From: "Hellekin" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Tolkien ideogram Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 18:43:53 +0000 (UTC) Organization: BT Openworld Lines: 10 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: host81-153-145-48.range81-153.btcentralplus.com X-Trace: sparta.btinternet.com 1084214633 3870 81.153.145.48 (10 May 2004 18:43:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news-complaints@lists.btinternet.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 18:43:53 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!newsfeed.vmunix.org!news2.euro.net!zen.net.uk!demorgan.zen.co.uk!194.72.9.35.MISMATCH!news-peer1!btnet-feed5!btnet!news.btopenworld.com!not-for-mail Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:150608 Has anyone else noticed the striking resemblance between the ideogram that Tolkien created from his initials and the 2 Japanese kanji symbols "hon" and "moku"? It occurred to me that it was particularly interesting that the principle translation of the former is "book" and the latter is "tree". There is no doubt JRRT was very fond of both books and trees. Pure coincidence or a deliberate construct by a tree-loving bibliophile linguist? ###### From: "Robert J. Kolker" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Tolkien ideogram Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 16:58:03 -0400 Lines: 13 Message-ID: <2ga8muFg50eU1@uni-berlin.de> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: http://news.individual.net/abuse.html X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de QNdHXrD5a63Rz2jgIaEaIQ1QQgmMVxx1zBJMy4ls00xML4cQk= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en In-Reply-To: Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!tiscali!newsfeed1.ip.tiscali.net!feed.news.tiscali.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!not-for-mail Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:150627 Hellekin wrote: > It occurred to me that it was particularly interesting that the principle > translation of the former is "book" and the latter is "tree". There is no > doubt JRRT was very fond of both books and trees. Pure coincidence or a > deliberate construct by a tree-loving bibliophile linguist? Tolkien was a linguist. It would not surprise me if it were deliberate. Bob Kolker ###### X-Trace-PostClient-IP: 24.81.240.6 Reply-To: "Chris Wright" From: "Chris Wright" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien References: <2ga8muFg50eU1@uni-berlin.de> Subject: Re: Tolkien ideogram Lines: 19 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 21:05:24 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.59.144.74 X-Complaints-To: abuse@shaw.ca X-Trace: pd7tw3no 1084223124 64.59.144.74 (Mon, 10 May 2004 15:05:24 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 15:05:24 MDT Organization: Shaw Residential Internet Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news2.telebyte.nl!feed5.newsreader.com!newsreader.com!news3.optonline.net!pd7cy1no!shaw.ca!pd7tw3no.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:150630 "Robert J. Kolker" wrote in message news:2ga8muFg50eU1@uni-berlin.de... > > > Hellekin wrote: > > > It occurred to me that it was particularly interesting that the principle > > translation of the former is "book" and the latter is "tree". There is no > > doubt JRRT was very fond of both books and trees. Pure coincidence or a > > deliberate construct by a tree-loving bibliophile linguist? > > Tolkien was a linguist. It would not surprise me if it were deliberate. Did Tolkien ever study Japanese? ###### From: Ostadan@theonering.net Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Tolkien ideogram Date: 11 May 2004 09:21:12 -0400 Organization: PANIX -- Public Access Networks Corp. Lines: 18 Message-ID: References: <2ga8muFg50eU1@uni-berlin.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix5.panix.com X-Trace: reader2.panix.com 1084281673 18168 166.84.1.5 (11 May 2004 13:21:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 13:21:13 +0000 (UTC) Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!news2.telebyte.nl!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!panix!panix5.panix.com!not-for-mail Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:150692 In article <2ga8muFg50eU1@uni-berlin.de>, Robert J. Kolker wrote: > > >Hellekin wrote: > >> It occurred to me that it was particularly interesting that the principle >> translation of the former is "book" and the latter is "tree". There is no >> doubt JRRT was very fond of both books and trees. Pure coincidence or a >> deliberate construct by a tree-loving bibliophile linguist? > >Tolkien was a linguist. It would not surprise me if it were deliberate. > Tolkien was already using an early form of the monogram by the age of 14 (see "J.R.R. Tolkien, Artist and Illustrator"). It would surprise me if Japanese ideograms for "book" and "tree" had anything to do with this. ###### From: Naryldor Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Tolkien ideogram Date: 12 May 2004 13:37:43 GMT Organization: Mi casa Lines: 18 Message-ID: References: <2ga8muFg50eU1@uni-berlin.de> X-Complaints-To: http://news.individual.net/abuse.html X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de EsdBeo8hslvBd9ue9DjyiAeXe66H3dErwDnbiQHvWx3gneZnUU User-Agent: Xnews/5.04.25 Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!not-for-mail Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:150770 Ostadan@theonering.net wrote in news:c7qk08$6pk$1@panix5.panix.com: > > Tolkien was already using an early form of the monogram by the age > of 14 (see "J.R.R. Tolkien, Artist and Illustrator"). It would > surprise me if Japanese ideograms for "book" and "tree" had anything > to do with this. I agree, I don't know almost nothing of japanese, but oriental languages in general have thousands of ideograms, many of them look very similar to one another (at least to western eyes) but have completely different and unrelated meanings. So I'm pretty sure one could find other resemblances between the Tolkien ideogram and other japanese ideograms whose meanings are a lot less "tolkienish" than book and/or tree. It is however a very nice and quite proper thought to relate Tolkien with the japanese ideograms for tree and book. ###### From: "Hellekin" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: Tolkien ideogram Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 16:44:08 +0000 (UTC) Organization: BT Openworld Lines: 27 Message-ID: References: <2ga8muFg50eU1@uni-berlin.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: host81-154-89-40.range81-154.btcentralplus.com X-Trace: hercules.btinternet.com 1084380248 22945 81.154.89.40 (12 May 2004 16:44:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news-complaints@lists.btinternet.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 16:44:08 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!newsfeed.stueberl.de!newsr1.ipcore.viaginterkom.de!news-peer1!btnet-feed5!btnet!news.btopenworld.com!not-for-mail Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:150779 "Naryldor" wrote in message news:Xns94E79EFB9C00Dnaryldor@130.133.1.4... [snipped] >So I'm pretty sure one could find other resemblances > between the Tolkien ideogram and other japanese ideograms whose meanings > are a lot less "tolkienish" than book and/or tree. Possibly, but those two kanji are quite distinctive - 'radicals' in fact. I would guess that someone interested in languages and ideograms such as runes (see JRRT's Dwarven and Elvish runic alphabets), even at the age of 14 may have come accross them. 'Hon' in particular is one of two symbols that make the word for Japan itself (Nihon or Nipon) and so is quite prevalent. The symbol represents a tree with roots ('roots' can also mean 'origins' in this context) and along with Ni (the symbol for sun) literally translates as 'Origin of the Sun', or more familiarly to westerners 'Land of the Rising Sun'. What these symbols mean is likely to be one of the first questions an enquiring mind may ask of Japanese characters. As far as I know the symbols are the same in Chinese too (which is where they originated). On the other hand it could just be my lateral brain noticing odd similarities.