#turkish calligraphy

[anatolienne]

from calligraphy lessons last week

[u-mspcoll]

An outstanding icazetname in Isl. Ms. 438

First part of a calligraphy license or diploma (icazetname) in naskh (nesih) script, mounted in fol.17b in Isl. Ms. 438, Islamic Manuscripts Collection 

Second part of a calligraphy license or diploma (icazetname) in naskh (nesih) script, mounted as a separate piece in fol.21a in Isl. Ms. 438, Islamic Manuscripts Collection 

Enjoy this post by Sumeyra Dursun, 2023 Heid Fellow, from her research in the Islamic Manuscripts Collection. Sumeyra is a doctoral candidate in the history of Islamic arts at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul.

Read more!

[aworldofpattern]

GmbH SS23

'‎ في مأمن عن الاذى

We came across an Ottoman soldier’s undergarments from the 16th century. These silk robes intended to be worn under one’s armour were covered by hand painted protective calligraphy.

This mixture of religion and art reminded us of Serhat’s grandfather, who wrote these protective scriptures in Arabic for anyone that required them in their village in Turkey. They would normally be hidden in leather pendants (in Turkish muskas) or sewn into undergarments.

The words ‘Safe From Harm’ came to us in a dream, which became an affirmation we rendered in Arabic calligraphy created by Syrian artist Abdelrazak Shaballot.

Clothing as armour, both physical and spiritual, has been ongoing interest to us.

- Serhat and Benjamin' X

[patfurstenberg]

Kindred Threads in Embroidery, Old Turkish Attire and Calligraphy

Kindred threads of Greek and Romanian embroidery, old Turkish attire and Arabic calligraphy: my daughter invited me to Threads of Tradition: Turks, Turbans and Artistic Innovation exhibition curated by Professor Raita Steyn

Recently I discovered kindred threads between Greek and Romanian embroidery and marveled at old Turkish attire and Arabic calligraphy. My daughter invited me to attend the Threads of Tradition: Turks, Turbans and Artistic Innovation exhibition curated by Professor Raita Steyn from the University of Pretoria, with a live calligraphy demonstration by Master Refik Carikci. Continue reading Kindred…

[wordarttmn]

05/01/2023

Armenian blackletter

there are like 4 different dates at the top of this newspaper

[stil-lindigo]

link

on twitter, a viral thread started where people around the world shared their translations of “If I must die”, the last work of Dr Refaat Alareer also known as "the voice of Gaza". A beloved poet, teacher and life-long activist for Palestine, he was recently assassinated along with members of his extended family by a targeted Israeli air strike. His loss leaves a hole in the heart of palestinians all over the world.

Below the cut, I’ll be posting the translations of his poem, with links to the original posts. Unfortunately, tumblr limits posts to a maximum of 30 images. I will update when I can.

Arabic (Refaat’s mother tongue)

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2. Spanish

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3. Irish

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4. Dutch

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5. Greek

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6. German

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7. Vietnamese

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8. Tagalog

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9. Serbian

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10. Japanese

and the traditional japanese calligraphy version

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11. Nepali

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12. Tamil

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13. Bosnian

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14. Indonesian

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15. Romanian

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16. Italian

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17. Albanian

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18. Urdu

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19. Turkish

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20. Polish

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21. Norwegian

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22. Galician

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23. Swedish

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24. Jawi

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25. Bengali

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26. Russian

[notnocturne]

academia things to research when you're bored (because doom scrolling is insipid) :

african architecture

medieval methods of washing clothes

the history of religion

oceanic mythology

the renaissance era's idea of masculinity

the colour wheel

the history behind braids

donna tartt's childhood

the influence of cigarettes on women in the 1920s

how, exactly, swords are forged

the history of cinnamon (very interesting!!)

the different shades of maroon and their names

who the first person was to dissect a human body

the side affects of anaesthesia

your favourite university's mantra

the black dahlia murder

the controversy surrounding psychiatry

why do we smile to express joy

music theory and how it shaped the making of instruments

symbolism in renaissance art

the rat race

the most poisonous plants

the history of calligraphy

what ancient greece thought about music

how to bake sourdough bread from scratch

conspiracy theories

how to study latin

turkish proverbs

the history of metaphors

the process of erosion

the act of proposing

[notwhelmedyet]

A Fire Shall Be Woken, by Ealcynn. A pair of bindings using the K118 structure, one as a gift for the author and one to keep.

