Disclaimer: This transcriber is an amateur’s best attempt to render Tolkien’s Elvish languages. The Elvish languages are incredibly sophisticated and I do not pretend to be an expert, nor pretend that this tool is defect free. Please cross-check anything this tool produces with an expert before commiting the text to a tattoo or metal.
Elessar Telcontar: Aragorn Arathornion Edhelharn, aran Gondor ar Hîr i Mbair Annui, anglennatha i Varanduiniant erin dolothen Ethuil, egor ben genediad Drannail erin Gwirith edwen.
Aragorn Strider The Elfstone, King of Gondor and Lord of the Westlands, will approach the Bridge of Baranduin on the eighth day of Spring, or in the Shire-reckoning the second day of April.
The mode for general use employs diacritics to represent vowels, usually above the tengwa the vowel precedes. The mode is suitable for representing most languages. The King’s Letter is the longest example of Sindarin Tengwar.
Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them
The mode for general use employs diacritics to represent vowels, usually above the tengwa the vowel precedes. The inscription on the One Ring is a variant of mode for general use that reverses the direction of curls for O and U, and uses extended tengwa for the SH and GH sounds. The italic of the Tengwar Annatar font by Johan Winge captures the flowing hand presumed of Sauron.
The Lord of the Rings
This is a slight adaptation of the mode for general use. The mode
introduces an underposed dot that stands for a silent, orthographic “e”
at the end of a word. Medial “e” can be transformed to a silent in in
this mode with a following tick, “`”. Also, the common
patterns, “of”, “the”, “of the”, and “and” have single-tengwa
shorthands, some with variations that can be introduced with a
following tick, or a tick between “of`the” to separate
these words.
The mode is haltingly suitable for both orthographic and phonetic transliteration for the clever writer if they are willing to tease the machine.
Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,
Yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!
Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind,
long years numberless as the wings of trees!
Classical Mode uses diacritics for vowels, usually above the tengwa they follow. The mode is optimal for expressing Quenya, the elder language of the Elves, but does not provide the full palette of sounds necessary for many other languages including English and Sindarin.
Ennyn Durin Aran Moria — Pedo Mellon a Minno.
Im Narvi hain echant. Celebrimbor o Eregion teithant i thiw hin.
The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria — Speak, friend, and enter.
I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs.
The Mode of Beleriand uses a tengwa for nearly every vowel and consonant. Diacritics (marks) are applied to lengthen vowels, merge vowels into diphthongs (glides), or precede a consonant with the corresponding nasal, like NT and MB.
This particular example, from The Fellowship of the Ring uses inconsistent variations of the letter I. An I can be represented by a short or long carrier, with or without a dot above, and three variants are used in the attested inscription. 0–3 tick marks after an I tell the transcriber which variant to use.
Elessar Telcontar: Aragorn Arathornion Edhelharn, aran Gondor ar Hîr i Mbair Annui, anglennatha i Varanduiniant erin dolothen Ethuil, egor ben genediad Drannail erin Gwirith edwen.
Aragorn Strider The Elfstone, King of Gondor and Lord of the Westlands, will approach the Bridge of Baranduin on the eighth day of Spring, or in the Shire-reckoning the second day of April.
The Mode of Beleriand uses a tengwa for nearly every vowel and consonant. Diacritics (marks) are applied to lengthen vowels, merge vowels into diphthongs (glides), or precede a consonant with the corresponding nasal, like NT and MB.
General Use Mode uses diacritics to represent vowels, usually above the tengwa the vowel precedes. General Use mode is suitable for representing most languages and was used mostl colloquial languages in Middle-earth in the Third Age.
