From: Michael Everson (everson@evertype.com)
Date: Mon Mar 16 2009 - 04:29:37 CST
On 16 Mar 2009, at 08:25, Jonathan Coxhead wrote:
> I've been trying to reproduce the various runic fragments in The
> Hobbit using Unicode, and I have a question. As near as I can see,
> the title of the foreword ("The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again")
> should be encoded as
>
> ᚦᛖ᛫ᚻᚩᛒᛒᛁᛏ᛬ᚩᚱ᛬ᚦᛖᚱᛖ᛫ᚪᚾᛞ᛫
> ᛒᚪᚳᚳ᛫ᚪᚷᚪᛁᚾ
That reads OK, ÞE HOBBIT OR ÞERE AND BAKK AGAIN
> Everything matches up nicely according to the Wikipedia article on
> the Futhorc, except that I can only find 1 rune (ᚳ) to stand for
> both C and K. In the edition I have, it looks like Tolkien used 2
> different runes: the rune for K having an extra corner, like a knee,
> in the diagonal stroke.
That's right, he does make this distinction.
> Are these 2 different runes encoded separately in Unicode? Or is
> Tolkien exercising artistic licence? Or is there a case for encoding
> a new rune for K?
I think there might a case for a disunification, because of the status
of Tolkien's texts and the very large number of people interested in
those texts.
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com
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