Chapter page illustrations are by Alphonse Mucha, all other illustrations are hand-drawn.

I hope to make a long post later explaining the process in more depth & another to document all my mistakes, but here's the basics.

New techniques learned: Paper marbling, edge marbling, uncial calligraphy, making paste papers, drawing on bookcloth, making paste-filled cloth, fold-out maps

I began work on this project in early September and am completing the finishing touches this week.

Structures:

Binding: K118 tightback

Endpapers: Simple cloth-joined endpapers

Map fold: Turkish map fold

Materials:

Sewing supports: linen tapes

Thread: 30/3 linen thread

Spine lining: Medium weight kozo tissue bonded to linen fabric

Interior paper: Hammermill Ivory, 11x17, hand-cut to 8.5x11

Endpapers: Blick sulphite paper hand-marbled, with masked stenciled silhouettes created with freezer paper

Adhesives: Jade PVA, wheat starch paste, wheat flour paste

Covers: Davey board, laminated full thickness to half thickness

Cover fabric: Studio E shot cottons in Jungle and Emerald; filled with wheat starch paste

Cover decorations: Speedball india ink and Dr. Ph. Martin's calligraphy ink in Copperplate Gold

Inks for maps and illustrations: Speedball black india ink and a selection of watercolors thickened with gum arabic

Dip pens used for calligraphy: Combination of Brause calligraphy nibs and Leonardt tape nibs

Dip pens used for illustration: Nikko G pointed pen nib

Typesetting:

Typesetting program: Scribus 1.5.5

Body font: Coelacanth in 10 pt caption weight

Headings, titles, chapter titles, drop caps: Hand lettered uncial calligraphy, scanned

Illustrations and References:

Frames on colophon, copyright, author's notes and title page: Hand drawn, with inspiration taken from the vellucent bindings of Cedric Chivers

Frames that illustrate each chapter start: Alphonse Mucha from Cloches de Noël et de Pâques

Cover illustrations: Referenced from a photograph of an European beech tree found on iNaturalist.org

Maps of Imladris: Hand drafted with inspiration from the maps of Barbara Strachey, and Daniel Reeve

Map of Eriador: Traced from a map by Karen Wynn Fonstad, with edits made to coordinate with the geography of the fic

Frames on maps: Referenced from a drawing by Alphonse Mucha that @zhalfirin found for me

Special Thank Yous:

To the tightback council of problem-solvers in the Renegade server: Zhalfirin, Eka, @spockandawe who helped figure out many issues with the structure and technique

To the marbling experts in the Renegade server: Marissa, Aether, AGlance, Jenny, Catz, Badgertide, Rhi, and everyone else who helped me figure out beginnner marbling

To Spock for finding the K118 structure and introducing it to the server!

And to Bruce Levy, who discovered the method and shared his discoveries freely with the bookbinding and conservation world.

[starlightshadowsworld]

Talia al Ghul man...

Not the love interest of Bruce Wayne.

Not the daughter of the demons head or Damian's mother.

Just Talia.

I like to think she wears heeled boots but wears the cosiest of slippers when she's alone.

Speaks like 5 languages, Arabic, Mandarin, Urdu, Turkish, and English.

Gives larges tips at restaurants like it's nothing.

Shares Damian's love for animals, has a particular soft spot for cats and birds.

Has notebooks written in a code only she knows where she writes about her dreams.

Pretends she doesn't care for gossip, but absolutely thrives on drama.

Taught herself how to write calligraphy.

Enjoys hiking and taking long walks to clear her mind.

Hates when people mispronounce her name and will mispronounce theirs until they say her's correctly.

Can put on a facade that even Ra's can't see through.

Has a locket with a picture of her mother and her inside.

Both loves and resents her father.

Enjoys watching cooking shows and has gone on rants and roasted the contestants.

Loves a good argument, revels in debating and outsmarting people.

Her favourite colour is dark green.

She can't stand jeans.

Absolutely loves getting henna on her arms and has even drawn her own designs.

