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Stephenson:Neal:Cryptonomicon:232:Qwghlmian runes(Alan Sinder)

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This is an Cryptonomicon page for Qwghlmian Runes.

Stephensonia

A Stab at the Qwghlmian Alphabet

A Possible Qwghlmian Alphabet Perhaps the pre-pict Fairy religion Denmark is where the Qwghlmian folk originally hail from? Are we seeing Viking high tech in sheep husbandry?      “… Waterhouse recognizes, from the Encyclopedia, as Qwghlmian runes. To an ignorant philistine, these might look like an endless, random series of sans-serif Xs, Is, Vs, hyphens, asterisks, and upside-down Vs. But it is an enduring source of pride to--     "We didn't care for those Romans and that Julius Caesar fellow," observes the taxi driver, "and we weren't too taken with their alphabet either."

Indeed the Encyclopedia Qwghlmiana features a lengthy article about the local system of runes. The author of this article has such a chip on his shoulder that the thing is almost physically painful to read. The Qwghlmian practice of eschewing the use of curves and loops, forming all glyphs out of straight lines, far from being crude--as some English scholars have asserted--gives the script a limpid austerity. It is an admirably functional style of writing in a place where (after all the trees were cut down by the English) most of the literate intellectual class suffered from chronic bilateral frostbite.

Anglosaxonrunes.JPG

**Actual Anglo Saxon Runes

created for Wikipedia for its

Runic Alphabet entry**

Authored entries