Different systems of scripture in M-E

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

According to the LotR Appendix E, in Third Age there were basically two writing systems. First, the letters (tengwar), with several modifications depending on the language they were used for, but all based on Fëanorian tengwar. Second, there were the runes (certar), again, based on original Beleriand-type of scripture, but used with several modifications (the Dwarven ones, the version of the Northerners etc.).

However, here is one quote I stumbled upon and that raises an interesting question:

Originally Posted by Fellowship of the Ring; Chapter 4: The Ring Goes South

"If there are any to see, then I at least am revealed to them," he said. "I have written Gandalf is here in signs that all can read from Rivendell to the mouths of Anduin."

Now what does that imply? Surely this could have been just Gandalf's way to say "everyone can read it". But putting this explanation (not that strong anyway, in my opinion) aside now, it implies that there was some different kind of scripture used in the lands beyond the Mouths of Anduin. Which is interesting. It is obvious that the Southrons (as well as probably Easterlings, though we know even less about them) must have used also some sort of scripture for written communication. I will find it easy to say that the Easterlings could have adopted the modified version of runes used by the Northernmen (their neighbors), also because the more "barbaric" nations would use runes (for several reasons, like more often writing on other materials than pergamen/paper/whatever they used) rather than letters. And one could presume the Southrons using tengwar, after all they had close to Gondor, Númenorean colonies have been there in the past and many of the Southron chieftains in latter ages were in fact Black Númenoreans. However, the quote above says something different: that in the southern lands, at least, some different type of script was used. Now, what kind of a script could that be? As the Elves started with everything, was it another modification of the original Elven script, only changed into something that different that a Southerner could not read what Gandalf wrote up there on Caradhras? Or was it a script simply inspired by others (like the Númenorean one), but started from scratch, anew, an "artificial" script? Or some completely different type of writing - like the Sumerian cuneiform type of writing, or Chinese letters, or Egyptian hieroglyphs?

And another funny thing, note that Gandalf does not say only "to Mouths of Anduin", but also "from Rivendell". While this would, by geographic latitude, disqualify even a part of Arnor (and the places like Dale or the nothern Anduin Vales, which, on the other hand, goes well with what was written in appendix E that the Northernmen used their own form of Cirth, so this could be interpretated the way that they use only these runes and don't know tengwar at all), this is probably just inaccuracy in expression and otherwise, it speaks only about men of Angmar (eventually, while I think they were rather a mix of nations, mostly the Hillmen of Rhudaur and maybe several really nasty Lossoth outcasts and some mercenaries from elsewhere) and the Lossoth. Again, one can only guess whether the Lossoth had their own form of written script or whether they had not written script at all: I am inclined to believe the latter, because a) it is hard to write while your hands are freezing, b) in comparison to the Inuits, who are seemingly the nation the most similar to Lossoth in our world, this would seem so - as far as I know (and please correct me if I am wrong) the Inuits adapted their alphabet mainly from other sources, like the nations who lived near them (in North America) or from missionaries who came among them. Since there was no such source for the Lossoth (at least as far as we know), and these people rather separated themselves from the others (they did not have that far to Beleriand when it still existed, yet they don't seem to trade culture with its inhabitants), it is rather likely that they had no alphabet of their own. The quote above would at least speak for the theory that they did not use the same script as other people in the West did.

Anyway, I would like to ask, as it has been the good custom here, if anyone can provide any more information about other forms of writing in Middle-Earth, especially among the nations and cultures named above. Did the Professor leave us any more information about different types of scripts than tengwar and cirth?

Looking forward to your replies.

[zxcvbn]

Good question. I'd always felt it a little strange that although there were dozens of languages in Middle-earth, there were only two writing scripts(albeit used in different forms). It would make sense to think that the Easterlings adopted Cirth, learnt from the Northmen or the Dwarves of the East; and that the Haradrim used Tengwar, learnt from the Black Numenoreans. However I'd like to think that there were other scripts in the East.

However, the following quote implies that Sauron may have invented script of his own and taught it to his servants.

It is fashioned in an elven-script of Eregion, for they have no letters in Mordor for such subtle work.

Taking all this into consideration I would say that the different ethnic groups of the Haradrim and Easterlings(JRRT said that they were a mishmash of different diverse peoples) used multiple scripts.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Oh, come on. Gandalf was speaking metaphorically- to the extent 'signs' can be taken as identical with 'letters' at all: he wasn't inscribing glowing words in the air like Tom Riddle, for goodness sake!

What he's expressing is the observation that he's just performed some very flashy trademark Gandalf magic, which anyone suitably familiar with the field would recognize as his.

(Although one wonders how far, really, his flash of fire would be visible, performed as it is in the middle of a raging blizzard. Surely his nighttime pyrotechnics during the Warg attack before would have carried far better- his blast-fest with the Nazgul on Weathertop was after all visible as far as Midgewater.).