Secretly loves marshmallows and has a stash in her room.

I think fondly of her, just being Talia.

[rose-tea-and-strawberries]

Celebrating Ramadan With Kalim and Jamil

Masterlist

First of all, I would like to say that all of this is incredibly self-indulgent. I know that everyone has their own traditions and ways of celebrating Ramadan but this is how my family observes this month. I would love to hear anyone else’s input.

Okay, my mother would love to meet them because they are good, respectable boys.

Every year my mother goes abaya shopping where she has to buy three different abayas (one for Eid, one for Taraweeh/Jummah prayers at the mosque and one for everyday wear) and she always gets upset because I’ve been using the same abaya for the past three years and I only get another one once my previous one has been worn down. Well, now she shall be disappointed no longer because not only would Kalim buy me three wardrobe’s worth of the most luxurious abayas known to man with the fanciest matching shawls but he also, most probably, would get her the fancy abayas as well.]

Kalim would win her heart by buying her those really luxurious hijab shawls.

Oh my god, Eid dress shopping would be a whole other monster. After finding out that I buy two dresses/outfits for Eid, he would be like ‘ha you thought’ and just pull up a thick magazine and ask my mother to point out anything and everything she wants me to have - since she’s the one that does all of the Eid shopping - and the next day I’d find a pile of readily tailored clothes in my bedroom.

A few weeks ago, my mother bought me a golden bracelet with my name written in Arabic on it and honestly part of the reason I love it is because it is exactly the kind of gift Kalim or Jamil would give me.

Iftar and Suhoor would be a feast with Kalim, Jamil and the Al-Asim wealth. Like these boys would stroll up with the rich people dates and my mother would be sold (my mum and her dad love dates).

This has nothing to do with the rest of the post but I know for a fact that the Scarabia boys would get my name right on the first try and I love them for that.

(Context: I have an Arabic/Muslim surname and I spent all my life going to a whiter-than-the-antaractic primary school that used to be a church. That place was so white that we didn’t even have proper assemblies, we had ‘service’ where the priest from down the road would come and talk about the Bible to the entire school whilst the 10-20ish Muslim kids would sit at the back of the hall and read books. So whilst I was there everyone would pronounce my last name as the way you would spell it out in english whereas the actual arabic pronunciation is different but since everyone including my teachers, the librarians, my mum and dad’s coworkers etc called me by the western pronunciation, I thought that that was what my name is. It was only after my Arabic/Quran teacher pronounced my surname in its Arabic way that my dad told me that it's the proper way of saying it. Not going to lie, it felt kind of weird knowing that I’ve been getting my own name wrong for over a decade and I still use the English pronunciation to this day)

Similarly to how Kalim would win my mum with dates and clothes, Jamil would win my mum with handmade kunafa. Trust me, my family loves kunafa.

Also, my parents love arabic tea. My mum collects tea sets and her two favourite sets are her Turkish tea glasses and silvery metallic Moroccan tea set. Jamil would see her arabic mint tea leaves and he would offer to brew it for her and it would taste like perfection, I just know it.

There was this one Ramadan where my mum got into Arabic calligraphy so she bought this big canvas and some black paint and my sister and I tore out pages from my cartridge paper pad and used my calligraphy pens and we just sat and tried to replicate the arabic calligraphy art we saw on google images whilst listening to nasheeds and I KNOW that Jamil would love to do this. Like he would come out with a masterpiece after ten minutes and then judge watch me try to make mine look half decent before trying to help me. 

I don’t think Jamil would be allowed in the kitchen when my sister, mum and I prepare food for Iftar since it’s a girls only zone but if he could enter it, I know that he would be all calm and everything would be ready at least ten minutes before the adhan compared to the rat race that happens in my house where there are some days where we are laying the table like a minute before it’s time to break fast.

So the day before or two days before Eid, my mother or her friends would invite all of the ladies and their daughters for a henna party where we pay a professional to come and put henna on our arms (and sometimes feet) and we play music and sing and dance and eat sweets and it's a whole thing. Kalim would be upset that he can’t join us but he’d understand since it’s a girls only party and there will be women who want to take off their hijabs and relax but he would pay for like ten of the best henna artists he knows and order food for us and he’d be such a sweetheart like he’d be so happy when I’d show him my designs and he’d talk about how his siblings would wear henna and he used to wear it before he got tattoos.

