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Algiz (also Elhaz) is the name conventionally given to the "''z''-rune" of the Elder Futhark runic alphabet. Its transliteration is ''z'', understood as a phoneme of the Proto-Germanic language, the terminal '' *z'' continuing Proto-Indo-European terminal '' *s''. It is one of two runes which express a phoneme that does not occur word-initially, and thus could not be named acrophonically, the other being the ''ŋ''-rune Ingwaz . As the terminal '' *-z'' phoneme marks the nominative singular desinence of masculine nouns, the rune occurs comparatively frequently in early epigraphy. Because this specific phoneme was lost at an early time, the Elder Futhark rune underwent changes in the medieval runic alphabets. In the Anglo-Saxon futhorc it retained its shape, but it was given the sound value of Latin ''x''. This is a secondary development, possibly due to runic manuscript tradition, and there is no known instance of the rune being used in an Old English inscription. In Proto-Norse and Old Norse, the Germanic '' *z'' phoneme developed into an R sound, perhaps realized as a retroflex approximant , which is usually transcribed as ''ʀ''. This sound was written in the Younger Futhark using the Yr rune , the Algiz rune turned upside down, from about the 7th century. This phoneme eventually became indistinguishable from the regular R sound in the later stages of Old Norse, at about the 11th or 12th century. The shape of the rune may be derived from that a letter expressing /x/ in certain Old Italic alphabets (), which was in turn derived from the Greek letter Ψ which had the value of /kʰ/ (rather than /ps/) in the Western Greek alphabet. ==Name== The Elder Futhark rune is conventionally called ''Algiz'' or ''Elhaz'', from the Common Germanic word for "elk". There is wide agreement that this is most likely not the historical name of the rune, but in the absence of any positive evidence of what the historical name may have been, the conventional name is simply based on a reading of the rune name in the Anglo-Saxon rune poem, first suggested by Wilhelm Grimm (''Über deutsche Runen'', 1821), as ''eolh'' or ''eolug'' "elk". Like the ''ng''-rune, the ''z''-rune is a special case inasmuch as it could not have been named acrophonically, since the sound it represents did not occur in word-initial position. Choosing a name that terminates in ''-z'' would have been more or less arbitrary, as this was the nominative singular desinence of almost every masculine noun of the language. Since the name ''eolh'', or more accurately ''eolh-secg'' "elk-sedge" in the Anglo-Saxon rune poem represents not the rune's original sound value, but rather the sound of Latin ''x'' (/ks/), it becomes highly arbitrary to suggest that the original rune should have been named after the elk. There are a number of speculative suggestions surrounding the history of the rune's name. The difficulty lies in the circumstance that the Younger Futhark rune did not inherit this name at all, but acquired the name of the obsolete Eihwaz rune, as ''yr''. The only independent evidence of the Elder Futhark rune's name would be the name of the corresponding Gothic letter, ''ezec''. The Gothic letter was an adoption of Greek Zeta, and while it did express the /z/ phoneme, this Gothic sound did ''not'' occur terminally, but in positions where West and North Germanic have ''r'', e.g. Gothic ''máiza'' "greater" (Old Norse ''meira'', English ''more''). The name of the Anglo-Saxon rune is variously recorded as ''eolx, eolhx, ilcs, ilx, iolx, ilix, elux''.〔Alan Griffiths, 'Rune-names: the Irish connexion' in: Stoklund et al. (eds.), ''Runes and their secrets: studies in runology'', Museum Tusculanum Press, 2006, pp. 93-101.〕 Manuscript tradition gives its sound value as Latin ''x'', i.e. /ks/, or alternatively as ''il'', or yet again as "''l'' and ''x''". The reading of this opaque name as ''eolh'' "elk" is entirely due to the reading of the Anglo-Saxon rune poem's secg as ''eolh-secg'' (''eolx-secg'', ''eolug-secg'', ''eolxecg'') "elk-sedge", apparently the name of a species of sedge (carex). This reading of the poem is due to Wilhelm Grimm (1821), and remains standard. The suggestion is that this compound is realized as ''eolk-secg'', thus containing the Latin ''x'' (/ks/) phoneme. The manuscript testimony that the rune is to be read as ''il'' would then be simply a mistaken assumption that its name must be acrophonic. The name of the corresponding Gothic letter ''ezec'', however, suggests that the old name of this rune was not just ''eolx'', but the full ''eolh-secg''. This is puzzling, because the sound value of the rune was clearly not /ks/ in the Elder Futhark period (2nd to 4th centuries). Furthermore, the name of the sedge in question is recorded in the older Epinal-Erfurt glossary as ''ilugsegg'' (glossing ''papiluus'', probably for ''papyrus''), which cannot be derived from the word for elk.〔Bruce Dickins, ''Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic Peoples'', Cambridge, 1915, p. 17, note 41.〕 A suggestion by Warren and Elliott takes the Old English ''eolh'' at face value, and reconstructs a Common Germanic form of either '' *algiz'' or '' *alhiz''. They cite a "more fanciful school" which assumes an original meaning of "elk" based on a theonym ''Alcis'' recorded by Tacitus (suggesting that the name would have been theophoric in origin, referring to an "elk-god"). The authors dismiss the Old English "elk-sedge" as a late attempt to give the then-obsolete rune a value of Latin ''x''. Instead, they suggest that the original name of the rune could have been Common Germanic '' *algiz'', meaning not "elk" but "protection, defence".〔Ralph Warren, Victor Elliott, ''Runes: an introduction'', Manchester University Press ND, 1980, 51-53.〕 Redbond (1936) suggested that the ''eolhx'' (etc.) may have been a corruption of ''helix''. Seebold (1991) took this up to suggest that the name of the rune may be connected to the use of ''elux'' for ''helix'' by Notker to describe the constellation of Ursa major (as turning around the celestial pole).〔 An earlier suggestion is that of Zacher (1855), to the effect that the earliest value of this rune was the labiovelar /hw/, and that its name may have been ''hweol'' "wheel".〔Julius Zacher, "Die rune eolh" in: ''Das gothische Alphabet Vulfilas und das Runenalphabet'', Brockhaus, 1855, 72-120.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「algiz」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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