Tengwar

[BelDain]

Does anyone else know the use of the Tengwar? I have been trying to find out how the Eldar regarded the denotation of a possessive.

In English with our Roman alphabet we use an apostraphe and 's' but there is no Tehtar defined for an apostraphe that I have found around the web.

So does anyone know of a Tehtar or method of denoting the possessive when transcribing English writing into Tengwar script?

Thanks.

[Aldarion]

Tolkien's languages are clearly archaic in form, arguably close in their development to latin, greek, norse etc and, although I've made no real study of those tongues, I think they tend toward the "caves of Aglarond" or the "cats of Queen Beruthiel" as opposed to "Beruthiel's cats" which, as an english construction, appears quite unique in language generally.

Essentially, I don't think that Tolkien's tongues accomodate such a simple possessive form.

[Ragnarok]

Most languages dont use apostraphe s. Spanish, French, Italian I know dont. And theyre all Latin based languages. Our English is Germanic, Latin, and Greek. Its very unique. Well, enough of eytmology.

I think, well I know, Tolkiens languages were based on Norse and Finnish alphabet. Try studying the Norse Fithark, which is actual Runes, used by Vikings and earlier.

[Lantarion]

I'm nopt sure he used the Finnish alphabet as a mold, because the only irregular letters in the Finnish alphabet are 'ä' and 'ö'. (Eärendil?)
The Tengwar is just a writing system, it is not a language. It is just another way of writing words. If you're writing Quenya, the vowels go above the first consonant. If you're writing English, it goes above the next consonant. But as far as I know there is no seperate 'apostrophe' for the Tengwar. So a word like "cat's" would be spelled "cats".
But in Quenya there is no use for apostrophes (exactly like in Finnish) because there are no posessives! There are pronoun suffixes for verbs, like -uva, -enna, but no posessive suffixes for nouns.

[BlackCaptain]

I wouldnt supose any of you are skilled in how to write in the Tengwar are you? I just learned it and I must say... It is dag!

[Luthien_7]

I've learned (almost) how to write in Tengwar and have to agree that it is quite complicated.

[BelDain]

Okay, I'm not sure what dag means but for me learning tengwar was all about getting in the different mindset of what characters represent. After that it's pretty easy because you just write it like you speak it.

oops. I meant to reply not post a new one. :D

[BlackCaptain]

Just a word i made up... check ur post.

Now that ive been practicing it for a while, I find it almost as easy to write as the alphabet. Almost... haha

[e.Blackstar]

I'm learning it, and I have the Angerthas (Sindar) memorized:D

[BelDain]

Originally posted by Treyar
I'm learning it, and I have the Angerthas (Sindar) memorized:D

Angerthas Daeron, Angerthas Moria and Angerthas Erebor?? :)

[e.Blackstar]

Hehe. :rolleyes: Smiles sheepishly

Just the good ole Sindar kind

[Lantarion]

I've been able to write the Tengwar for about two years now. *chest almost bursts* :)
It's wonderful to be able to write it fluently! But I really prefer the 'English/Black Speech' writing style to the 'Quenya' because it seems to make mroe sense the way the vowels are placed.

[BlackCaptain]

Yeah... the one thing I'd change about Tengwar is the vowels and thier confusion, but it's realy not that confusing after youve been doing it for a while.

[Lantarion]

I have actually had some issues with some phenomena in the Tengwar: double letters, especially double vowels; non-English letters, such as 'ä' and 'ö'. I think that 'ä' can be expressed with a '^' over the consonant you want, but 'ö' is something I've never seen.. It's quite common in Finnish..

haha, have you tried writing 'Anamatar' in Tengwar? Looks pretty funny. :D

[Niniel]

I just started trying to learn Tengwar, but it's not going that well. All the letters can have different meanings, and sometimes there are more letters for one sound. Also there are very few texts with transcriptions available with which I could practice, does anyone have any texts I could use?

[Lantarion]

Actually, Niniel, each symbol/letter (or tengwa) has just one meaning.. It just depends on the style that you're using. For example, the tengwa called vala (no. 22) has the meaning of the letter 'v' in Quenya, 'w' in Black Speech/Westron (which is used for writing English as well), and 'm' in the Sindarin style. But many tengwar, like parma, tinco and thûle ('p', 't' and 'th' respectively), have a universal 'meaning'. I suggest you learn the Westron one though, because unless you are going to be writing either of the Elvish languages in the Tengwar you won't need anything else. :)
An excellent book (which is, sadly, outdated but still very informative and interesting), which has been advertised here numerous times (mostly by me :D) is one called An Introduction to Elvish, by a person called Jim Allan. It has a great Tengwar chart, and other interesting observations and insight into the Elvish languages (and a very rudimentary Quenya/Sindarin - English, and vice versa, dictionary).

[Zale]

I used to know the Tengwar (for Quenya, anyway); I got a great chart from the almighty 'Net (lost the link, otherwise I'd give it to you).
I've been lax, though, and forgotten. I'd best learn again.

[jallan]

This is probably the best site for tengwar information, providing modes for Quenya, Sindarin, and English: Tengwar (http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/4948/tengwar).

Some of the values which Dan Smith indicates are not used in English might be used for foreign names that occur in English texts, such as Lhassa or Rhodes or might be used in a mode representing English orthography.

