglyphs, suggested an Egyptian/Setian bias that the Order simply does not have nor want. We welcome all members of the LHP who share the goal of advancing esoteric and philosophical knowledge.

The symbol has a double meaning. On the simple side, the symbols around the point spell out Draco, representing the main symbolic focus of the Order. On the complex side, this is a pseudo-spelling of Draco. Going top left, top right, left, right, center, we have Norse runes, Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, a Chinese dialect, and simply an ouroboros. While representing our variety of interests (some, not all), obviously the symbols make no sense if directly translated. We have done this to show that we are not some revival group, we take what we want or need and use it to create our own paradigm. Basically the symbol says: "we're open to any inspiration, and you should use it as you will."

The wide world of left hands

 

[Onyx]

It's busy yeah, but definitely preferable to the explicit and specific Egyptian symbolism before. Someone else pointed out the coexist thing too, which kind of bothers me. What do you think @Onyx ?

The new insignia should not be viewed in relation to the "coexist" bumper-sticker, that makes no sense to me whatsoever. The chosen characters represent an esoteric spelling of "Draco", the meaning of which is described in the final paragraph of our official statement:

The Order of the Serpent derives its name from the northern circumpolar stars, which never set below the horizon, thus being free from the cycles of the sun, moon, planets. It was the original focus of afterlife and spiritual ideology, revolving around the North Star – at the time being Alpha Draconis in the Draco constellation. The Order attempts to remanifest these ancient, pre-solar/Osirian ideas in the modern world.

I like the new design myself, but am open to ideas. Because the Order of the Serpent does not force a particular paradigm upon members, it has been difficult to create visual symbols which reflect that fact.

 

[Desert Snake]

The new insignia should not be viewed in relation to the "coexist" bumper-sticker, that makes no sense to me whatsoever. The chosen characters represent an esoteric spelling of "Draco", the meaning of which is described in the final paragraph of our official statement:


I like the new design myself, but am open to ideas. Because the Order of the Serpent does not force a particular paradigm upon members, it has been difficult to create visual symbols which reflect that fact.

Unless this is fake syncreticism. /seems like it

There is a syncretic dir, for a reason.

People who DONT KNOW, what syncreticism is, sometimes slop together different ideas, and present it in a false "syncretic" format,
It is no different from any other religious adherence.

 

[BSL]

I like the idea of said religions being of one order.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Any reason you write in younger futhark? I'd prefer the older, if just because it has more letters.

Most do, but the YF is more relevant to Heathen culture. It does require context to know what is being said, but it should also be kept in mind (a point I've made earlier) that the Futhark aren't letters, they're sounds. A thin semantic line, I know, but it's there. So ᚦᛁᚾᚴ could mean "think" or "thing", but phonetically they sound similar anyways. In the Elder Futhark, it would be spelled the same, honestly; spelling "think" as ᚦᛁᚾᚲ wouldn't exactly work, as it would be sounded out (properly) as "Thin-kah"

 

[Shiranui117]

Most do, but the YF is more relevant to Heathen culture. It does require context to know what is being said, but it should also be kept in mind (a point I've made earlier) that the Futhark aren't letters, they're sounds. A thin semantic line, I know, but it's there. So ᚦᛁᚾᚴ could mean "think" or "thing", but phonetically they sound similar anyways. In the Elder Futhark, it would be spelled the same, honestly; spelling "think" as ᚦᛁᚾᚲ wouldn't exactly work, as it would be sounded out (properly) as "Thin-kah"

Wouldn't you probably want to use Ingwaz instead of Nauthiz when spelling out "think"?

Also, where did you get the rune fonts? I need them in my life O:

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Ingwaz is Elder Futhark only; I wrote in Younger Futhark. Though if Ingwaz was used in place of Nauthiz (ᚦᛁᛜᚲ) it would be pronounced "THing-kah". Which is... odd.

The font I got by copying the code from Wikipedia and making a Microsoft Word document of all the runes. It's what I used to make my Runic Hávamál.

