| Name | Proto-Germanic | Old English | Old Norse | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *Jēra- | Gēr | Īor | Ár | |||||
| "season,harvest" | "year,harvest" | "eel" | "harvest, plenty" | |||||
| Shape | Elder Futhark | Futhorc | Younger Futhark | |||||
 |   | | |  |  | |||
| Unicode | ᛃ U+16C3 |
| ᛡ U+16E1 | ᛡ U+16E1 | ᛅ U+16C5 | ᛆ U+16C6 | ||
| Transliteration | j | j | io | A | a | a | ||
| Transcription | j | j | io | a | ||||
| IPA | [j] | [j] | [jo] | [a] | ||||
| Position in rune-row | 12 | 12 | 28 or 29 | 10 | ||||
Jera (alsoJeran,Jeraz,Yera) is the conventional name of thej-runeᛃ of theElder Futhark, from a reconstructedCommon Germanicstem*jēra-[1] meaning "harvest, (good) year".
The corresponding letter of theGothic alphabet is Gothic𐌾, named𐌾𐌴𐍂 (jēr), also expressing/j/.The Elder Futhark rune gives rise to theAnglo-Frisianᛄ/j/, namedgēr/jeːr/, andᛡ/io/, namedior, and to theYounger Futharkár runeᛅ, which stands for/a/, as the/j/ phoneme disappears in lateProto-Norse.
Note thatᛆ also can be a variation ofdottedIsaz used for/e/; e.g. inDalecarlian runes.
The reconstructed Common Germanic name*jēran is the origin of Englishyear (Old Englishġēar). In contrast to the modern word, it had a meaning of "season" and specifically "harvest", and hence "plenty, prosperity".
The Germanic word is cognate withGreekὧρος (horos) "year" (andὥρα (hora) "season", whencehour),Old East Slavicꙗра (jara) "spring" and with the-or- in Latinhōrnus "of this year" (from*hōjōrō), as well asAvestan𐬫𐬁𐬭𐬆 (yārə) "year", all from aPIE stem*yer-o-.
The derivation of the rune is uncertain; it may have been adapted from theclassical Latin alphabet'sG,[2] ("C (ᚲ) with stroke"), or it may be a Germanic innovation. The letter in any case appears from the very earliest runic inscriptions, figuring on theVimose comb inscription,harja.
As the only rune of the Elder Futhark which was notconnected, its evolution was the most thorough transformation of all runes, and it was to have numerous graphical variants.[3]In the later period of the Elder Futhark, during the 5th to 6th centuries, connected variants appear, and these are the ones that give rise to the derivations in Anglo-Saxon (as ᛄger and ᛡior) and Scandinavian (as ᛅár) traditions.
The correspondingGothic letter is 𐌾 (j), namedjēr, which is also based on the shape of the Elder Futhark rune. This is an exception, shared withurus, due to the fact that neither theLatin nor theGreek alphabets at the time of the introduction of the Gothic one had graphemes corresponding to the distinction ofj andw fromi andu.
The rune in thefuthorc is continued asgēr, with its epigraphical variantᛡ, and its manuscript variantᛄ (which does appear at least once epigraphically, on the Brandon Pin). Manuscripts also record anior rune with the shape ofᛡ, but its authenticity isquestionable.[4]
During the 6th and 7th centuries, the initialj in *jāra was lost inProto-Norse, which also changed the sound value of the rune from /j/ to an /a/ phoneme. The rune was then written as a vertical staff with a horizontal stroke in the centre, usually transliterated asA, with majuscule, to distinguish it from the ansuz rune,a.
During the last phase of the Elder Futhark, thejēra-rune came to be written as a vertical staff with two slanting strokes in the form of an X in its centre (
). As the form of the rune had changed considerably, an older 7th century form of the rune (
) was assumed by thes-rune.[3] When then-rune had stabilized in its form during the 6th and 7th centuries, its vertical stroke slanted towards the right (
), which made it possible to simplify thejēra-rune by having only one vertical stroke that slanted towards the left, giving theᛅár-rune of the classic Younger Futhark (note however, that the earliest YF inscriptions, such as theRibe skull fragment, still retain the earlier X-shape).Since a simpler form of the rune was taken by the /a/ phoneme, the older cross form of the rune now came to be used for the /h/ phoneme.[5]
The development of the Jēran rune from the earliest open form was not known before the discovery of theKylver Stone in 1903, which has an entireelder futhark inscription on it. Therefore, the interpretation of thegolden horns of Gallehus was slightly wrong before 1903, as it was believed this rune form could be an early form of theIngwaz rune. The second word on the horns was thus interpreted asholtingaz rather thanholtijaz.[6]
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).