So, my family likes to celebrate my dad’s lunar birthday since he was born during Ramadan and then, since my sister and I made a big deal of it, my parents decided that they’ll also celebrate our lunar birthdays as well - and by ‘celebrate’ I mean that my mum would order takeaway from our favourite restaurants for dinner - and I can so see this as a thing that Kalim would do only he would treat my lunar birthday as an actual birthday with cake and presents and the whole she-bang.

I kind of want to introduce Kalim to my grandma only to see his reaction to her calling my little sister ‘shaytan’ (satan/devil) as a term of endearment.

Speaking along those lines, I also have a very artistically talented friend who shares the same morbid humour as me and as a gift she made me a canvas with the words ‘Kullu nafsin thaiqatu almawti’ (Every soul shall taste death) written in arabic calligraphy that I have hung up in my bedroom and I would love to see Jamil or Kalim react to that just being one of the first things they see.

[blorbocedes]

when I visited topkapi palace in turkey I was roaming around this gorgeous courtyard and it had this very pretty room/pavilion with calligraphy tiles. usually there's some sort of plaque somewhere that explains what the purpose of the specific building is, like a treasury or like the sultan's apartments etc.

this room was unique in that there was a large bowl in the middle. and I wanted to know what it was for. I couldn't find the plaque but there was a guard standing at the entrance of the room so I asked him what the room was for. he smiled and replied in a word in Turkish which I didn't understand and that it was for the princes and then he made a hand motion and a scissor motion... which how I realized I was in the Royal Circumcision Room 😭😭😭

[sunriseverse]

@corvusossifragus what i have scribbled out so far, subject to change (inspired by bangla for the script and aspirated/nonaspirated distinctions, thai for the way the tones work, korean for the combination/stacking properties and the "tense" letters, ottoman turkish script for the calligraphy style, modern turkish's letter ğ, and mandarin chinese for the 0V/CV/CVC monosyllable structure). it is TENTATIVELY called ttung kkaj e (the language of the heavens) and i'll probably use it for a writing project at some point as i continue to develop grammar/words/etc

[u-mspcoll]

A découpage piece by Şehrî in Isl. Ms. 438

Calligraphic découpage / cut-work piece in nastaʻlīq (talik) signed by the calligrapher, Şehrî (Fol.22a in Isl. Ms. 438, Islamic Manuscripts Collection)

Enjoy this post from Sumeyra Dursun, 2023 Heid Fellow, drawn from her research in the Islamic Manuscripts Collection. Sumeyra is a doctoral candidate in the history of Islamic arts at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul.

[harvardfineartslib]

April is Arab American Month and National Poetry Month.

“I write what I see and I paint what I am.” – Etel Adnan

Etel Adnan (1925 – 2021) was a Lebanese-American poet, philosopher, writer, and visual artist. Adnan had been painting for several decades and made visual works in a variety of media including artist’s books, films, and tapestries.

Adnan was born in Beirut, Lebanon to a Greek Catholic mother and a Muslim-Turkish father, who was a high-ranking Ottoman officer born in Damascus, Ottoman Syria. She grew up speaking Greek and Turkish in a mostly Arabic-speaking society. After enrolling at a French Lebanese Catholic School at the age of five, her primary language became French and her early works were written in French. She also studied English in her youth, and most of her later work was written in English. Adnan studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, the University of California at Berkeley, and Harvard University, later teaching philosophy at San Rafael’s Dominican College from 1958 to 1972.

Adnan’s love of language and interest in Arabic calligraphy is evident in her visual art, especially in leporellos, little books with folded concertina-style pages. But color was also language to Adnan, and one can sense that in her paintings.

Later in her life, Adnan openly identified as lesbian. She was survived by her partner, Simone Fattal, who is also a visual artist.

The Fine Arts Library owns Adnan’s artist’s book entitled “The Book of the Sea.” The work is made up like a sample book of Arabic calligraphy handwritten by Adnan, presenting the poems in Arabic and in English, with the original text and translations facing each other.

