Re: fengxing (was Re: Familynames (was [OT] Re: Conlangea Dreaming)

On Sat, 14 Oct 2000 02:33:11 GMT Adam Walker <dreamertwo@...>
writes:
> This question is sorta in between conlang and conculture, but how do
> your
> cultures treat the written word?  In the west calligraphy is seen as
> an
> craft.  In China it is an art.  Thursday night at the nightmarket, I
> bought
> this beautiful four-color painting of my Chinese name.  The artist
> did them
> while you watched.  She made a beautiful tropical painting of birds
> and
> sunsets and bamboos and fish and shrimps and flowers, etc.  Do your
> confolk
> treat their writing as art?
>
> Adam
-

Among the Rokbeigalm, (whose {m} in the name i just realized is
syllabic), calligraphy is the art of writing words so that all the
letters in each word are connected, and however many words you have, all
the letters in all of them form a single visual unit - so having jagged
lines in one part and curves in another wouldn't work.  This usually
works in horizontal lines, but i can imagine Rokbeigalmki artists more
skilled than me being able to nest letters inside eachother, draw
pictures, etc. out of interwoven letters.

An (not the best) example can be found at:

http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~bh11744/caligraf.gif

It should be my Rokbeigalmki name, Tzíhvi Rish-Darish-Aoledh, but the
form isn't correct.  All the letters are there, it's just the way they're
linked and stuff violates a few rules that i didn't have when i drew this
example.

Rokbeigalmki Calligraphy actually antedates the Rokbeigalmki language;
it began soon after the alphabet was invented for my and my brother's
aborted conlang ool-Nuziiferoi; i used to write cryptic messages, and
quotes on the blackboards in high school in calligraphically-linked
Ziifer-script (the Rokbeigalmki Alphabet-to-be) letters.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "light rises from the east - a new day has arrived
  the two of us will vanquish fear"
                    ~ "tutim" by ethnix