Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500164
our Roman Capitals—to establish the essential look of Adûnaic, and for uses such as inscriptions on building façades. Indeed, my sources of inspiration included the monumental capitals of ancient Rome and Greece. From this basic set, I derived several variations and styles that could be used in books and documents by scribes, as well as informal, cursive lettering used by everyday people for everyday purposes. The underlying language used is English (since Tolkien didn't provide enough Adûnaic for our purposes), but here the spelling is phonetic, as a further point of difference between this and our representations of the writings of Dwarves and the Men of the Southlands. Having established modern Númenorean in its various forms, a further task was to provide a 'backstory' of the letters, showing how they evolved from the Elvish tengwar through 'Old Númenorean' and finally to their current shapes. It was important to Ramsey and me, as part of our deep visual storytelling, to denote the long history of Adûnaic, as well as to show its evolution from Elven forms to Mannish ones. These older forms can be glimpsed in the more ancient parts of Númenor, and on various older inscriptions, maps and documents that we see throughout the series. Both Ramsey and I love and deeply honor the use of language (and maps) in Tolkien's world; that's why it was so important that we worked to create all of these different forms of writing, language and presentation. ADG G E F