 

[Liu]

Most do, but the YF is more relevant to Heathen culture

I see - most of the heathen texts we still have were written while the younger futhark was used, so, it does make sense to me why you'd prefer it.

It does require context to know what is being said, but it should also be kept in mind (a point I've made earlier) that the Futhark aren't letters, they're sounds. A thin semantic line, I know, but it's there. So ᚦᛁᚾᚴ could mean "think" or "thing", but phonetically they sound similar anyways.

What do you mean by that? Any alphabet I can think of first and foremost represents sounds. Letters (e.g. the same sound getting represented by more than one sign) are a development of that when people start using a standard orthography instead of simply writing like they speak. Or what is the difference you have in mind?

In the Elder Futhark, it would be spelled the same, honestly; spelling "think" as ᚦᛁᚾᚲ wouldn't exactly work, as it would be sounded out (properly) as "Thin-kah"

Ingwaz is Elder Futhark only; I wrote in Younger Futhark. Though if Ingwaz was used in place of Nauthiz (ᚦᛁᛜᚲ) it would be pronounced "THing-kah". Which is... odd.

Why would "ᚦᛁᚾᚲ" or "ᚦᛁᛜᚲ" be pronounced "thing-kah", but "ᚦᛁᚾᚴ" simply "think" (or "thingk" when using the same way of transliterating the ᛜ or ŋ)? I've never heard that the ᚲ-rune (or any rune) would stand for a combination of consonant and vowel.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

True, all letters represent various sounds, but the Elder Futhark especially doesn't really have linguistic rules in writing - you won't get instances of a "silent Gebo", for example. Kenaz would be pronounced as a "kah" or sharp, inflectuated "k" at the end of a word like "think" rather than just a click because of it's name, and how it's said. It cuts, rather than clicks. That's more what I was trying to get at with the "kah", rather than actually pronouncing it like you would with Kahn. On the other hand, Kenaz would be used for a word like "cat" or "coffee".

With the runes, it all depends on how words are said with all things considered, including dialect. So if a Bostoner were to write runes, "park" would be spelled "PAK". Words like "two" would be spelled "TU", "cool:KUL", etc. With the Younger Furthark for "think/thing," with context we can figure out which is meant, but the word itself would be said "thingk", as Kauna is a g/k sound.

 

[Liu]

True, all letters represent various sounds, but the Elder Futhark especially doesn't really have linguistic rules in writing - you won't get instances of a "silent Gebo", for example. Kenaz would be pronounced as a "kah" or sharp, inflectuated "k" at the end of a word like "think" rather than just a click because of it's name, and how it's said. It cuts, rather than clicks. That's more what I was trying to get at with the "kah", rather than actually pronouncing it like you would with Kahn. On the other hand, Kenaz would be used for a word like "cat" or "coffee".

With the runes, it all depends on how words are said with all things considered, including dialect. So if a Bostoner were to write runes, "park" would be spelled "PAK". Words like "two" would be spelled "TU", "cool:KUL", etc. With the Younger Furthark for "think/thing," with context we can figure out which is meant, but the word itself would be said "thingk", as Kauna is a g/k sound.

Interesting. I never heard of this pronunciation of kenaz before although I have read some linguistic texts on runes a while ago.
May I ask what's your source on this?

Regarding them not having rules in writing - have you ever read a medieval text in Latin script? (no matter which language) There were not much rules in writing in that either, but the same word might be written in several different ways even on the same page.
That there are no silent letters is very common in that time not only in runic writing.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

I couldn't give you a vetted source, it's just how I was taught the runes. Recently I've seen a lot of good articles from Huginn's Heathen Hof, who also offer the understanding that if the runes are letters, they're Norse letters, rather than English. (Similar to how "Кк" isn't "Kk," it's "kah" rather than "kay".)

 

[Liu]

I couldn't give you a vetted source, it's just how I was taught the runes. Recently I've seen a lot of good articles from Huginn's Heathen Hof, who also offer the understanding that if the runes are letters, they're Norse letters, rather than English.

