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Theban/ Honorian Alphabet/ Witches Alphabet Origins.

It may be the wish of a Wiccan to learn the Theban Alphabet also known as Honorian Alphabet, Runes of Honorius, Wiccan Circles, Witch's Alphabet. Ive seen much debate on the internet as to its actual origins, Apparantly Wiccans exaggerate its roots saying it is ancient whereas other sources suggest that the first mention of this alphabet (that does actually correspond to Germanic Olde English 450-1100AD) can be found in Johannes Trithemius' (1462-1516) Polygraphia Libri VI published in 1518 2 years after his death. I have studied this work in hope to understand his source and can tell you the alphabet can be found on page 597.
Now his work is written in Latin and Latin being an elaborate modern English is fairly simple to speak but sometimes harder to understand but I could translate 2 significant words, Occultist and Alchemy/ist.
I have also studied Alchemical encoding and have found no relation to the Theban alphabet which fairly resembles the Greek Alphabet in the written form however as Ive said it corresponded even to the earliest of English languages. One point that I think is often overlooked is the century which we have the earlist survivng document showing this alphabet which is known for being used to protect the writings of occultists in code.
The 1500's where the burning times of course indicating the inquisition of the Roman Catholic church where much evidence of the occult wouldve been destroyed most likely by occultists themselves. To summarize there is no reason why this language could not have been devised at a much earlier date and think it is essencial that the true roots of this language are found so that it can be fully appreciated. The facts are in this text and remember it resembles Greek and it corresponds to english even as late as 400 years before the evidence suggests to this date.

Tim
 
I am still of the opinion that the Theban alphabet was made for alchemists, and any connection between witchcraft and the Burning Times is only wishful thinking, since most of those victims were pious Christians themselves.

Latin is absolutely not related to English at all, nor does it ever resemble English; rather, English has alot of latinate words.

In any case, the Theban Alphabet is a beautiful alphabet, but I would not go farther than its origins from an alchemist's diary.
 
If you study alchemic symobols and the actual scriptures of alchemists you will find no relation to the Theban alphabet. There is not 1 example of the alphabet within alchemy to my knowledge or the internets knowledge or that in the libraries of my area in Britain nor in Museums.
Also when England was being populated by Germanic tribes in the century before the year 0 many of them spoke latin or variables of latin you only have to look at the latin alphabet to see that modern and olde english derived from it after all ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ (reconise that?) Is the Latin Alphabet and many of the Latin words are exact of the words we use to this day making it fairly easy to understand with no knowledge of Latin whatsoever.
How can we not relate it to the burning times when the dates almost correspond exactly, first evidance we have of Theban is only years before the events occurred and only survived within the language encyclopedia of its day. Im not saying that Theban is ancient because I dont know but I dont think your points contradict the facts I have pointed out also bearing in mind that the Polygraphie publishing date was only years into the 14th century indicating examples wouldve certainly existed from the 13th century.
Most importantly of all Trithemius Polygraphie has more than 3 variations of Alchemical symbols and I believe he interpreted Theban as another variation though as I say there are no correspondances to alchemic language or symbolism which of course he mustve realised.

Here are the referance pages to the Polygraphie Libri VI (each of these pages display the complete known alphabet along with the sources written in Latin hense why I cant myself fully get to the bottom of it)

581-583-586-587-589-591-592-593-594-597(Theban)-598-601-602-603

As I say you will find all alchemical symbols accross those pages and some other languages Enochian, Malachim oh and by the way Theban is often called Runes of Honorius Who was a Theban Greek who some claim invented the language.
 

Breathe

Hostis humani generis
when England was being populated by Germanic tribes in the century before the year 0 many of them spoke latin or variables of latin
Germanic tribes would not have spoken Latin, short of being part of the Roman empire. I think you are mistaken.

and Latin being an elaborate modern English
English is a Germanic language, same as Dutch, Afrikaans, and German. Less so, but still, related to Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Icelandic.

Latinate languages, descended from Vulgar (as opposed to Classical) Latin are Spanish, French, etc.

English shares many Latinate words because Latin was the ecclesiatical language, and then Norman French (a descendent of Vulgar Latin) was the courtly language.



Theban is obviously not very ancient. It bears an almost one-to-one placement to Latin, and it is worth noting that the distinction between u/v and i/j as separate letters is not exactly an old thing. The chances are this is a simple cipher from the Latin alphabet.
 
Olde English resembles Latin almost Exactly and most of the Theben alphabet are variations of the letter M, I and J are identical and look like the letter U also U V and W are the same symbol. Search the internet for Witch's Alphabet as I cannot provide a source also Olde English and Gothic English are an exact of the Latin Alphabet olde English dating back before the year 0.
It is north Germanic that is Scandinavian style here is proof.

