Alphabets, Heirogylphs, Runes, History of Writing

[Goblin King]

I was planning to start a thread on Anglo-Saxon Runes and provide some graphics we can write with but haven't got around to it yet.

In the meantime may I present some Heirogylphs (adpated from a later period of Egypts history I believe)
Its a bookmark. So feel free to print it off and use it as one. (its from the British Museum)

Click on thumbnail for full image:



More to follow ...

Feel free to adds links or points of interest.

[Goblin King]

Runes for writing with:

www.arild-hauge.com/eanglor.htm

www.omniglot.com/writing/runic.htm

I was going to bmake some graphics for us but I guess I could still ones from this page (link above) - a really good quick guide to the different different Northern European runic alphabets (or Futharks/Futhorks)

I mainly write with Anglo Saxon Runes. Owners of The Hobbit will note that these are the runes Tolkien uses on the maps and frontispiece (to represent Dwarven Runes - which he that reinvents in Lord of the Rings).

[Goblin King]

Hmm... there seems to be some disagreement about the Thorn rune ... well I'll just have standardised some runes for us.

[Goblin King]

Guess what language / part of the world this is from.

[Goblin King]

Write your name in basic Heiroglyphics (letters)

(a bit basic but fun and it breaks a few rules)

www.harcourtschool.com/activity/cartouche/cartouche.html


;D

[Goblin King]

The layout of an English-Russian keyboard:



EDIT: Actually I misread this - this represents how to convert a western keyboard with sticky labels. Hmm. Oh well - interesting, innit?

[undone]

cool.... i tried learning russian... didn't get very far and the keyboard layout is so confusing if u don't have those sticky labels on them.....

which part of the world are those heiroglyphs from?? i'd guess north africa .... am i right?

[Goblin King]

undone said:

which part of the world are those heiroglyphs from?? i'd guess north africa .... am i right?

Nope. ;D
Different part of world entirely.
Next guess.
As of yet I believe they haven't been deciphered.

[undone]

can i guess again???

*gets atlas out*

ummmm australasia....

[Goblin King]

Heh - big area - polynesian would have been spot on I guess - its funny because when I first saw them I'd have said South American

Rongo Rongo

A script once used on Easter Island until the 1860s, after which knowledge of the script was lost. The language it represents is Rapa Nui, the Polynesian language spoken on Easter Island.

All the experts dont have a clue what it says! Cool, eh? Hmm ... maybe we can have a guess ... lol ;D

[undone]

cool... i'm so glad u said cos i'd alreay started cheating to figure it out.... started a massive search on google for the pic cos i noticed it was called "lettering" thanks for savin my sanity well for tonight at least.

easter island is an amazing place.... i really hope i get the chance to visit someday..

Rapa Nui - interesting word.. do you happen to know what rapa means? cos there's meant to be some kind of wonder drug from easter island called rapa-mycin... just curious

[undone]

yeah i suppose...... but the whole no structure to sentences killed it for me.... apparently my accent was quite good *smug smile*

grrrr - if only i had more patience... someday though...

[Goblin King]

Russky-lover eh? Pinko commie ...

Lol. Actually I changed the name of the graphic when I uploaded it to our photobucket account, cos it said "rongo rongo" and its from one of the sites above (but didn't want to admit it ) - I've got more info in a book somewhere.

Interesting. I'm assuming Rapa means island or mountain - but maybe we can look into this (there's a few linguists around here but they keep quiet about it)

Drugs!!!?? Begonst thou taking of strange substances!!!

[Goblin King]

"Rapa"
Keeps returning links to Easter Island or:

An island of the southern Pacific Ocean in southern French Polynesia south-southeast of Tahiti. It was much visited by whalers in the early 19th century.

Sounds South American to me! ;D

[undone]

drugs in a good way i swear........ where's an angelic smilie when u need one....

i think i have some literature about the stuff lying around here.... i 'll def have to find out...

cheers for expanding my mind ever so slightly tonight

[Goblin King]

Mind expansion!??
The man is obsessed!

[undone]

hey take a chill pill...

it's only expanded a little.... don't like to overdo things...

[Goblin King]

LOL ;D ;D
(actually wonders if he has taken his chill pills today )
Anyway ... back to pseudo-intellectual matters ...

