Tengwar
The tengwar are an artificial script created by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Within the fictional context of Tolkien's legendarium, the tengwar were invented by the Elf Fëanor, and used first to write the Elven tongues Quenya and Telerin. Later a great number of languages of Middle-earth were written using the tengwar, including Sindarin. Tolkien used tengwar to write English: most of Tolkien's tengwar samples are actually in English.
Internal history and terminology
According to The War of the Jewels, Fëanor, when he created his script, introduced a change in terminology. He called a letter, i.e. a written representation of a spoken phoneme, a tengwa. Previously, any letter or symbol had been called a sarat. The alphabet of Rúmil of Tirion, on which Fëanor supposedly based his own work, was known as Sarati. It later became known as "Tengwar of Rúmil".The plural of tengwa was tengwar, and this is the name by which Fëanor's system became known. 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 ómatehtar. By loan-translation, the tengwar became known as tîw in Sindarin, when they were introduced to Beleriand. The letters of the earlier alphabet native to Sindarin were called cirth. This term was loaned into exilic Quenya as certa, plural certar.
External history
Precursors
The sarati, a script developed by Tolkien in the late 1910s and described in Parma Eldalamberon 13, anticipates many features of the tengwar: vowel representation by diacritics ; different tengwar shapes; and a few correspondences between sound features and letter shape features.Even closer to the tengwar is the Valmaric script, described in Parma Eldalamberon 14, which Tolkien used from about 1922 to 1925. It features many tengwar shapes, the inherent vowel found in some tengwar varieties, and the tables in the samples V12 and V13 show an arrangement that is very similar to one of the primary tengwar in the classical Quenya "mode".
Jim Allan compared the tengwar with the Universal Alphabet of Francis Lodwick of 1686, both on grounds of the correspondence between shape features and sound features, and of the actual letter shapes.
Tengwar
The tengwar were probably developed in the late 1920s or in the early 1930s. The Lonely Mountain Jar Inscription, the first published Tengwar sample, dates to 1937. The full explanation of the tengwar was published in Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings in 1955.The Mellonath Daeron Index of Tengwar Specimina lists most of the known samples of tengwar by Tolkien.
There are only a few known samples predating publication of The Lord of the Rings :
- – The Lonely Mountain Jar Inscription, published 1937
- – Middle Page from the Book of Mazarbul
- – Last Page from the Book of Mazarbul, Last Line, this and the above one originally prepared for inclusion in The Lord of the Rings
- – Steinborg Drawing Title
- – Ilbereth's Greeting from The Father Christmas Letters, dating to 1937
- – The Treebeard Page
- / – Edwin Lowdham's Manuscript from The Notion Club Papers has Old English language text written in tengwar, dating to 1945/6.
- – The Brogan Tengwa-greetings, appearing in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, No. 118, tentatively dated to 1948.
- The following samples presumably predate the Lord of the Rings, but they were not explicitly dated: , , – Elvish Script Sample I, II, III, with parts of the English poems Errantry and Bombadil, first published in the Silmarillion Calendar 1978, later in Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien, as well as – So Lúthien, a page of the English Lay of Leithian text facsimiled in The Lays of Beleriand:299.
Description
Letters
The most notable characteristic of the tengwar script is that the shapes of the letters correspond to the distinctive features of the sounds they represent. The Quenya consonant system has five places of articulation: labial, dental, palatal, velar, and glottal. The velars distinguish between plain and labialized. Each point of articulation, and the corresponding tengwa series, has a name in the classical Quenya mode. Dental sounds are called Tincotéma and are represented with the tengwar in column I. Labial sounds are called Parmatéma, and represented by the column II tengwar; velar sounds are called Calmatéma, represented by column III; and labialized velar sounds are called Quessetéma, represented by the tengwar of column IV. Palatal sounds are called Tyelpetéma and have no tengwa series of their own, but are represented by column III letters with an added diacritic for following.Similarly shaped letters reflect not only similar places of articulation, but also similar manners of articulation. In the classical Quenya mode, row 1 represents voiceless stops, row 2 voiced prenasalized stops, row 3 voiceless fricatives, row 4 voiceless prenasalized stops, row 5 nasal stops, and row 6 approximants.
