Re: Runes in "The Hobbit"

From: Andrew West (andrewcwest@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Mar 16 2009 - 04:30:28 CST

  • Next message: Michael Everson: "Re: Runes in "The Hobbit""

    2009/3/16 Jonathan Coxhead <jonathan@doves.demon.co.uk>:
    >
    > Futhorc, except that I can only find 1 rune (ᚳ) to stand for both C and K.
    > In the edition I have, it looks like Tolkien used 2 different runes: the
    > rune for K having an extra corner, like a knee, in the diagonal stroke.

    That is something that I noticed as well recently. See the bottom of
    this blog post:

    <http://babelstone.blogspot.com/2009/01/moon-runes-and-goblin-alphabet.html>

    > Are these 2 different runes encoded separately in Unicode?

    No.

    > Or is Tolkien exercising artistic licence?

    I would say that he was trying to create a new Runic orthography for
    modern English, and as is often the case when you try to adapt an old
    script to a new language it does not quite fit, and so he needed to
    devise a new Runic letter to distinguish C and K.

    > Or is there a case for encoding a new rune for K?

    It could be considered idiosyncratic usage, but given the importance
    of Tolkien's writings I think that there could be a case for encoding
    a new rune, especially now that people are trying (and not completely
    succeeding) to represent the Runic text of The Hobbit in Unicode on
    the web.

    Andrew



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Mar 16 2009 - 04:32:32 CST