| Font | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tengwar Parmaitë, for parchment | ||
| Tengwar Annatar Italic, as the inscription on The One Ring | ||
| Long M and N, Nasal Consonants | ||
| Double nasals with tilde above, meaning precede with corresponding nasal | ||
| Double nasals with tilde below, meaning lengthen the consonant | ||
| Curl direction of O and U | ||
| O-curl forward, U-curl backward (common) | ||
| O-curl backward, U-curl forward | ||
| Dots and Slashes of E and I | ||
| I is dot, E is slash (common) | ||
| I is slash, E is dot | ||
| Regarding Medial (mid-word, non-final) R | ||
| R is the tengwa Ore only when it is at the end of a word (final). Otherwise it is the tengwa Romen. | ||
| R is the tengwa Ore when it is in final position and when it appears before a consonant. Otherwise it is the tengwa Romen. | ||
| Regarding KH | ||
| KH is ach-laut, as in the English pronunciation of Bach. | ||
| KH is merely K, as in the English pronunciation of Khan. | ||
| Regarding S and Vowels | ||
| Use the Tengwa Silme-nuquerna for S after a vowel in all cases. | ||
| Use S-hook on short-carrier instead of the tengwa Silme at every opportunity. | ||
| Regarding TS and DZ | ||
| TS and DZ are rendered as separate sounds. | ||
| TS is [c] ( IPA), the voiceless palatal fricative (as in English cats), and DZ is the voiced palatal fricative, [dʒ]. | ||
| Numbers | ||
Base 10 (decimal) by default, but alternately base 12 (duodecimal)10 12 12`
|
||
Base 12 (duodecimal) by default, but alternately base 10 (decimal)10 12 12`
|
||
| Final TS Alternatives | ||
ratscats`bats``rats```cats````bats`````
|
||
| Final LS Alternatives | ||
owlsowls`owls``
|
||
| Medial S Alternatives | ||
s, s`z, z`x, x`
|
||
| Long Vowels | ||
| Long vowels can be expressed by doubling the vowel. Although Tolkien would never have expressed a transliteration to the Latin alphabet in that way, the transcriber tollerates it as a convenience for typists who are not familiar with how to use accents with their keyboard. | ||
| Orthographic E | ||
love`, silent E for orthographic English
(transliterated by letter instead of sound). |
||
Classical Mode uses diacritics for vowels, usually above the tengwa they follow. The mode is optimal for expressing Quenya, the elder language of the Elves, but does not provide the full palette of sounds necessary for many other languages including English and Sindarin.
| Font | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tengwar Parmaitë, for parchment | ||
| Tengwar Annatar Italic, as the inscription on The One Ring | ||
| Curl direction of O and U | ||
| O-curl forward, U-curl backward (common) | ||
| O-curl backward, U-curl forward | ||
| Dots and Slashes of E and I | ||
| I is dot, E is slash (common) | ||
| I is slash, E is dot | ||
| Harma | ||
| In the earliest form of Quenya, breath-H was represented only by the tengwa Halla. Hyarmen was also breath-H but implied a following Y. | ||
| Later, the Tengwa Harma became Aha and took over for initial breath-H. Halla continued to be used for medial (mid-word) breath-H and also as a prefix to modify L and R to aspirated (breathy) HL and HR. Aspirated HW throughout all the ages was represented by the tengwa Hwesta. | ||
| By the Third Age, as reflected in the Namárië poem, Hyarmen stood for H in inital position. | ||
| Vala or Vilya (Wilya) | ||
| Before the introduction of the tengwa Vala, Vilya stood for V and there was no way to represent consonantal W. Likely, the U tehta was used in any case that called for the W sound. | ||
|
After the introduction of the tengwa Vala, Viyla became
Wilya and stood for W while the new Vala stood for V. Note
that the spelling of Wilya, née Vilya, remained the
same |
||
| Regarding Medial R | ||
| In the Classical period, the tengwa Ore represented R only between vowels, indicating that the R should not be trilled in this case. | ||
| In the Third Age, as attested by the Namárië poem, Ore represents R only before consontants and at the end of words. | ||
| Rising IU | ||
| Before the Third Age, all dipthongs, including IU, were falling diphthongs. Diphthongs may have been rendered in the same way in the Third Age regardless of whether the diphthong was rising or falling. | ||
| In the Third Age, IU became a rising diphthong, meaning the stress was on the second vowel. There is no attested example of how this would have affected the spelling, but Måns Björkman speculates that it might have been represented as Anna, with Y and U tehtar instead of Ure with an I tehta. | ||
| Numbers | ||
Base 10 (decimal) by default, but alternately base 12 (duodecimal)10 12 12`
|
||
Base 12 (duodecimal) by default, but alternately base 10 (decimal)10 12 12`
|
||
| Long Vowels | ||
| Long vowels can be expressed by doubling the vowel. Although Tolkien would never have expressed a transliteration to the Latin alphabet in that way, the transcriber tollerates it as a convenience for typists who are not familiar with how to use accents with their keyboard. | ||
The Mode of Beleriand uses a tengwa for nearly every vowel and consonant. Diacritics (marks) are applied to lengthen vowels, merge vowels into diphthongs (glides), or precede a consonant with the corresponding nasal, like NT and MB, but full tengwa are used for most vowels and consonants.
| Font | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tengwar Parmaitë, for parchment | ||
| Tengwar Annatar Italic, as the inscription on The One Ring | ||
| Numbers | ||
Base 10 (decimal) by default, but alternately base 12 (duodecimal)10 12 12`
|
||
Base 12 (duodecimal) by default, but alternately base 10 (decimal)10 12 12`
|
||
| Long Vowels | ||
| Long vowels can be expressed by doubling the vowel. Although Tolkien would never have expressed a transliteration to the Latin alphabet in that way, the transcriber tollerates it as a convenience for typists who are not familiar with how to use accents with their keyboard. | ||
| Variations of I | ||
i i` i`` i```í í` or ii ii`
|
||