I remember some of this discussion from a few years ago - MOB tells me he recently reposted something I wrote then. I'm revising it to go into TOTRM, so I'm interested in this subject.
I've always felt that elves should be the most alien of all the elder races, partly because they're plants, not animals, but mostly to squash any hack-Fantasy stereotypes. So I think they often run around naked, or clad in leaves and grass, and are always dirty.
Writing seems too much a specialised human "meat" activity; even oral tradition is a bit suspect. I wonder if Aldryami is a language that only exists to speak to the Meat races? Take down those smart-arse LM scholars a peg or two.
My idea of elf communication is more a form of landscape gardening. You could walk through an elf book and not realise, or even burn it down - destroying an elf forest is also destroying their whole written culture, and it's a bit difficult to make copies. Elves may spend much of their day "writing", a concept they probably can't separate from tending the forest. Being plants too, they can graft bits of themselves into the work - - a bunch of leaf hair (= writing someone's name), or a finger (= signing it in blood). Fingers probably grow back by themselves anyway.
What do elves write? Nobody else can read it, but to get the flavour, imagine a gardening manual where every chapter is debated and passed by the House of Commons.
Mike Dickison
Adzebill_at_matai.vuw.ac.nz
Powered by hypermail