Quote:
Originally Posted by TVV
Loma script on blades mounted in Morocco sounds fascinating, but unfortunately also totally improbable. The sboula that started the thread is probably from the end of the 19th century or early 20th century, predating the Loma script. Even if you somehow can get past that, why would anyone in Morocco inscribe a blade in some obscure Trans Saharan language and not Arabic?
I still feel that an illiterate smith/engraver putting something that visually imitates older European marks is the most plausible explanation. The vast majority of Sboulas (and Genouis) are from cut down European blades, and any local production apparently needed to at least look like the imports in order to be marketable.
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You're probably right that it isn't Loma, but I think we should be a little cautious before we assume that this is simply a meaningless imitation of European scripts. It's certainly a possibility.... but is it possible that Loma was derived from or inspired by an earlier form of writing from the general area that is a better match in symbols, time and space? It seems unlikely that it was just invented out of thin air. Unfortunately searching omniglot is not entirely trivial. Do we have any historical grammatologist around who specialized in 19th century North-West African scripts?
