Perhaps Tolkien was trying to give Elvish the look of the Torah or the Quran,
the use of diacriticals to represent vowels being a feature of the semitic
languages. The breakdown of characters into stems and bows also gives it
this appearance. To my eye, the frontispiece looks like Hebrew, and the
ring inscription looks like Arabic (though I don't know anything about how to
write in either language).
Did Tolkien ever say in a letter or elsewhere that he was aiming for this
ancient religious document
look?
