Runes and Germanic Linguistics. By Elmer Antonsen. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2002. Pp. xxii, 380. EUR 98.

Although there is no indication of this in the front matter, Antonsen's new book is a compilation of revised articles on various and sundry issues concerning the older runes. Only Chapter 12 is entirely new. I did a variety of comparisons with Antonsens's original versions (some of which were in German or Norwegian) and with the interpretations in his 1975 Concise Grammar of the Older Runic Inscriptions (Tübingen: Niemeyer) and found for the most part only minor changes, although the translations of especially the transitional inscriptions sometimes vary considerably. If you know Antonsen's work on runes (and if you are involved in runology, you will), there are few surprises. The changes that do occur, however, often reflect the increasing care of a senior scholar. An "often " is changed to a "sometimes, " and an "I have demonstrated " to "I have sought to demonstrate, " and more references and facts have been added: Antonsen responds to his critics. Some chapters (6, 7, and 8) synthesize more than one earlier article.

Frederick W. Schwink
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign