Nr.60 Edward Kloczko | Can OpenType Save the Tengwar? | 27 August 19:30

When we announced a temporary desk-space at our studio on , we did not expect to get contacted by a self identifying Hobbit (in all but size!), eager to trade his adoptive French ‘Shire’, the Champagne region, for the city of Amsterdam. Edward Kloczko sought a stimulating environment and the company of fellow type designers to accelerate the development of his Tengwar, a script imagined by J.R.R. Tolkien, revival. As a linguist who has studied all to him available manuscripts of Tolkien, he appears to be the only one who truly grasps the full scope of this constructed language and its various writing systems. In his lecture, Edward will not only present his own type revivals but also delve into the authors calligraphic works.

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Edward J. Kloczko was born in 1963 in Ukraine, in L’viv (Lemberg) to a Latvian ballet dancer, who was on tour there, and a young local Ph*rm*cy student. The bohemian life of his parents made him move regularly and pick up many languages. He discovered Tolkien in France in 1978, and read it for the first time in English when he moved to New York city in 1981. He then discovered the many linguistic appendices of “The Lord of the Rings” that were not then include in the French translations. In 1986, he founded the Faculté des études elfiques (School of Elvish Studies, whose acronym Fée is French for ‘fairy'). Presently, he teaches the Elvish languages and Tolkien to an online classroom every Sunday evening. He published several academic papers on Middle-earth and Tolkien’s constructed languages and has contributed to “The Words of Middle-earth”, a linguistic column of Mythprint, the monthly bulletin of the Mythopoeic Society.

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This lecture is not only for fans of “The Lord of the Rings” or type designers, but also everyone interested in the invention of languages and the construction of new writing systems. The work of J.R.R. Tolkien is some of the most elaborate ever done and it inspired countless conlangers. In addition to extending the open-source Tengwar script designed by Toshi Omagari, Edward is also working on a sans-serif version of the same script, proving that it can be adapted to different typefaces like common writing systems. Alongside Elvish, there are other manuscripts by Tolkien being digitized and presented by Edward. We guarantee that you won't want to miss this lecture and the opportunity to meet this fascinating personality.

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Hosted at:De Lange AdemRuyschstraat 295,1091 DX Amsterdam

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Supported by:

Bold Monday & PICTORIGHT Fonds

Host or Publisher letterspace.amsterdam