Deciphering the runes

A reference sheet displaying runic alphabets.

The runes that randomly appear in the Magic World have been solved. This page is meant to show the current works and discoveries in the domain, as well as the latest discussions and hypothesis.

History

Runes as of Episode 2

File:Dramatic depiction of 4chan breaking the rune code.jpg

Initial efforts at codebreaking began by identifying each unique rune and assigning it a random letter for identification. The general (correct) assumption was that each rune corresponded to a letter in German but at the time it was still possible that the text was encrypted, a newly constructed language or even that they were just scattered completely at random. German was chosen as the most likely candidate because it appeared as direct quotes from Goethe's Faust and the Cottonballs/Pringlemen/Anthony's were observed to be chanting in German. Other candidate languages were: Japanese, English and Latin (due to the use of "Puella" in the title).

A number of codebreaking methods were tried unsuccessfully. For example; attempts at identifying the letters through numerical analysis of their frequency failed, implying that the runic script was not really a language (see complications below). A more focused approach, taking a single word or short phrase and attempting to match an appropriate German word to it also failed due to large amount of possible matches.

After some urging to use the Faust quotes as a Rosetta Stone, an anonymous found and posted a line of runes which matched one of those quotes. The runes and the German sign they matched are marked in red on the translation chart for episodes one and two.

This discovery confirmed that the runic script was a direct substitution for German letters and provided an initial set of translated runes to work with. /a/ quickly got to work using this starting set to translate more lines and fill in the gaps. Within 21 hours of this discovery, the vast majority of runic text appearing in the first two episodes had been translated into German and English, all letters had been identified (except Q and X which are extremely rare in German, though they appeared later on).

You can find the full discussion (900 posts long!) in threads #21, #22 and #23

Trivia

• The runes are an original art by Inu Curry.
• During the Aniplex USA Madoka Premiere, production staff was very surprised when overseas fans cracked the runes. It was stated that even obsessive Japanese fans had not gone that far.

Complications

Rough, work-in-progress reference sheet showing the different rune alphabets as they were being deciphered.

Throughout the translation process, efforts were hampered by several complications:

Runic fonts

There are at least three structurally distinct variants of the runic script. The most common variant is known as archaic and it is presumably the main set from which others are based on. The modern variant is a simplified version of the runes and corresponding letters are generally quite similar with only mild variation in their overall structure but a few letters, such as D, are completely different from each other. The third variant is constructed from elements found in musical scores and many of the runes look different.

Typos

Whether by mistake or on purpose (to frustrate codebreakers) approximately half of the lines of script contain one or more typos or misspelt words.

Spacing

Many lines of script have no spacing between the words or may be seperated in a deceptive manner. Also, some lines have multiple adjacent letters overlaid on the same space.

Table of runes

Alphabet	Modern	Archaic	Musical	Alphabet	Modern	Archaic	Musical
A				P
B				Q
C				R
D				S
E				T
F				U
G				V
H				W
I				X
J				Y
K				Z
L				Ä
M				Ö
N				Ü
O				ß(ẞ)
Unidentified
Numbers	Modern	Archaic	Musical	Numbers	Modern	Archaic	Musical
0				5
1				6
2				7
3				8
4				9

Translated runes by appearance

File:Digitalrunesv0.png

A speculative digital runic alphabet based on musical runes.

File:Digitalrunes-archaic.png

A speculative digital runic alphabet based on archaic runes.

• TV series
  • Opening
  • Episode 1
  • Episode 2
  • Episode 3
  • Episode 4
  • Episode 5
  • No runes were featured in episode 6.
  • Episode 7
  • Episode 8
  • Episode 9
  • Episode 10
  • Episode 11
  • Episode 12
• Movies
  • Beginnings and Eternal
  • Rebellion
• Other sources
  • Manga
  • Novel
  • Puella Magi Kazumi Magica
  • Cards of witches and familiars
  • Madoka Café, promotional uses
  • Tiro Finale Book

Extras

At first, a custom font had been created using the Runic characters and a Greasemonkey script allowed 4channers to communicate on the board in Runespeak. Afterward, lots of other scripts appeared here and there.

Fonts

Archaic and Modern Font

• Download MadokaRunes-2.0.ttf font (Last Update: 11/11/11 - Version 2.0 - Redesigned and more accurate runes.)

 [This 2.0 font version is still not changed 'v' & 'x' ,Please quickly revise.]

Mirror md5: a34bd82eaf6250c042b824eb33b38e2e

• Single Letters (SVG) (Updated: 11/11/11) (dead link March 2014)

The archaic version of letters can be accessed by using uppercase letters, the modern variant is on lowercase letters.

Musical Font

A very rough font made from already vectorized musical runes.

• TTF font file Mirror 1 Mirror 2 md5: 743bc26c29f6d495ee534c816cade05a
• FontForge source file Mirror md5: 2a3ee602bbea9594ffb1719666fa6c00

Other Fonts

These fonts have been found on external sites and have not been created by contributors of this wiki.

• Madoka Font (used for the logo and other material) Mirror
• Comicum Crassum (a fanmade "comic" runic font). More information (Japanese) Mirror
• Texturae, a fanmade "gothic" version of the archaic runes). More information (Japanese) Mirror
• Madoka Letters, a fanmade font based on MadokaRunes, with rune-style Latin and Cyrilic letters (made by -v- using MadokaRunes). Example Mirror

Special Characters

Stylized A.

Aside from the basic alphabet, runic numerals and diacritical marks are included in the font, as well as a number of special characters which can be viewed using ?, ~, ®, @, #, *, ^ and &. Archaic ß can be accessed using this character: ẞ (uppercase ß(U+1E9E), not included in all browsers; copypasting the character should do the trick though).

Scripts

"This is so cool, I can write in Runespeak!"

GreaseMonkey

• Greasemonkey script for 4chan (replace spoilers by Runespeak)
• Greasemonkey script for 4chan (replace spoilers and [madoka] tags -- please refrain from using [madoka] tags though)

To use GreaseMonkey scripts:

1. Download and install the Greasemonkey add-on:
   • Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox
   • NinjaKit extension for Safari
   • Chrome natively supports userscripts
2. Download and install the MadokaRunes font
3. Install the script
4. Restart your browser if necessary
5. Spoilers and/or [madoka] tags will now be displayed in runic script

Runes translators

• MADOKA RUNE TRANSLATION (type runic characters and get normal text)

Using runes on this wiki

You can use runes on this wiki with the {{Runes}} template, e.g. {{Runes|DENY THE OBVIOUS, UPHOLD THE INANE}} becomes DENY THE OBVIOUS, UPHOLD THE INANE (use uppercase for archaic variant and lowercase for modern variant).

To use musical runes, add |variant=musical to the template, eg. {{Runes|OKTAVIA VON SECKENDORFF|variant=musical}} becomes OKTAVIA VON SECKENDORFF. The font does not distinguish uppercase and lowercase letters, so either will produce the same results.

The runic fonts are embedded on this wiki via CSS. This should make the fonts visible without installing them in the operating system, and is confirmed to work with recent versions of Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Internet Explorer. If you have trouble seeing the runes, update your browser or install the font files (MadokaRunes.ttf and MadokaMusical.ttf) on your system.

See also

• Handwritten runes - fans' attempts at writing the runic script by hand