Regularly formed letters
Most letters are constructed by a combination of two basic shapes: a vertical stem and either one or two rounded bows.These principal letters are divided into four series that correspond to the main places of articulation and into six grades that correspond to the main manners of articulation. Both vary among modes.
Each series is headed by the basic signs composed of a vertical stem descending below the line, and a single bow. These basic signs represent the voiceless stop consonants for that series. For the classical Quenya mode, they are,, and, and the series are named tincotéma, parmatéma, calmatéma, and quessetéma, respectively; téma means "series" in Quenya.
In rows of the general use, there are the following correspondences between letter shapes and manners of articulation:
- Doubling the bow turns the voiceless consonant into a voiced one.
- Raising the stem above the line turns it into the corresponding fricative.
- Shortening it creates the corresponding nasal. In most modes, the signs with shortened stem and single bow do not correspond to the voiceless nasals, but to the approximants.
Here is an example from the parmatéma in the "general use" of the tengwar:
- The basic sign, named parma, represents .
- With the bow doubled, umbar, it represents.
- With a raised stem, formen, it represents.
- With a raised stem and a doubled bow, ampa, it represents generally but possibly .
- With a short stem and double bow, , it represents.
- With short stem and single bow, vala, it represents, or if that has the phonological behaviour of a sonorant.
Irregularly formed letters
There are additional letters that do not have regular shapes. They may represent, e.g.,,, and. Their use varies considerably from mode to mode. Some aficionados have added more letters not found in Tolkien's writings for use in their modes.Tehtar
A tehta is a diacritic placed above or below the tengwa. They can represent vowels, consonant doubling, or nasal sound.As Tolkien explained in the ROTK appendix, the tehtar for vowels resemble Latin diacritics: circumflex , acute , dot , left curl , and right curl . Long vowels, excepting, may be indicated by doubling the signs. Some languages from which is absent or in which compared to it appears sparsely, such as the Black Speech, use left curl for ; other languages swap the signs for and.
A vowel occurring alone is drawn on the vowel carrier, which resembles dotless i for a short vowel or dotless j for a long vowel.
Modes
Just as with any alphabetic writing system, every specific language written in tengwar requires a specific orthography, depending on the phonology of that language. These tengwar orthographies are usually called modes. Some modes follow pronunciation, while others follow traditional orthography.Some modes map the basic consonants to,, and , while others use them to represent,, and .
Ómatehtar
In some modes, called ómatehtar modes, the vowels are represented with diacritics called tehtar. These ómatehtar modes can be loosely considered abjads rather than true alphabets. In some ómatehtar modes, the consonant signs feature an inherent vowel. These ómatehtar modes can be considered alphasyllabaries.Ómatehtar modes can vary in that the vowel stroke can be placed either on top of the consonant preceding it, as in Quenya, or on the consonant following, as in Sindarin, English, and the notorious Black Speech inscription on the One Ring. The other main difference is in the fourth tyellë below, where those letters with raised stems and doubled bows can be either voiced fricatives, as in Sindarin, or nasalized stops, as in Quenya.
Full writing
In the full writing modes, the consonants and the vowels are represented by Tengwar. Only one such mode is well known. It is called the "mode of Beleriand" and one can read it on the Doors of Durin.Modes for various languages
Since the publication of the first official description of the Tengwar at the end of The Lord of the Rings, others have created modes for other languages such as English, Spanish, German, Swedish, French, Finnish, Italian, Hungarian and Welsh. Modes have also been devised for other constructed languages; Esperanto and Lojban.Tolkien has used multiple modes for English, including full writing and ómatehtar alphabetic modes, phonetic full modes and phonetic ómatehtar modes known from documents published after his death.
