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[Newtonium]

It could be that, especially with the old dwarven stories from hundreds of years ago, that with each retelling of the stories, certain features of the parties involved have been emphasised ("and then Dakost Muscletrumpets of the Unusually Large and Hairy Nose struck down the goblin Coward Babysnatcher of the Oversized Left Foot...") and these are reflected/emphasised in the carvings, so that everyone knows who the carving is of because of the prominent features?  Just a thought

[Larix]

Sufficiently iconic events can be represented without writing, if there are established conventions of their depiction. E.g. christian art and sculpture can depict legendary events like the nativity, crucifixion, last judgement etc. without requiring written explanations. Statues of saints in older catholic churches rarely bear written labels. Events from classic antiquity, while they often need an explanation for the un-initiated, can be unmistakable in their depiction: even if you don't know what exact event is shown here, it's clearly a unique occasion and can't easily be mistaken for some other judicial proceedings. And that's an artist rendering something that was assumed to have happened about 2000 years before his birth, although it definitely took written tradition to reach the artist. (By the by - that practice is _not_ dwarven, it's typical of goblins.)

I think that written vs. oral tradition simply is an issue that hasn't been handled in depth yet; we might get to see more of it as game development continues.

[Bumber]

It could be that, especially with the old dwarven stories from hundreds of years ago, that with each retelling of the stories, certain features of the parties involved have been emphasised ("and then Dakost Muscletrumpets of the Unusually Large and Hairy Nose struck down the goblin Coward Babysnatcher of the Oversized Left Foot...") and these are reflected/emphasised in the carvings, so that everyone knows who the carving is of because of the prominent features?  Just a thought

That might explain why the dogs are always laughing. Apparently everyone thought they were just really silly.

[Col_Jessep]

I think there is another factor we have to think about: genetic memory. You can take a dwarven baby and lock it into a room with some food, drink, rocks, coal and an anvil and 12 years later it can forge a pick or a battle axe or create some mechanisms that can raise giant bridges with the pull of a small lever. How does this child know how to create those things? It has to learn and train to get better and quicker at making them but it already knows how to make them.

Even more astounding, that little child, which has never been in contact with another dwarf after birth, can take a chisel and engrave rooms with pictures of events it has neither experienced nor heard about!

Dwarfs have a collective genetic memory and every one of those little buggers knows the entire history of the world.
It carries that knowledge in its bones and blood!

[Dwarf4Explosives]

I think it's less memory and more of a telepathic ability, actually. They can view other bridges, existing elsewhere, and can look into the past to view historical events.

[Larix]

I think there is another factor we have to think about: genetic memory. You can take a dwarven baby and lock it into a room with some food, drink, rocks, coal and an anvil and

...two months later it will be dead, because babies don't know how to feed themselves.

So let's try this with a _child_, right?

12 11 years later it can forge a pick or a battle axe or create some mechanisms that can raise giant bridges with the pull of a small lever. How does this child know how to create those things?

All dwarfs know that they live under the beard-defiling tyranny of the horrible sadistic overseer, who may put them into isolated confinement for several years for no good reason. Therefore, they spend the first year of a baby's life teaching the little one the dwarven equivalent of tap code, to allow communication with every fort member who is still sufficiently close to any body of stone. News, rumours and debates over proper dwarfdom are regularly exchanged in every fort, and special attention is paid to keep prisoners up to date and to educate the young. This also explains why locked-up vampire manager/bookkeepers can keep track of stocks, organise the workforce and have enough of a presence in fort affairs to regularly get elected mayor.

[MDFification]

Note that ghosts can tell which memorial memorializes them. So apparently dwarves have the innate ability to read once they're dead.

[smeeprocket]

I think there is another factor we have to think about: genetic memory. You can take a dwarven baby and lock it into a room with some food, drink, rocks, coal and an anvil and

...two months later it will be dead, because babies don't know how to feed themselves.

So let's try this with a _child_, right?

12 11 years later it can forge a pick or a battle axe or create some mechanisms that can raise giant bridges with the pull of a small lever. How does this child know how to create those things?

All dwarfs know that they live under the beard-defiling tyranny of the horrible sadistic overseer, who may put them into isolated confinement for several years for no good reason. Therefore, they spend the first year of a baby's life teaching the little one the dwarven equivalent of tap code, to allow communication with every fort member who is still sufficiently close to any body of stone. News, rumours and debates over proper dwarfdom are regularly exchanged in every fort, and special attention is paid to keep prisoners up to date and to educate the young. This also explains why locked-up vampire manager/bookkeepers can keep track of stocks, organise the workforce and have enough of a presence in fort affairs to regularly get elected mayor.

genius!

[escondida]

Note that ghosts can tell which memorial memorializes them. So apparently dwarves have the innate ability to read once they're dead.

Not necessarily--it could just be magic that they're completely unaware of. "Hey, I'm a ghost! How did that happen? Why isn't there a memorial to me yet--" (A dwarf places the memorial and the ghost winks out of existence.)

[Urist Tilaturist]

Alternatively, remember that all dwarven names are assembled from nouns. Pictograms could represent the names of long dead rulers, so "Urist Uristurister" would be 3 daggers in a row.

[tonnot98]

I think there is another factor we have to think about: genetic memory. You can take a dwarven baby and lock it into a room with some food, drink, rocks, coal and an anvil and

...two months later it will be dead, because babies don't know how to feed themselves.

So let's try this with a _child_, right?

