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GLAM/Newsletter/May 2019/Contents/Sweden report

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Sweden report

Runic Recordings

Audio recordings of runic inscriptions

The Swedish National Heritage Board has undertaken a pilot project to produce audio recordings of runic inscriptions being read aloud in both their original languages and in modern translation. These recordings have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons with a CC BY license. The modern language recordings were intended to make the inscriptions more accessible, while the recordings in the original languages with reconstructed pronunciation were intended to give interested non-specialists a feel for how the languages of the inscriptions might have sounded to those who carved and read them.

27 inscriptions were chosen based initially on the 100 most popular articles on runic inscriptions on English and Swedish Wikipedias, although this list was then revised to exclude inscriptions which would pose recording issues and to add other inscriptions deemed interesting but as yet without their own article. Runologist Dr Maja Bäckvall consulted on the choice of inscriptions and read them aloud for the recordings in all languages. 81 recordings were produced in total, in seven languages: Proto-norse, Old West Norse, Old East Norse (Runic Swedish and Runic Danish), Modern Swedish, Modern Danish, and Modern English. In the majority of cases where articles exist for the inscriptions on English, Swedish, and Danish Wikipedias, at least one of the recordings has been linked in the article (usually that of the original language), and where categories existed for the inscriptions on Commons they have been appropriately tagged.

More information on the project in Swedish may be found here.


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