[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

It's all logical, Legate, if you think of it. When Legolas says "Nay! Sauron does not use the Elf-runes", I think he simply means that Sauron does not use (a) elf-rune(s) as his symbol(s), but he does not mean Sauron wouldn't use them elsewhere (the ring etc.).

Ah, yes, it might be that way. Actually I was influenced by my theory that Sauron didn't use elven runes at all, just because they were too much "pure" for him (as much as he didn't use white: he just hated it, perhaps).

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

And about the "international s-rune"... For Legolas, the rune was/seemed an Elvish rune, not any other system's rune, since he is an elf himself. It's like a today's western european or american or australian person would see the symbol "s" somewhere, you'd automatically think of the western letter "s", not some snake-shaped hieroglyph, that's happen to mean "s" too... Okay, that was a bad example, but I hope you got my point. And Aragorn (and Gimli) just did not see a need to comment it could be a rune of another system's, since that was of no importance right then. (Aragorn could maybe have even "recognised" the rune as elvish the way Legolas did, as he grew up in Rivendell among the Elves.)

I understand. But this does not answer the question why would Legolas think that this what he sees is an Elf rune which Sauron would never use. If we, for example, presume that the symbol used by the Orcs was no.34 or 35 from the Angerthas table in LotR: Appendix E, then it would be S in Elvish, but Gimli (unless he, for some reason, read it also elvish) would consider it being "H" (since it would be H in his own language - as you showed in your example). I don't see any reason why Gimli would consider orc-runes being elvish: As you showed, he would probably read the rune the way he was used to. Now note, that the meaning of the rune was actually first mentioned by Gimli. If the runes used were indeed these presented in LotR (elven Certhas Daeron), the dialogue must have looked like this to make sense:

'I have not seen these tokens before,' said Aragorn. 'What do they mean?'
'H is for High Orcs,' said Gimli. 'That is easy to read.'
'Not necessarily,' said Aragorn. 'It could also be S for Sauron in Elf-runes.'
'Nay!' said Legolas. 'Sauron does not use the Elf-runes.'
Aragorn nodded. 'You are right, Legolas. I forgot. Neither does he use his right name, nor permit it to be spelt or spoken.'

But it still does not make sense why would then be necessary to interpretate the symbol as an Elf-rune "S for Sauron". If at once the three friends would come to the conclusion that not all runes in all languages mean the same, they could think of that it could be also an Orc-rune, meaning something they have no clue of. Then they could just wonder about the strange similarity of this rune to "S for Sauron", ultimately revealing (due to the white color) that it actually really is an elf rune and it means Saruman.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I wonder if the Ring's script being in tengwar has something to do with Eregion and gwaith-i-mírdain...?

Possibly...? A good point however, I'll have to think about it. But I'm in a hurry right now, maybe later.