The book of the sea Etel Adnan ; bound by Thomas Zwang. Livre de la mer. English & Arabic Poestenkill, N.Y. : Kaldewey Press, 2010. 1 volume (unpaged) ; 21 x 31 cm. Edition Kaldewey ; v. 53 English and Arabic HOLLIS number: 99156665172003941

[fulgrimsrefuse]

On Marazhai's brand

I'm new-ish to 40k (my family was into it, so it was the background radiation for my entire life) so imagine my surprise when I learned that it's been around for this long and there is no functional eldar alphabet because the direction of the worldbuilding just hasn't gone in much on linguistics.

A couple of admirable supernerds have compiled various resources on what we DO have. This for grammar, terminology, and just how context heavy the language is:

This for runes. Some people who got a specific Nocturne of Oblivion ending slide might see something familiar:

Something interesting in the comments:

"I emailed Gav Thorpe 10 years about the eldar runes, and he forwarded my email to Jes Goodwin - here's the reply I got from him: There are three systems of Runic Markings

The Runes used for the aspects and other troop types/concepts. These are the geometric runes that are generally based around the triangle. They are simplified versions of the actual runes that a Warlock/farseer uses to divine the potential futures in a given situation. The are based on the use of the Norse Futhark for divination, although their forms are not nordic.

Eldar script. This is the stuff behind the eldar headers. These have no ascribed meanings, I.e there is no 'alphabet' of them. These are generally cursive and we use them in various places to give flavour, they sometimes include elements from the runes [Which would give them a kanji-like relationship to the runes] and are sometimes more blocky/simplified as on the warning markings on vehicles.

Eldar Seals. These are the complex symbols found on Titan Banners and on the back of the Wraithlord. They are used to represent the seals of Noble Houses or the Bonesinger schools of design. They are based on the idea of the Turkish 'Tugrah' , complex signature seals associated with the Ottoman Empire, meant to stop forgeries. To summarise, the forms of all the symbols don't have a single real world source, but their functions are influenced by real world sources"

I was just curious and wanted to know if we could build Marazhai's name out of what we do have from these sources. A lot of words beginning in "Mar-" seem to refer to death or death related ideas, and "Zai" is a known name meaning "morning". But there's nothing that I found in a written form for those sounds.

They do have a rune for Ynnead, their god of the dead, which looks like this:

Eldar runes can stand for an idea and not just one letter per sound. If this is their rune for a god of death, I'm making the wild assumption that somewhere in that rune is something that could be read as "Mar-". Since we have no idea how to properly "read" that rune, I just tried looking at their lettering runes for shapes in common with this, ssssort of like how kanji multiradicals work since that was the given example.

(Sort of. Kind of. If you squint at it and look at it sideways, maybe.)

It's a doomed prospect, because once you go looking at the runes, it becomes increasingly clear none of this follows any logic, or maybe it's just logic my simple mon-keigh brain lacks.

So, possibilities for "Mar-":

(Not quite, but close. Chalk up the difference to calligraphy styles, maybe)

(again, only close, but radicals in kanji can look subtly different depending on where in a given character they appear, so I just shrugged and said fine, elf logic.)

(Also only close, also operating off of elf logic.)

As for "Zai", the sun does appear as a pretty recognizable shape in some runes, like these:

(Craftworld Lugganath)

Without a linguistics person at GW telling us how to read this stuff, I say we have pretty free rein to figure out what the heck Marazhai burns into our necks. Like, we don't even know if it's read left to right, up or down. So I just made something up as an example, using what I posted above:

Trying for a balance of "relatively easy to burn into a person before they pass out from shock" and "cute", though it is missing the jaggy quality of Drukhari lettering. This is just an idea though, y'all go wild and have fun!

If you are a 40k lorehound and you think I'm W R O N G that's fine, I only got into this hobby a couple months ago. I'm curious if you know more about eldar writing, actually!

Edit: lmao how did I miss the literal “zhai” entry. I’ll try that later.