Okay - it's just that it seems rather strange to me that ᚲ and ᚴ would differ in pronunciation in a way other than that ᚴ can also stand for ᚷ. I mean, while the sounds that appear in Proto- and North Germanic are different from those found in Old Norse, I don't see which sound ᚲ could be representing except for the k here: Proto-Germanic language - Wikipedia
Maybe that k was more aspirated at that time than later, though, I don't know.

In any case, thanks, I'll check out that website.

And of course runes are Norse (or Germanic or Ango-Saxon, depending on the time and place) letters and not modern English. Please keep in mind, I'm not an English native, I know that the English pronunciation of letters is not the only one

(Similar to how "Кк" isn't "Kk," it's "kah" rather than "kay".)

Now this I don't understand..."Кк" is the Cyrrilic "Kk"? But "kah" and "kay" are just the names of the letters (like β is called beta), and have nothing to do with their pronunciation.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Okay - it's just that it seems rather strange to me that ᚲ and ᚴ would differ in pronunciation in a way other than that ᚴ can also stand for ᚷ.

Kauna (ᚴ) is either a "K" or "G" sound - somewhere in between. "X" would be lengthier, and spelled out either "EKS" or even "KS"; depending on the word that it's used in. Xander, for example, would be spelled "KSANDR".

The difference between Kenaz and Kauna was what I was getting at with К and K. They're very similar, sometimes they're going to overlap in use, but there are differences; if you use the letter on it's own (and "К" is actually a stand-alone word,) they're pronounced differently.

Kenaz will practically always resemble the "kay" sound. Kauna is often softer, and overlaps with "gee". For example, ᚼᚢᚴᛁᚾ can be transliterated as either HUGIN or HUKIN, but it's still pronounced (properly) "hUgk-enn". In Elder Futhark, there's only one way to spell it - ᚺᚢᚷᛁᚾ. Spelling it as ᚺᚢᚲᛁᚾ would certainly be pronounced as "hUk-enn", as Kenaz doesn't often soften.

 

[Liu]

Kauna (ᚴ) is either a "K" or "G" sound - somewhere in between. "X" would be lengthier, and spelled out either "EKS" or even "KS"; depending on the word that it's used in. Xander, for example, would be spelled "KSANDR".

I wasn't referring to the English X, but to the rune gibo, i.e. ᚷ or the sound g.

The difference between Kenaz and Kauna was what I was getting at with К and K. They're very similar, sometimes they're going to overlap in use, but there are differences; if you use the letter on it's own (and "К" is actually a stand-alone word,) they're pronounced differently.

I'm not familiar with the exact difference between К and K, so that doesn't help me much.
Since you mention it, yes, there is a word к in Russian. But it seems to be pronounced like I'd also pronounce an English (or German) k if I wanted to pronounce only the consonant and not the letter name.

Kenaz will practically always resemble the "kay" sound. Kauna is often softer, and overlaps with "gee". For example, ᚼᚢᚴᛁᚾ can be transliterated as either HUGIN or HUKIN, but it's still pronounced (properly) "hUgk-enn". In Elder Futhark, there's only one way to spell it - ᚺᚢᚷᛁᚾ. Spelling it as ᚺᚢᚲᛁᚾ would certainly be pronounced as "hUk-enn", as Kenaz doesn't often soften.

I'd rather said that ᚴ can stand for more than one sound (namely k and g), whereas ᚲ only stands for k.
So, since there is only the word Huginn, ᚼᚢᚴᛁᚾ would be pronounced Huginn, and not Hugkinn or Hukinn or similar, and if one had written it in Elder Runes I agree that one would have written ᚺᚢᚷᛁᚾ.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

I wasn't referring to the English X, but to the rune gibo, i.e. ᚷ or the sound g.

Ah, that makes more sense reading it again. With К and K, I was also just woken up when I made this response, so apologies if it's not 100% clear:

 

[Liu]

Thanks for taking the effort of replying. It did make it more clear what you were referring to.

If I ever stumble upon an explanation of runic pronunciation in scientific literature I can come back to you on it and tell you what it says there. But of course it all is just reconstruction, who knows how it was actually pronounced at the time, and even for reconstructionalists it shouldn't make too much of a difference.