Letter 344

Letter 344 is a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Summary

This fragment of a letter, dated November 23, 1972, is written to a Edmund Meskys, president of the Tolkien Society of America. It deals with the use of duodecimal numeral system of the Elves. Tolkien tells briefly on the Elves and the Babylonians, and then mentions that he did devise a set of both decimal and duodecimal numbers in Fëanorian script, but that he can not find it. He only remembers that they were written with a positional system like Arabic, and started with the lowest number on the left.

Notes

• The numbers were published in Quettar in the 1980's, and now come standard on most fonts.
• The Elves used a duodecimal system, the men a decimal one.
• The only "mainstream" example of Fëanorian numbers is found in Sauron Defeated, in the "King's Letter". As the writer of this letter is Elessar, the numbers (6341 and 61 are decimal.