Encoding schemes
Legacy encoding
The contemporary de facto standard in the tengwar user community maps the tengwar characters onto the ISO 8859-1 character encoding following the example of the tengwar typefaces by Dan Smith. This implies a major flaw: If no corresponding tengwar font is installed, a string of nonsense characters appears.Since there are not enough places in ISO 8859-1's 191 codepoints for all the signs used in tengwar orthography, certain signs are included in a "tengwar A" font which also maps its characters on ISO 8859-1, overlapping with the first font.
For each tengwar diacritic, there are four different codepoints that are used depending on the width of the character which bears it.
Other tengwar typefaces with this encoding include , , or .
The following sample shows the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights written in English, according to the traditional English orthography. It should look similar to the picture at the [|top of the page], but if no tengwar font is installed, it will appear as a jumble of characters because the corresponding ISO 8859-1 characters will appear instead.
j#¸ 9t&5# w`Vb%_ 6EO w6Y5 e7`V`V 2Unicode
A proposal has been made by Michael Everson to include the tengwar in the Unicode standard. The codepoints are subject to change; the range to U+0160FF in the SMP is tentatively allocated for tengwar according to the current .ConScript Unicode Registry
Tengwar are currently included in the unofficial ConScript Unicode Registry, which assigns codepoints in the Private Use Area. Tengwar are mapped to the range U+E000 to U+E07F; see [|External links]. The following Unicode sample is meaningful when viewed under a typeface supporting tengwar glyphs in the area defined in the ConScript tengwar proposal.⸬ ⸬
Some typefaces that support this proposal are Everson Mono, , Constructium, , and . The eight “Aux” variant fonts of also support Tengwar.
Name Image CSUR Designation annotation tinco U+E000 TENGWAR LETTER TINCO parma U+E001 TENGWAR LETTER PARMA calma U+E002 TENGWAR LETTER CALMA quessë U+E003 TENGWAR LETTER QUESSE ando U+E004 TENGWAR LETTER ANDO umbar U+E005 TENGWAR LETTER UMBAR anga U+E006 TENGWAR LETTER ANGA ungwë U+E007 TENGWAR LETTER UNGWE súlë / thúlë U+E008 TENGWAR LETTER THUULE formen U+E009 TENGWAR LETTER FORMEN harma / aha U+E00A TENGWAR LETTER HARMA hwesta U+E00B TENGWAR LETTER HWESTA anto U+E00C TENGWAR LETTER ANTO ampa U+E00D TENGWAR LETTER AMPA anca U+E00E TENGWAR LETTER ANCA unquë U+E00F TENGWAR LETTER UNQUE númen U+E010 TENGWAR LETTER NUUMEN U+E011 TENGWAR LETTER MALTA noldo / ñoldo U+E012 TENGWAR LETTER NOLDO nwalmë / ñwalmë U+E013 TENGWAR LETTER NWALME órë U+E014 TENGWAR LETTER OORE vala U+E015 TENGWAR LETTER VALA anna U+E016 TENGWAR LETTER ANNA vilya / wilya U+E017 TENGWAR LETTER VILYA rómen U+E018 TENGWAR LETTER ROOMEN arda U+E019 TENGWAR LETTER ARDA lambë U+E01A TENGWAR LETTER LAMBE alda U+E01B TENGWAR LETTER ALDA silmë U+E01C TENGWAR LETTER SILME silmë nuquerna U+E01D TENGWAR LETTER SILME NUQUERNA essë / áre/áze U+E01E TENGWAR LETTER AARE essë nuquerna / áre/áze nuquerna U+E01F TENGWAR LETTER AARE NUQUERNA hyarmen U+E020 TENGWAR LETTER HYARMEN hwesta sindarinwa U+E021 TENGWAR LETTER HWESTA SINDARINWA yanta U+E022 TENGWAR LETTER YANTA úrë U+E023 TENGWAR LETTER UURE halla U+E024 TENGWAR LETTER HALLA telco U+E025 TENGWAR LETTER SHORT CARRIER ára U+E026 TENGWAR LETTER LONG CARRIER
