Heritage of Zandalar
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Zandali writing

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Post  Zul'Ros Tue Jun 22, 2010 2:05 am

With our new extended list of Loas I thought I could do some research as well, and it would be an interesting subject to discuss overall.

So what does Zandali writing look like?

At first I thought it's something akin to runes or cuneiform, naturally something that's easily carved into stone tablets.


Zandali writing 4519023143
Runes of Elder Futhark


Zandali writing Cuneiform-writing-1
Cuneiform


As you can see, both mostly consist of straight lines. On the other hand, the actual ingame tablets look like this:


Zandali writing Trolltabletartifact2


It does resemble cuneiform, but with a change towards smooth round lines (carving those surely is a pain, I feel sorry for trolls).

As troll lore is highly influenced by ancient Aztec culture I thought it would be a good idea to check Aztec writing next:


Zandali writing Jnnahuatl
Nahuatl


As the article says, it's not really a true writing system. It's way too pictographic and looks nothing like the troll tablets.

So Zandali is most likely a hieroglyphic language, something like a mix of cuneiform and japanese kanji:


Zandali writing Zan3

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End of part 1.
Any thoughts and additions are welcome.
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Post  Vypra Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:57 pm

I was having trouble visiaulising how cuniform compared to the troll tablets we see in game so thanks for including the pix, that helps a lot and i think i agree that you're suggestion of some kind of cross between that and the japanese script most closely resembles troll writings.

That got me thinking about how exactly the writing was inscribed on the stones. What if it wasn't carved at all?

Cuniform was formed by pressing a special reed stylus into clay, so what if troll tablets were formed in a smiliar way?

We assume the tablets are made of stone, but if they were made of clay and rather than using a stylus, carved wooden blocks were pressed into the damp clay tablets, which would then be fired to harden them?

We tend to think these tablets made were for official purposes, recording important stories and possibly laws and rituals. If so, it wouldn't matter if it took a long time to carve the wood that would make the imprints on the clay and once they were made, they could probably re-use them too.


Last edited by Vypra on Tue Jun 22, 2010 5:59 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : typos :P)
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Post  Zul'Ros Tue Jun 22, 2010 7:46 pm

Well, if each symbol represents a word it only makes sense to have a set of most commonly used blocks.
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Post  Zul'Ros Fri Jul 02, 2010 2:03 pm

Heh... just noticed there was a similar thread created by Snicka where he posted the very Nahuatl pictures i've come across Laughing
It still looks nothing like the writings on the tablets (those look more like hieroglyphs), but the walls in ZG are decorated with some sort of pictures that are quite similar. Maybe both types were used by trolls after all.

Also I wonder if Zanick knew that "naraku" means "hell" in japanese when inventing those swear words Very Happy
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