Towards a phonology of Scandinavian Latin runic inscriptions: A corpus-based analysis

The present paper is a study of the rendering of Latin in Scandinavian runic inscriptions. The analysis focuses on a small corpus of thirteen inscriptions from the whole of Scandinavia and its peripheral settlements. The investigated phenomena are: 1) Lat. /e/ in stressed and unstressed position; 2) Lat. /d/ and /t/ in initial, intervocalic and final position; 3) Lat. /t/ + /j/ /_V; 4) Lat. /b/, /p/ and /v/ in initial and intervocalic position. From the analysis of the data it can be observed that the runic rendering of Latin can either adhere to its written model or mirror the actual pronunciation of Medieval Latin in Scandinavia.