Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Safe and sound in the enchanting land of Chiang Mai.
I've created a new Youtube channel, and I'm not sure if the URL works or not:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD0wf- ... subscriber
Give it a shot and please enjoy my adventures.

Great vidios, thankyou

Just found your Youtube too. Have a safe trip and enjoy it yo.

Hey guys, I'm here learning the Thai language.
So funny, when it's transliterated into Roman letters, it looks like something that Lovecraft would dream up.
But looking at the letters of the Thai alphabet (which apparently is supposed to be referred as an "abugida"). I was at a Buddhist ceremony the other night and I saw one of the books that the people were chanting from... and I got a question...

Which historical written language did professor Tolkien base his Tengwar upon?
I've seen where folks claim it was Sanskrit but Tengwar doesn't have the slightest resemblance to Devangari, which always has a horizontal line above all letters.



Or maybe I'm just going native....

Ha!

I had a Frodo moment, trying to read that tengwar in the Sindarin mode.

"etagr.... what the heck is etagr?"

I'd always assumed without thinking about it that the tengwar was inspired by (but not based on) Hebrew, based primarily on how it handles vowels - but also on its brushstroke form, the fact modern Hebrew was being reconstructed about the same time Tolkien was working on the tengwar, and that I'd heard the Professor had an admiration for that people.

That said, Wiki points us to Francis Lodwick's Universal Alphabet - which looks a lot more likely. The logical structure of the character set is very similar to tengwar, as are the relationships between characters. The characters themselves have little in common with their related tengwa however.

As to the shape of the tengwa characters, I'd always assumed some of their form was due to Middle-earth as a "proto-history" - look at the characters for "p" or "m" for instance - not at all unlike their modern form. I could imagine the Professor thought of them as precursors to Koine Greek or Phoenician characters, lost in the mist of time.

As to their brushstroke form, they strongly resemble I think the Uncial, Caroligian, and Insular calligraphy forms the Professor would no doubt have been constantly immersed in looking at ancient manuscripts - Insular particularly.

Good work on learning Thai! It looks like it's gonna be a challenge - how fun!

duplicate.

Look forward to pictures of your archery practice in Thailand....I am sure there are Tolkien fans there as well.

Elleth wrote: I'd always assumed without thinking about it that the tengwar was inspired by (but not based on) Hebrew, based primarily on how it handles vowels - but also on its brushstroke form, the fact modern Hebrew was being reconstructed about the same time Tolkien was working on the tengwar, and that I'd heard the Professor had an admiration for that people.

Periscope up!
Um, the way that Hebrew is written, with major symbols designating consonants, and incidental marks indicating vowel sounds, is not an unusual feature of written scripts, of course. Arabic does that, as does Thai by the way.
Natheless, good point about Hebrew; that reconstruction of a "dead" language for modern use must have caught his attention.

I found some knives that were made in a traditional manner, glorious things they are, well-made. Turns out that the smith works several km to the east of here; I hope to soon visit his forge. Until then, sawatdikrop!