The earliest evidence of Germanic languages comes from names recorded in the 1st century by Tacitus (especially from his work Germania), but the earliest Germanic writing occurs in a single instance in the 2nd century BC on the Negau helmet.[7] From roughly the 2nd century AD, certain speakers of early Germanic varieties developed the Elder Futhark, an early form of the Runic alphabet. Early runic inscriptions also are largely limited to personal names, and difficult to interpret. The Gothic language was written in the Gothic alphabet developed by Bishop Ulfilas for his translation of the Bible in the 4th century.[8] Later, Christian priests and monks who spoke and read Latin in addition to their native Germanic varieties began writing the Germanic languages with slightly modified Latin letters. However, throughout the Viking Age, Runic alphabets remained in common use in Scandinavia. In addition to the standard Latin alphabet, many Germanic languages use a variety of accent marks and extra letters, including umlauts, the ß (Eszett), IJ, Ø, Æ, Å, Ä, Ü, Ö, Ð, Ȝ, and the Latinized runes Þ and Ƿ. In print.
Germanic languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

Vasilisa Jade

Formerly Saint Tigeress
This is great. I recently got a tat for my dad. It is all symbolic things that make me think of him. He used to use the theban alphabet a lot, so the writing I wanted I was going to write in theban. Then I realized all the... inconsistancies with theban. So I second guessed if i want that language. I changed my mind to hindi, but surnames can't be translated into hindi... to my great dismay.

Now I am at a loss, and enjoying any further light you guys can shed on theban.
 
Saint Tigress I write fluent Theben you can see that most letters have a stroke before the letter meaning that it was intended to be cursive (joint writing), When I next go to the library Ill take a sample, scan it, add it to my deviantart and post the link here so you can see the language in its true beauty. Theben is primarily used today by Wiccans to encrypt their writings as some Witch's or (and I hate saying this) Wizards (just doesnt seem right) like to keep their relashionship with their deitys personal. (edit) apologise no offence to your father im sure youve already seen it Ill still do as I say so you can compare.
 
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I know no more facts about Theban but the word Wicca is from the Saxon language meaning 'wise one' also heres another interesting fact, no word in the English language rhymes with Month.
 

Revasser

Terrible Dancer
Olde English resembles Latin almost Exactly and most of the Theben alphabet are variations of the letter M, I and J are identical and look like the letter U also U V and W are the same symbol. Search the internet for Witch's Alphabet as I cannot provide a source also Olde English and Gothic English are an exact of the Latin Alphabet olde English dating back before the year 0.

England wasn't England until after the Anglo-Saxons began to arrive in significant numbers in the 5th century. There was no England in or before the year 0 unless you're talking about "Old Anglia" on the continent.

Old English does not remotely resemble Latin (except in the ways that all Proto-Indo-European-derived languages resemble one another), even when using the Latin alphabet to render it as became popular later. Original A/S runes can be seen on wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futhorc

Old English did not resemble Latin at all either in spoken or written form. Unless you're honestly saying that Angles, Saxons and Jutes all spoke Latin lanaguages, then changed back to Germanic for the sake of recorded history, before adding some Latin back in again?
 
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Breathe

Hostis humani generis
Olde English resembles Latin almost Exactly and most of the Theben alphabet are variations of the letter M, I and J are identical and look like the letter U also U V and W are the same symbol.

English and Latin are not that alike, and in no way does Old English resemble Latin "almost exactly". They are two different languages, and in two different linguistic classification groups. English shares words in common with Latin due to ecclesiatical influence from the Catholic church.

I and J are only recently things that have begun to be distinguished in writing, the same as U, V and W. This therefore shows that Theban is a Latin-script cipher, since they have the same omissions.
 
Your probably right Jute and odion however that wiki link I posted does support what I said I think this is just one of those matters that people couldnt come to a complete conclusion on I know exactly what your saying because I was taught in school (UK) but since I have been researching Theban Ive been finding all sorts of data I am only bringing to light evidence to support its ever more mystical and English roots.

Here is a link for the latin Alphabet and no other Alphabet resembles English or modern western languages so closely, http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Udin_latin_alphabet.JPG&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Udin_latin_alphabet.JPG&h=289&w=753&sz=20&tbnid=RmxTLjKuT49pYM:&tbnh=54&tbnw=142&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlatin%2Balphabet&zoom=1&q=latin+alphabet&usg=__JcyszMIYA8uM5QcWmVRmYwCGoq0=&sa=X&ei=WhdATaKxJNuShAfysNXyCA&ved=0CDoQ9QEwAQ
 
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Breathe

Hostis humani generis
That's because English, like the majority of languages in the world, uses the Latin alphabet to transcribe the sounds of the language. Other examples of languages besides English that use the Latin alphabet or a modified variant of it (which technically all are, since Latin did not distinguish between U/V/W or I/J) are many American Indian languages, Vietnamese, and dozens of African languages.

This does not mean, however, that they are related to Latin: only the system used to transcribe the sounds is.
 
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