Name Image CSUR Designation annotation U+E027 TENGWAR LETTER ANNA SINDARINWA U+E028 TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED THUULE U+E029 TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED FORMEN U+E02A TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED HARMA U+E02B TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED HWESTA U+E02C TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED ANTO U+E02D TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED AMPA U+E02E TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED ANCA U+E02F TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED UNQUE U+E030 TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS OORE U+E031 TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS VALA U+E032 TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS ANNA U+E033 TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS VILYA
Name Image CSUR Designation annotation amatixe 3 U+E040 TENGWAR SIGN THREE DOTS ABOVE unutixe 3 U+E041 TENGWAR SIGN THREE DOTS BELOW amatixe 2 U+E042 TENGWAR SIGN TWO DOTS ABOVE unutixe 2 U+E043 TENGWAR SIGN TWO DOTS BELOW amatixe 1 U+E044 TENGWAR SIGN AMATICSE unutixe 1 U+E045 TENGWAR SIGN NUNTICSE tecco U+E046 TENGWAR SIGN ACUTE U+E047 TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE ACUTE rempe U+E048 TENGWAR SIGN RIGHT CURL U+E049 TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE RIGHT CURL rempenuquerna U+E04A TENGWAR SIGN LEFT CURL U+E04B TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE LEFT CURL amatwe U+E04C TENGWAR SIGN NASALIZER unuatwe U+E04D TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLER U+E04E TENGWAR SIGN TILDE U+E04F TENGWAR SIGN BREVE U+E050 TENGWAR PUSTA U+E051 TENGWAR DOUBLE PUSTA U+E052 TENGWAR EXCLAMATION MARK U+E053 TENGWAR QUESTION MARK U+E054 TENGWAR SECTION MARK U+E055 TENGWAR LONG SECTION MARK thinnas U+E056 TENGWAR SIGN LONG CARRIER BELOW U+E057 TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE ACUTE BELOW U+E058 TENGWAR SIGN RIGHT CURL BELOW U+E05A TENGWAR SIGN LEFT CURL BELOW sarince U+E05C TENGWAR SIGN LEFT FOLLOWING SILME U+E05D TENGWAR SIGN RIGHT FOLLOWING SILME
Name Image CSUR Designation annotation 0 U+E030 TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS OORE 1 U+E033 TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS VILYA 2 U+E062 TENGWAR DIGIT TWO 3 U+E063 TENGWAR DIGIT THREE 4 U+E064 TENGWAR DIGIT FOUR 5 U+E065 TENGWAR DIGIT FIVE 6 U+E066 TENGWAR DIGIT SIX 7 U+E067 TENGWAR DIGIT SEVEN 8 U+E068 TENGWAR DIGIT EIGHT 9 U+E069 TENGWAR DIGIT NINE 10 U+E06A TENGWAR DUODECIMAL DIGIT TEN 11 U+E06B TENGWAR DUODECIMAL DIGIT ELEVEN U+E06C TENGWAR DECIMAL BASE MARK U+E06D TENGWAR DUODECIMAL BASE MARK U+E06E TENGWAR DUODECIMAL LEAST SIGNIFICANT DIGIT MARK In popular culture
Tengwar has been used in Tolkien fandom since the publication of The Lord of the Rings in the 1950s.
Tengwar script appears in a bound volume in the Within Temptation music video for "Stand My Ground", though it appears to be a random selection of letters, with a tehta vowel appearing about every five words or so. Many tengwar are also repeated for no apparent reason. Another instance of this stylistic use of tengwar is the computer game ; again the tengwar are used meaninglessly. Tengwar is also used in Alone in the Dark, a comic book, as a typeface describing an arcane language.
There has been a fashion of tengwar tattoos, especially in the wake of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
Celebrities with such tattoos include Spanish footballer
Fernando Torres and Argentine footballer Sergio Agüero.
With the exception of John Rhys-Davies, the actors playing the Fellowship of the Ring in Peter Jackson's film trilogy have tattoos of the English word nine written in Quenya-mode tengwar.