12 11 years later it can forge a pick or a battle axe or create some mechanisms that can raise giant bridges with the pull of a small lever. How does this child know how to create those things?

All dwarfs know that they live under the beard-defiling tyranny of the horrible sadistic overseer, who may put them into isolated confinement for several years for no good reason. Therefore, they spend the first year of a baby's life teaching the little one the dwarven equivalent of tap code, to allow communication with every fort member who is still sufficiently close to any body of stone. News, rumours and debates over proper dwarfdom are regularly exchanged in every fort, and special attention is paid to keep prisoners up to date and to educate the young. This also explains why locked-up vampire manager/bookkeepers can keep track of stocks, organise the workforce and have enough of a presence in fort affairs to regularly get elected mayor.

Are you saying that it's possible that dwarves talk to each other by tapping to keep secrets from the overseer?

[Col_Jessep]

It would explain a lot!

[smakemupagus]

Nobles might not necessarily need to be able to read, but books are essentially artifacts and people should be seeking them out for the status, or possibly magic they involve.

This got me thinking. I've always considered dwarves to have a nearly 100% literacy rate (at least, once you disregard the obvious exceptions, like the blind). Tolkien's dwarves certainly treasure books, maps, & genealogy, and they just LOVE carving runes on things: "The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs." But then again . . . those words could easily have been written by Celebrimbor, and Narvi simply etched the stone where the elf had painted, & then filled the engraving back in with ithil-sheen. You don't need to be able to read to do that.

There are a few DF professions that strongly suggest an aptitude for reading, like Engraver, Mechanic, Building Designer, and Diagnostician, but the only position that actually requires it is Bookkeeper. And widespread illiteracy would go a long way toward explaining the more egregious faults of the Random Name Generator: A Mason creates an artifact cabinet depicting a midnight monster devouring a human. The artist "signs" her work with a few random runes that she thinks might be her name, but unfortunately they turn out to mean "Oilypaddles the Bodice of Lobsters."

Thoughts?

I think that Celembrimbor was the one skilled in the art of the enchantment in the ithil runes, and I assumed that both Narvi and Cel could read the plain text well enough.  (after all, the instruction "say friend and enter" was supposed to be legible to either elf or dwarf traders and such, not only master craftsdwarves)

Once Elrond reveals the ithil runes on the map of Lonely Mountain, Thorin could read them, no?  Or am i misremembering?  Certainly Balin's expedition created the "Drums in the Deep" journal that the Fellowship find.

[SixOfSpades]

I am unsure whether to count the idea of a dwarven genetic memory as being for or against a written language. Probably neither.

I think it's less memory and more of a telepathic ability, actually.

The existence of telepathy would preclude not only writing, but also speech, and maybe even art. Unless the telepathy were dwarf-only, in which case speech, art, and possibly writing would have been developed only to share them with other races (who naturally came up with them first). If so, why would dwarves bother inventing their own language?

. . . teaching the little one the dwarven equivalent of tap code, to allow communication . . .

If so, that would be a strong argument not just for writing, but also for a relatively small alphabet.

Alternatively, remember that all dwarven names are assembled from nouns. Pictograms could represent the names of long dead rulers, so "Urist Uristurister" would be 3 daggers in a row.

Not bad! Now draw my manager, "Mechanism Labordipped the Rhythmic Treasures of Evening."
Although some dwarves do have all-noun names. My duke was "Hame (part of an animal's harness) Towerstones" before he went & added "the Immortal Stale Noose-Tournament of Straps" to it.

(after all, the instruction "say friend and enter" was supposed to be legible to either elf or dwarf traders and such, not only master craftsdwarves)

Technically, they wouldn't have been legible to anybody, as they wouldn't even have been visible. Quite apart from the requirements for even seeing ithildin in the first place, the inscription was on the outside of the doors, and for thousands of years, those doors stood open. Or maybe they shut them at night.

Once Elrond reveals the ithil runes on the map of Lonely Mountain, Thorin could read them, no?  Or am i misremembering?  Certainly Balin's expedition created the "Drums in the Deep" journal that the Fellowship find.

Thorin was certainly quite literate--he considers writing a note for Bilbo to read to be less inconvenient than waking Bilbo up to tell him in person. Then again, Thorin was raised as a prince of a prosperous kingdom, so if any dwarves could read & write, he almost certainly could. The fact that he didn't know about the hidden message on the map (either the existence of the runes, or what they said) means that Thorin, at least, did not have telepathic knowledge of an item that he had carried on his person for some time. Elrond goes on to specifically say that "The dwarves invented them [moon-letters]", although this most likely means that the dwarves developed the manner of hiding the runes from most light, rather than runes in general.

The Book of Mazarbul is described as having been "written by many different hands, in runes, both of Moria and Dale, and here and there in Elvish script." It was, from first to last, a chronicle of the attempt to reclaim Moria, so these "many different hands" must all have been members of what was, in essence, a war party. Even if we argue that Balin, having been a close companion of Thorin's during their years in Erebor and therefore likely to have received a similar education, Balin would be only one dwarf among "many", some of whom (amazingly) chose to write in Elvish. It seems clear that Tolkien's dwarves, at least, are quite literate.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

I meant telepathy in the "can view things at a distance" way. I know telepathy isn't really the right word for it, but I can't remember what the correct word is. At any rate, I imagine that, as with all things, dwarves are competent at using it only in a very specific sense: they can view semi-random objects, but they can't find the proper way to the booze stockpile with it. Dwarven telepathy would then work only in a "I want to view this-and-this type of item/event" manner.