The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - What was the dominant writing system in Middle-earth?

William Cloud Hicklin · 04-04-2019, 12:45 PM

Add to this Gandalf's comment on the Book of Mazarbul, that the last hand (Ori's) used an Elvish script; and Tolkien's facsimile thereof shows that he plainly means Tengwar as opposed to the Certhas of the earlier entries.

But why call them "Elvish" if they were everybody's alphabet, and the language was CS?

All I can say is that Tolkien slipped (the BofM facsimile after all should have been in Westron, not English!)

04-04-2019, 12:45 PM	#2
William Cloud Hicklin Loremaster of Annúminas Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 2,301	Add to this Gandalf's comment on the Book of Mazarbul, that the last hand (Ori's) used an Elvish script; and Tolkien's facsimile thereof shows that he plainly means Tengwar as opposed to the Certhas of the earlier entries. But why call them "Elvish" if they were everybody's alphabet, and the language was CS? All I can say is that Tolkien slipped (the BofM facsimile after all should have been in Westron, not English!) __________________ The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it.