We will begin by discussing the tengwar letters in general, followed by the english mode, the sindarin mode, the mode of beleriand and the quenya mode. The mode of english used by jrr tolkiens son, christopher. The difference is that tengwar formal csur does not map the tengwar over existing roman characters in the fashion of dan smiths encoding. Quenyatengwar wikibooks, open books for an open world. There are modes for quenya, sindarin, english and many other languages.
This mode, which is the most well attested of all, is referred to as the general use in dts 58. This is backwards compared to arabic numbers, but on the other hand there is no a priori rule on which digit should come first, so the arabic numbers are just as backwards compared to the tengwar numbers. Along with a series of alphabetical symbols, a set of numerical symbols were sometimes also used. Quenya the language of the highelves and sindarin the language of the greyelves. Sort of a hybrid mode between the sindarin mode of beleriand and the sindarin mode of gondor. Each is designated by a name for ready reference thus one may speak of the mazarbul mode or the bombadilii mode. Tengwar is said to have different modes, each of which determines what sound is assigned to each symbol. Contains tengwar mode infotmation for quenya, sindarin, black speech, english, and anglosaxon. The story is written in a variant of the common english tehta mode, as you would likely find other fans using. The lonely mountain jar inscription, the first published tengwar sample, dates to 1937 the hobbit, most editions. For the transcription to be correct, you must select the appropriate language in the mode menu.
Tengwar whose transcriptions are marked with an asterisk are not attested. If youre interested in support for other languages. English modes for tengwar exist, though they are not standardised. Even within these limits there exist several texts, listed below. Tengwar quenya font download detail page cool fonts. The original tengwar chart is in the appendices to the return of the king volume iii of the lord of the rings the chart is in appendix e, page 494 of the ballantine pb edition. To help you learn how to read and write the tengwar by reading and writing passages from a story. It is there stated that the mode is applicable to both sindarin and quenya, but as the list above demonstrates, the attribution of tengwar to sounds found in this mode is attested in a large number of other languages as well. This article only covers the quenya mode, which cannot be used to write nonelven words your name, for example as it lacks necessary sounds. The oldest elvish alphabet was the tengwar of rumil. Note the text is not translated, it is simply written using the tengwar characters. Normally tengwar letters 1 thru 36 were used to represent numbers 1 thru 36.
In the mode of beleriand, vowels are written with tengwar. A mode of tengwar is a set of conventions used to transcribe a specific language. To distinguish these from regular letters, a dot or a bar could be placed above the symbol. Simple lessons on writing sindarin with tengwar an introduction these lessons are intended by the author firiel. Simple lessons on writing sindarin with tengwar an introduction. When speaking about tengwar, the writing characters created by the elves, two kinds of modes may be distinguished. Create, save, copy and edit tengwar texts with this application. Double consonants in transcriptions are shown in tengwar by placing a wavy line underneath of the consonant. In such a mode, the english word i would be transcribed as ay. Type a sentence or name and see it transcribed into tengwar.
This paper describes a mode of the tengwar of feanor adapted for the writing of the artificial language esperanto. In the development of quenya a number of changes were made in the language that have to be noted in the tengwar. Early in their history they devised an alphabet for writing their languages. They will produce the tengwar from the free tengwar font project fonts as defined on the page character mapping or from other tengwar fonts that use a similar mapping, such as mans bjorkmans tengwar eldamar or enrique mombellos tengwar elficatengwar beleriand. The application will be write sentences in different languages by simbols of tengwar. We provide keyboard layouts for different operating systems. With quenya mode you couldnt write simple english words such as great because quenya knows no single g, its always ng. Tengwar is the alphabet of elfish languages which was invented by j. Rather than distinguishing between different languages, the following classification is based on characteristics in the usage of the tengwar, the two most important being the method of indicating vowels, and which series of the tengwar table is used for velar sounds. Tolkien as part of the mythological world he created, and was widely popularized through. Download an alphabet chart for tengwar vietnamese excel sample text bregalads song translation. Long consonants, which are transcribed with a doubled letter, is normally written with a.
