Re: writing system

On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 04:59:33 -0800, B. Garcia <madyaas@...> wrote:

>On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 06:24:27 -0600, Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...> wrote:
>
>> IMHO, the most beautiful script is Tengwar; second thereto being only
>> Georgian mkhedruli. I don't know where Tolkien got his inspiration,
In the English calligraphy he had learnt from his mother, which imitates
older insular uncialis (if that's what it's called in English). The tengwar
look very similar, especially when from Tolkien's own hand. Compare to this:

http://search.sothebys.com/jsps/live/lot/LotDetail.jsp?lot_id=42MCF

Very annoyingly, this page won't show up on firefox for OS X, but the image
itself is displayable:

http://search.sothebys.com/images/products/4/2/42MCF-smaller-L03408-473.jpg


>> but
>> there are eery resemblances in shape and sometimes in value to mkhedruli:
>> Sindarin <s> is almost identical to mkhedruli _sani_, and the whole feel
>> of the alphabet is similar.
>>
>
>While _I_ on the other hand find tengwar pretty, but not nearly as
>beautiful as the many forms of Arabic, or grass script Chinese.
The Chinese culture and the Arabic culture have the greatest calligraphies
of the world. It's also the two cultures where calligraphy counts much more
than painting (pretty much the opposite of the western culture).

gry@s:
j. 'mach' wust