"GL2" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol12)

tact with the Numenorean settlements,(6) but also the ancient
'runic' alphabet of Daeron elaborated [> used] by the Sindar
was known and used. This was, no doubt, due to the influence
of Celebrimbor, a Sinda who claimed descent from Daeron.(7)
Nonetheless even in Eregion the Runes were mainly a 'matter of
lore' and were seldom used for informal matters. They, how-
ever, caught the fancy of the Dwarves; for while the Dwarves
still lived in populous mansions of their own, such as Moria in
particular, and went on journeys only to visit their own kin, they
had little intercourse with other peoples except immediate
neighbours, and needed writing very little; though they were
fond of inscriptions, of all kinds, cut in stone. For such purposes
the Runes were convenient, being originally devised for them.
The Longbeard Dwarves therefore adopted the Runes, and
modified them for their own uses (especially the expression of
Khuzdul); and they adhered to them even far into the Third Age,
when they were forgotten by others except the loremasters
of Elves and Men. Indeed it was generally supposed by the
unlearned that they had been invented by the Dwarves, and they
were widely known as 'dwarf-letters'.(8)
Here we are concerned only with the Common Speech. Now

the Common Speech, when written at all, had from its begin-
ning been expressed in the Feanorian Script.(9) Only occasionally
and in inscriptions not written with pen or brush did some of
the Elves of Sindarin descent use the Runes of Daeron, and their
spelling was then dependent on the already established usages
of the Feanorian Script. The Dwarves had originally learned the
Common Speech by ear as best they could, and had no occasion
to write it; but in the Third Age they had been obliged in the
course of trade and other dealings with Men and Elves to learn
to read the Common Speech as written, and many had found it
convenient to learn to write it according to the then general
customs of the West. But this they only did in dealings with
other peoples. For their own purposes they (as has been said)
preferred the Runes and adhered to them.
Therefore in such documents as the Book of Mazarbul - not
'secret' but intended primarily for Dwarves, and probably
intended later to provide material for chronicles (10) - they used
the Runes. But the spelling was mixed and irregular. In general
and by intention it was a transcription of the current spelling
of the Common Speech into Runic terms; but this was often
'incorrect', owing to haste and the imperfect knowledge of
the Dwarves; and it was also mingled with numerous cases of
words spelt phonetically (according to the pronunciation of the
Dwarves) - for instance, letters that had in the colloquial pro-
nunciation of the late Third Age ceased to have any function
were sometimes omitted.(11)
In preparing an example of the Book of Mazarbul, and
making three torn and partly illegible pages,(12) I followed the