Now, it clearly makes the most sense to use a mode created for writing english. Tolkien as one of the languages for the elves in his stories. Cheat sheet for english common mode i made this basic cheat sheet for my own use based on the chris mckay textbook. In cases where the tengwar represent a specific sound, the pronunciation of the tengwa is given in square brackets after the romanletter transcription. Tolkiens full tengwar modes for modern english an analysis. However, tengwar can also be used to write other languages, such as english. In english there are a number of common vowel sounds not represented directly by one of the five vowels of the latin alphabet. Therefore, the use of hwesta for x follows from the regular relations between the tengwar table and the sounds as explained in appendix e. Barrowdowns asserts no claim to art or works of fiction posted on this site. Writing numbers with tengwar a practical guide per lindberg tengwar numbers are written with the least significant digit first. Contains tengwar font keyboard mappings for the tengwar quenya. Also see the names given here, although quenya mode still works for michael it does not for jessica. Pdf help file for dan smiths tengwar font packs for windows ver 1. It is based on the quenya mode for tengwar, which was created by j.
Since, however, in commonly used modes, an individual tengwa was equivalent to a consonant, the term tengwar in popular use became equivalent to consonant sign, and the vowel signs were known as omatehtar. Writing sindarin with tengwar page 3 per lindberg, 20020328 rules for the mode of beleriand both consonants and vowels are written with tengwar. However, on some points the system does not adhere strictly to roman orthography. The best website for free highquality tengwar fonts, with 24 free tengwar fonts for immediate download, and 3 professional tengwar fonts for the best price on the web. This is a pdf version of malinornes quenya lessons, based off of the quenya course by helge k. Here is the same sentence transcribed using different modes. The tengwar were probably developed in the late 1920s or in the early 1930s. Jaideep provides a good answer, but there are several modes for writing tengwar in english, and you should have a clear idea of how to write in the one you want to use. Has anyone on quora studied the tengwar script, specifically. Unfortunately, since it was so flexible it was possible to have several different versions of it for each. For instance, the voiced pronunciations of th and s. Help file for dan smiths tengwar font packs for windows ver 1. The plural of tengwa was tengwar, and this is the name by which feanors system became known. However, many words seem to be more difficult to write due to some particularly ambiguous features of this odd alphabet.
The best way to learn tengwar, like most things is just by doing. The tengwar, or feanorian characters, was a script invented by the elf feanor in the first age, used to write originally a number of the languages of middleearth, including quenya and sindarin. Instead, it uses the free tengwar font projects character mapping in the private use area of unicode, as outlined in michael eversons conscript unicode registry csur. The only problem is that there are several different ways to represent english with tengwar. But on the title page of the same book tolkien gives an example of an english phrase written with tengwar in the westron mode as a man from gondor might write it. Jan 17, 2011 as there are differences in writing between quenya and sindarin there are also different values for english. In appendix e of the lord of the rings tolkien explains that there is no official mode for using tengwar with the english language. The tengwar vietnamese mode was created by laicasaane dao thanh tung in 2016. Writing numbers with tengwar tolkiensallskapet forodrim. Lesson 0 introduction of all the languages invented by british author and philologist j. Quenya or sindarin with the tengwar textbook which is also on my shelf.
It is a full writing mode where the third series of the main tengwar table is a t. In the tehta mode, vowels are written with a tehta above the tengwa for the following consonant. We can learn pretty well how to write in the elvish alphabet or tengwar but in english as the actual language unless you want to learn the constructed language as well. This german phonemic full writing mode is mainly based on dts 71 bilbos contract. Within each mode there may be languagespecific additions or variations. Hoping to solicit some feedback and constructive crit from some of you, bearing in mind that i primarily created it for myself, and that i write mostly in english common mode. Tolkien 18921973, the most popular has always been quenya. Tolkien, and a tengwatehta mode used by his son christopher. English orthographic mode not all those who wander are lost not all those who wander are lost english phonemic mode. X tengwar draft by michael everson, 20010307 tengwar 1xx001xx7f the tengwar script was invented by the philologist and author j. Tengwar became a very flexible writing system that was easily adapted by many different races to their languages. Jul 15, 2019 the tables in the samples v12 and v show an arrangement that is very similar to the one of the primary tengwar in the classical quenya mode. Note also the difference from tehta mode in the tengwa for g. The phonemic way is more difficult since you need to be able to make a phonemic analysis of english using the 6 in some modes 7 vowels the english phonemic tengwar modes provide.