scripts

From: Richard, Jeff <Jeff.Richard_at_METROKC.GOV>
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 11:28:44 -0700


Peter [Metcalf] writes:

>>Any idea where this language came from?
>Lhankor Mhy has some connection with writing since the Vinkotling age.

I think this is an important point. The Orlanthi have had some sort of writing since the Storm Age - remember, at the Dawn, the Orlanthi were certainly one of the most technically developed Genertelan cultures. Simply because their confederations and empires never completely subsume the clan and tribal organization [Heck, it isn't until the EWF that the old Vingkotling tribes finally disappear once and for all from the map and they even continue to have a faint echo - many Third Age tribes have/worship remanants of old Vingkotling/Heortling regalia, e.g, the Black Spear of the Colymar, or the "ancient regalia" of the Bilingi.) - and, as a result, have a nasty tendancy to tear themselves apart and revert back to a clan and tribal organization - that does not mean that the Orlanthi have not always been a cultural backwater.

For instance, the High Council of Genertelan was very Orlanthi. Dorastor was settled by Heortlings in the second century - it would seem likely that the basic written script used in Dorastor (until (if?) the Bright Empire become dominated by Dara Happa near the end of the fourth century, was related to the traditional Heortling script.

>>Although, if New Pelorian is descended from Wendarian, shouldn't it
>>use Wendarian glyphs as its base? (Is New Pelorian descended from
>>Wendarian?)
>New Pelorian is descended from Old Pelorian, the mother language of
>the Wendarian. And it doesn't use Wendarian glyphs for the most part
>because the Plentonic script is so much easier. Lunars do use
>such glyphs when writing out their names but this is an affection
>more than anything else.

This makes a lot of sense. The use of New Pelorian in the Provinces suggests that the world view of the literate New Pelorian users is wildly different from those folk who still speak and read their Theyalan tongues. Intellectually, a Tarshite who was educated to read New Pelirian might have far more in common with a literate Darsenite than with his NP illiterate kin.

David Weihe writes:
>I thus expect that modern Orlanthi scripts are all based on Malkioni,
>but that certain of the letters (the eigen-runes of GodLearner fame)
>are also used for religious iconography.

I don't think so. It would seem that modern Orlanthi scripts are based on the ancient Vingkotling scripts. They may have been heavily influenced, and in some places (Hendrikiland) even replaced, by Malkioni scripts, but I believe that the Orlanthi did not get their script from the West..


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