tolkien tengwar writing system. korean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengwar#Spelling_and_pronunciation

These principal letters are divided into four series ("témar") that correspond to the main places of articulation and into six rows ("tyeller") that correspond to the main manners of articulation. Both vary among modes.
Each series is headed by the basic signs composed of a vertical stem descending below the line, and a single bow. These basic signs represent the voiceless stop consonants for that series. For the classical Quenya mode, they are /t/, /p/, /k/ and /kʷ/, and the series are named tincotéma, parmatéma, calmatéma, and quessetéma, respectively; téma means "series" in Quenya.
In rows of the general use, there are the following correspondences between letter shapes and manners of articulation:
Doubling the bow turns the voiceless consonant into a voiced one.

D: compare to Korean.

The Korean alphabet was invented in 1444 and promulgated it in 1446 during the reign of King Sejong (r.1418-1450), the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty.

D: the opportunity for a fresh start, in the form of a strong and visionary ruler, shows signs of reform.

The shapes of the the consonants g/k, n, s, m and ng are graphical representations of the speech organs used to pronounce them. Other consonsants were created by adding extra lines to the basic shapes.
The shapes of the the vowels are based on three elements: man (a vertical line), earth (a horizontal line) and heaven (a dot). In modern Hangeul the heavenly dot has mutated into a short line.
Spaces are placed between words, which can be made up of one or more syllables.
The sounds of some consonants change depending on whether they appear at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a syllable.

D: I suppose this is the logical next step after the Urdu alphabet system of ordering letters by type of sound.

The whole initial-mid-final nuance can make much sense.
Take English, with its aspirated, non-aspirated and voiced versions -allophones of the same voiceless consonant.
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Tengwar:

Raising the stem above the line turns it into the corresponding fricative.
Shortening it (so it is only the height of the bow) creates the corresponding nasal. It must be noted though that in most modes, the signs with shortened stem and single bow don't correspond to the voiceless nasals, but to the approximants.

D: very visually clear. Derived from Korean.

D: Tolkien did a poor job of portraying a credible 'natural' writing system.
He used a reformed one.
Since the elves lacked a 'Korean king moment', there is little reason to believe their writing system would be so coherent.

Korean is a 1/10 version of HIOXian.
Making the case for the other 9/10 - the difference from writng system reform and REVOLT!!!

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D; a friend of mine up in Nunavut has need of these nuances. <:

umiaq boat
ᐅᒥᐊᖅ
umiarjuaq big boat, ship
ᐅᒥᐊᕐᔪᐊᖅ
umiarjuaraaluk big ship
ᐅᒥᐊᕐᔪᐊᕌᓗᒃ

D: Hmm. Resembles the conventions of Esperanto. VERY big is not treated as mere modifier. It is treated as a new category.

Large banana.
Granda banano.
More. Most.
Very.
Very VERY.
Banan-eg*-o
D: why not on the adjective? Not noun?
E.g. granda-eg*-o banano?

I suspect that 'big man' and 'giant' get treated differently in most languages.

But a 3 or 5 base system lacks the nuance of a 7-base system.
That changes things.

E.g. 3 base
- more less, same

5 base
- more most same less least

7 base -add VERY.
evaluative: too, not enough.
way too, not nearly.

D: language is intended to communicate. It should be able to clearly and robustly express what is actually talked about.

VERY. Granda banan-eg*-o.