[Etienne Hamel]

Hi all! is there someone who can help me with this? i would like to translate something from the english to the old norse language. it is the name i would like to give to an axe '' Head Splitter '' after i would like to put it in runes.

its really hard for me to find this so if someone know this language it would really help because i tried to find a dictionary that can translate properly...a real pain in the arse (sorry for the language gentlemen)

[Xan Stepp]

My two recommendations for the translation would be either höfuðklýfr or höfuðklofnar. I'd probably choose the first since the root verb is better attested. Additionally, the translation does not literally mean "head splitter" but would be closer to "he cleaves a head (or heads)" and is closer to the Old Norse naming conventions that I have seen. As for the runic translation, good luck! I'm only moderately comfortable with the Younger Futhark, and I don't have a runic font installed on my computer. And even if I did, I don't know if the forum would accept it. You could probably just find some sort of runic converter online. Those would probably work well enough.

[Audun Refsahl]

you could give this a try, http://www.arild-hauge.com/nruner.htm. (norwegian runes) you might not understand everything, but you should be able to figure it out. looking through it I see there is no "d" until the 11th century, reason being this is a phonetic language, and the letters represent more than one modern letter. you'll just have to decide if you want to borrow letters between the futharks or figure out what letters to use (unless you want to use the younger futhark)

danish runes: http://www.arild-hauge.com/druner.htm
swedish runes: http://www.arild-hauge.com/sruner.htm
icelandic runes: http://www.arild-hauge.com/islandruner.htm (maybe you should go for this one, it has the funky d you need.)
anglosaxon runes: http://www.arild-hauge.com/anglor.htm

well, good luck...

[Xan Stepp]

Good work Audun! The sites you listed suffer a bit by presenting a non standardized language as standardized, but for the most part it looks pretty good. Your response also made me realize that I could have been clearer with my original post. The "funky d" is actually not but a voiced variant of the thorn (þ). Anyway, for the runic transcription I'd recommend that you go with the Swedish runes "DANSK-SVENSKE (SKÅNE) RUNER CA 800." Most runic inscriptions come out of Sweden, and the site's categorization is fairly typical of the Younger Futhark. Also, as Audun pointed out there is not a one-to-one correspondence between the runes and sounds, so most runes do double or triple duty. Old Norse texts written in the Latin Alphabet use about forty characters compared to the sixteen of the Younger Futhark.

Anyway using the "DANSK-SVENSKE (SKÅNE) RUNER CA 800" identification, I would transcribe the name as:
h, a (the one with the two slashes), f, u, th, k, l, i, r
or
h, a (the one with the two slashes), f, u, th, k, l, o, f, n, a (with one slash this time), r