Edit 2: I tried it later. https://www.tumblr.com/fulgrimsrefuse/741450381287096320/on-marazhais-brand-2?source=share

[ncrrctcr]

{ali öner, 28, agender, they/them} We are so glad to see you safe, SULTAN FARHAD QAJAR of PERSIA! It’s dangerous out in the world these days, but I hear that you are KIND and ANALYTIC enough to handle it. Just don’t let your INSECURITY bring you down! Stay on your guard, because with your secret being at risk for exposure, you wouldn’t want everyone to find out THAT WHATEVER CURSE OR MADNESS HAS AFFLICTED YOU SINCE BIRTH ONLY GOT WORSE AFTER YOUR BROTHER'S DEATH

NAME: Farhad Qajar AGE: 28 GENDER / PRONOUNS: Agender, they/them ORIENTATION: Panromantic, demisexual, polyamorous

• • •

FAMILY: Only their sister Arshiya MARITAL STATUS: Formerly betrothed to Nabil Badi LANGUAGES: Persian (native), Arabic (fluent), Turkish (fluent), English (fluent), Spanish (fluent, written), Latin (fluent, written), Hindi (fluent, written)

cw ableism and internalized ableism, mentions of self-harm.

You still remember much of what they said about you when they thought you could not understand them. They said you suffered from a number of maladies — the physicians never seemed to agree on which one —, and that was one of the kindest statements about the matter. Some would whisper that the third child of the monarchs was born insane. The most superstitious claimed you were possessed, and even discussed various procedures to get you exorcised.

The truth is that speech simply didn't come to you as naturally as it did to others. It took many years for you to realize how that was an oddity.

Whether malicious or well-intentioned, the words soaked into your mind, but not into your parents'. They knew something was off, but rather than a curse, they thought of it as a blessing. A challenge from Allah to love and raise a child that others thought irreparable.

As they came to the understanding that crowds often sparked inexplicable tantrums, they decided to remove you from the eyes of the public, and focus instead on your education. Professors came and went, often believing their teachings were in vain. Yet, they never were — you would not respond or seem to pay attention, but were always listening and learning.

It was your brother who first found out about your words; the ones you wrote, not spoke. He did not let the rough calligraphy distract him from what was truly going on: poetry.

Khan kept your secret, but would visit more often, to offer his company and conversation. It seemed more like a monologue, but you were always attentive. He offered you books, as well, you feed your talent and inventive. He was the first person you ever replied to, too.

In time, he was also the one who prompted you to speak to the rest of your family — with a reassuring hand firmly planted on your shoulder. You remembered vividly the tears of your mother, who fell to her knees, and the stern pride and relief in your father's face. You came to understand this was the reaction of someone who thought their child miraculously cured of an illness that had plagued them for over a decade.

You never told them they were wrong. Whatever demon had a hold on your tongue was only dormant, not gone.

Nevertheless, from that moment on, you flourished. Your brother made sure you remained isolated like you desired, using your literary work as an excuse, although he could not prevent your future marriage to get rearranged to prince Nabil of Egypt. But while weren't exactly thrilled, you were alright with it. He was nice, and you two clicked the moment you met, even though it was not in the way you were expected to.

Life was easy and fine. You became a prolific writer, and pretended not to notice your symptoms, or your anxiety over your perpetually postponed marriage. Nabil was great; the idea of leaving your home for a place you were barely familiar with, not so much.

But when Khan died, your world turned upside down. He may as well have been the one keeping that demon at bay, for it returned in full force.

You lashed out at others, nearly babbling rather than forming coherent words, you destroyed things with the rage and savagery of a feral animal, and harmed yourself. Following who-knows-whose commands, the servants locked you away, as the palace was already in a dire enough state of disarray to deal with you as well. Silence followed the yelling and banging on the door, and it continued for days, in which you didn't even eat and can't remember sleeping.

When the fog started to lift, you were exhausted and terrified. That wasn't you. Whoever, whatever, got in control of your body, couldn't have been you. It wasn't easier than believing yourself insane, but it made more sense. The other thing you knew is that you couldn't stay, being a liability, a potential danger, to the crown and everyone around you. So you left. You vanished. In the middle of the night, without so much as a word.

Hardly anyone outside your family and their closest circle knew of your condition, but you sought refuge with your closest friend and have been living in Egypt ever since, under the King's protection. Speech gradually came back to you, and you improved. But recently you got word of your family being in shambles. Arming yourself with both love and courage, you come out of hiding to try to make things better.