Re: Tolkien's elfish script (was: Re: demuan identifiers re-visited)

daniel san kakimashita

>Fabian nindie:
>> OBbtw: Has anyone else noticed the similarity between
>> Tolkien's Elfish script and Arabic script?
>Myself, I think the tengwar look suspiciously like Sanskrit,
>at least as far as the way it is systemized. Bilabial, dental,
>etc. to the right and plosive, nasal, etc. downwards.
>It forms a neat table. Just like Sanskrit. And then some
>extra symbols for the phonemes that didn't fit into the
>table.
The tabular form is very Sanskrit (and Devanagari, and many other indic
scripts).

I was referring specifically to the way diacritics are used to indicate
vowels. afaik, only Hebrew, Arabic, and Tengwar have this feature. In terms
of script classification, this characteristic of being primarily a
consonantal writing system, puts it in the same class.

That it lends itself to calligraphic writing styles, just like Arabic does,
doesn't hurt either.

In another sense, it reminds me of my own Jeyn script, as the structure of
each letter is a direct indication of the pronunciation, at least for the
primary 24 letters.

long downstroke - stops / affricatives
long upstroke - fricatives
short stroke - nasal (except row 6)
double 'bow' - voiced


---
Fabian
If a flying horse ye see, mock ye not if it stays up not.