Old Norse — The Viking Rune

Old Norse was the North Germanic language spoken in Scandinavia during the Viking Age. Old Norse developed from Proto-Norse by the 8th century and existed until the end of the 12th century. In the written form it is found as late as in the 15th century. After that it began to develop into modern North Germanic languages: Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Faroese. It is to be noted that Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark runic alphabet (Elder Futhark had been in use earlier for the Proto-Norse). Younger Futhark, which had only 16 runes, was later replaced by medieval runes.