[undone]

think i'm better off leaving u to it..... your starting to use long words

[undone]

ok - i think i got what rapa means.....

apart from being a name for easter island "rapa nui"

Rapa = "the Tortoises;" and then obviously Cha-Rapa would be "Small Tortoises"

www.rongorongo.org/carroll/243.html
think that might be a pretty relevant www.rongorongo.org/index.html lots of stuff about the tablets of easter island

i'll have to bore you sometime with the details of rapamycin - it might be another treatment for cancer and other various disorders...

[Goblin King]

Wow. I'm impressed. There's graphics of the original tablets and everything. The web address made me laugh - I mean do you think they had to buy the domain name off someone else? ;D
I'll enjoy checking that out.
Yep we'll have to run an Exotics Cures thread or something... I'm very intrigued - there seems to be quite a few mad scientists here ... Nice one.

[Goblin King]

I’m not going to go into too much detail here – I’m sure people can make lots of links with the tables presented below.

Egyptian number system

I liked using Egyptian numbers in my old diary for dates – made a change to Roman Numerals which most people can work out. It’s very similar.

Thumbnail (click for table)


Source: Elementary Egyptian Grammar, M.A. Murray (Quaritch, London, 5 Ed. 1932)

No zero of course … like nearly all ancient number systems.

I wont go into Roman Numerals here (might do in a bit because I can never remember which letters represent the higher numbers. (Feel free to remind me.

Modern numbers we are told came from the Arab nations – zero my have been a Hindi invention:



Source: A History of Mathematics (for Secondary Schools), H.A. Freebury, (Cassell, London 1958)



Diffusion of the Alphabet – Comparative Tables

There’s plenty of these around if you look hard enough. What’s interesting is that you slow come to realise that the western alphabet isn’t a continuous evolution – it’s a twisted branch on a tree made of lost parchments and stone carvings.

The first table is from David Diringer’s “Writing” (1962) – a marvellous book which may already be dating due to due finds and leaps forward in decipherment. However his tables comparing different alphabets through history make fascinating reading.



(For the origins of individual letters I recommend the, ever so slightly poetic, Lyn Davies: “A is for Ox – A short history of the Alphabet” Ottakar’s 2004; Although academically sound one is reminded of Rudyard Kipling’s stories about the origins of the alphabet. – To isolate letters and not explore syllalibic-phonetic real language sounds can sometimes miss the point … but I digress, it’s a nice book, really, in the shops now, perfect gift etc. … )

I was going to include a table from an old Webster’s dictionary I own, but there’s a full breakdown of the Ethiopic Alphabet which I may save for later (the vowels are added to the consonants – similar in approach to modern Arabic), but instead I found this wonderful comparison of alphabets in the first volume of an c.1870‘s Bible Dictionary (Cassell, Petter & Galpin, London):



It's a little large but cool!

(sorry if I’m mixing up too much stuff here and making broad generalisations)

[undone]

you seen the dictionary.... anyone fancy learning rapanui??? maybe i have too much time on my hands....


new meaning for the word rapa too - "to shine" -

he-rapa te moai miro - the wooden figurine is shiny, polished

[Goblin King]

Hee hee, I bet those tablets say things like
"Nice double headed Bird God help us fish - we catch big fish and feed our fat wives and turtle obsessed children."
and
"Fifth season of Buffy: no good - not enough jokes - or fish, ... or turtles"
"Xander make good turtle face ..."

[Goblin King]

Online Rune Converter

Write your name in runes!

www.valtonia.plus.com/valtonia/runes/runes.html

(I'm still planning to provide us with some of our own goblinmarket Anglo-Saxon run graphics which we can use in the posts)

[Goblin King]

^^^
When you use this web page - hit PRNT SCRN on keyboard (or ctrl PRNTSCRN)

Macs: look up "screen snapshot" in your shortcuts help files.

Then "paste" into your fav paint or image program, crop the image.

Result:



("Goblin King" in Anglo-Saxon Runes)

[Goblin King]

International Phonetic Alphabet:

www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/fullchart.html

(terribly useful )

[Goblin King]

Converting our numbers ("arabic" system) to Roman Numerals:

www.roman-britain.org/java/a2r.htm

[Goblin King]

Examples of Historical Alphabets of Note

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Phoenician

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Amharic
(Which I think is wonderful!)

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Ugarit

The oldest whole "alphabet" (i.e. single sounds as opposed to a "Syllabary" - a combination of sounds)

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These were all taken from this website:
www.krysstal.com/writing.html

[Minotaur]

that is impressive