>It [the first "script"] is extremely
>difficult to learn, because reading it (must be read aloud
>I think) means direct communion with the High Gods. That in
>turn means that the reader experiences a state of Liberation
>while reading.
This would certainly make teaching the language difficult, but grading would be easy: the students who are left at the end of class fail.
>I think it [the second "script"] looks like complex mandalas: one figure
>is an entire text that must be taken in and understood as
>one.
There's a potential for sacred architecture here; huge 3D mandalas that induce enlightenment by walking through them with a sincere and prepared mind.
I'm not sure I'd classify either of these as writing systems, though -- they are more like mystical notation schemes.
>The fifth script ... is written in a spiral from the center of
>the sheet outwards.
Not very efficient in its use of writing surface, though, and hard for the reader to use (which could be the idea, I suppose).
>I think the most common writing material in the East Isles
>is palm leaves, bound together with strings through holes
>in both ends (like used in RW southern India).
I suspect the East Isles have a huge range of writing materials, though, shared with other countries. Some may have paper, bought or made by techniques learned (or stolen) from Kraloria. The palm leaves seems Teshnan to me, and there's a similar RW system that uses wood slats, but there has to be trade with Teshnos. The Middle Sea Empire could have brought parchment, but I don't imagine the East Isles are exactly teeming with animals whose hides make decent parchment. Bark cloth is a definite possibility. Really, almost any writing system in Glorantha could show up in the East Isles (OK, Carmanian and Pelandan seem a little far fetched).
The same should be true for their scripts. There must be about a million basic record-keeping schemes, some of which have been elaborated into writing systems. Other systems have been created, borrowed, stolen, imposed, worked and reworked. Given that the East Isles have as low literacy rates as any other part of Glorantha, these systems are probably widely used only in religious documents (which may use the first two symbol-systems described) and their glosses. Only the various "imperial" efforts have provided anything like wide-spread writing systems useful to people outside of priests. So I can pretty much imagine any scheme, no matter how odd, cropping up here.
Do the Waertagi have a script? One imagines elaborate navigational notation, and they must have had some sort of record keeping for their merchant activities. Would they just use Western?
Peter Larsen
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