The invention of seemingly ancient artifacts, from fake rune stones to Tolkien's laboriously-burnt and bloodstained facsimile of the
Book of Mazarbul, is an old and perhaps even honorable tradition. Those who turn their gifts to forgery, employing re-used parchment and ancient oak-gall ink, fall far lower, in my view, than those who invent the whole thing. The above "ancient" manuscript is of this latter sort: it's written in Edglash, a language I invented when I was seventeen, along with its own alphabetic script. It's the first page of the
Teklo ge Krissor Kal, the "Book of the Children of Kal" -- part of a saga of stories I wrote along Tolkienesque lines. Amateur cryptographers may have at it; I'll post a transcription as soon as I can find one in the "ancient" manila folders in which this imaginary world is stored.
Nice! Hints of Greek, Japanese, and Basic in there!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jonathan! I was quite obsessed with languages as a teenager -- I suppose I still am, but I do get some compensation for it!
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to the alphabet I used.
ReplyDeleteNice! I had the same hobby as a teenager. During a short period of obsession with Chinese and Japanese I even experimented with a system of writing my native language in Chinese characters. Time-consuming and pointless, yes, but so much fun!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Kristina! That sounds like quite a difficult project, but no less interesting for that. Part of the inspiration for the "Edglash" system came from alternative alphabets such as these.
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