People vary greatly on on much they follow English pronunciation and how much they follow English spelling when writing in tengwar.

Lantarion posted:I think that 'ä' can be expressed with a '^' over the consonant you want, but 'ö' is something I've never seen.. It's quite common in Finnish.Links to various tengwar modes for modern languages, including Finnish, can be found at Amanye Tencilli: Links (http://hem.passagen.se/mansb/at/links.htm#modteng). Of course no mode is authorized.An excellent book (which is, sadly, outdated but still very informative and interesting), which has been advertised here numerous times (mostly by me ) is one called An Introduction to Elvish, by a person called Jim Allan. It has a great Tengwar chart, and other interesting observations and insight into the Elvish languages (and a very rudimentary Quenya/Sindarin - English, and vice versa, dictionary).Yes, it is out of date now, and the web gives so many more modern and up-to-date resources. But I’m happy you liked my book, Lantarion.

[Lantarion]

*faints*
You are Jim Allan? Wow, well it's a pleasure to meet you. :D
And those pages you gave me were excelent too, cleared some things up.. Like
I prefer to represent _y_ by two dots written above the tengwar
I had always done it under the tengwa, but I wasn't comfortable with this because it actually meant a consonantal 'y', not the vowel-y in Finnish.
And
Hitherto I have used a three-dot-tehta pointing downwards (a-nuquerna so to (say) or a v-like tehta for the "ä" sound, being inspired by An Introduction to Elvish, but I have absolutely no problems with two overdots (¨). (That's what Tolkien used in Lowdham's manuscript found in Sauron Defeated.)
Sounds good. I admit the '^' loks a bit silly as 'ä'; the three-dot idea looks great, and the double-dot is simpler.
For "ö" I have used "o" with a dot below the tengwa, sort of umlaut.
Mr Björkman does not like this way of writing 'ö', but I think I could use it.

Thank you again! Sorry I was so slow that I didn't realize that your usrename was in fact your own name.. :rolleyes:

[Helcaraxë]

Lantarion- I was looking at that tegwar chart you mentioned, and and when writing in full mode vowels, it had two tenwar under "a." What's up with that?

[Lantarion]

I was wondering aobut that too.. Perhaps it was a rudimentary differentiation between 'a' and 'ä' (as I mentioned somewhere above I used '^' for 'ä'), but I'm not sure.
Perhaps jallan would know! :D ;)

[Helcaraxë]

Lantarion:
That's certainly possible, but maybe its an either/or type thing. When I was reading english sentences written in tengwar form later on in the book, everyone used one and not the other. By the way jallan, great book!:D :D :D Also, some of the vowels used the same tengwar as consonants. Would you know if someone was using a vowel or a consonant by the context?

[Lantarion]

Originally posted by Morgoth"sbane
Also, some of the vowels used the same tengwar as consonants.
What do you mean?
The only simliarities between tengwar and tehtar I can see are:
'Full' vowel "e" = yanta [Qu.: (consonantal) y; W/BS: i; S: e]
'Full' vowel "u" = úre [Qu.: -u; W/BS and S: u]

But those two 'tengwar' just mentioned above aren't actually consonants, except for yanta.
(The tehta for "e" looks like a 'shortened' tengwa halla, "h" (which looks like the Greek letter lambda). Perhaps that's what you meant?

[BelDain]

Originally posted by Lantarion
What do you mean?
The only simliarities between tengwar and tehtar I can see are:
'Full' vowel "e" = yanta [Qu.: (consonantal) y; W/BS: i; S: e]
'Full' vowel "u" = úre [Qu.: -u; W/BS and S: u]

But those two 'tengwar' just mentioned above aren't actually consonants, except for yanta.
(The tehta for "e" looks like a 'shortened' tengwa halla, "h" (which looks like the Greek letter lambda). Perhaps that's what you meant?

Halla is a "tall" telco or stem. Yanta looks like a short Hyarmen.

The use of tengwar for vowel sounds is prevalent in the Beleriand mode of the Sindarin tengwar usage.
In normal Sindarin mode and Quenya mode the tehtar are used for vowel sounds.

[Helcaraxë]

Whats the difference between tehtar and tengwar (sorry, just starting to learn)? :( :confused: But when it says the value of the vowel tengwa, it matches the previous part of the charts, but only for sindarin and not quenya. And with the two tengwar for "a," one isnt even on the previous part of the chart and the other (even the sindarin value) didn't match the vowel at the bottom of the chart. Didn't quite understand your response.:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[BlackCaptain]

I find it simple to just spell words differently... Like take Manwë. I just spell it with the

*M*
*W, A symbol above, N nasal symbol above*
*Y symbol, E above*

I still get across that it's Manwë, but I just spell it Manwey, which is pretty close to how it's pronounced. I think...

[Lantarion]

Sorry Bane; the tengwar are the actual characters in the table: which are all consonants.
The tehtar are the vowel symbols placed above the consonants.
Originally posted by Morgoth"sBane
But when it says the value of the vowel tengwa, it matches the previous part of the charts, but only for sindarin and not quenya. And with the two tengwar for "a," one isnt even on the previous part of the chart and the other (even the sindarin value) didn't match the vowel at the bottom of the chart.
Sorry, could you rephrase that? Didn't catch it.. What do you mean 'previous chart'? :confused:

BC, I would write Manwë:

malta + tehta 'a' above it + ungwe + tehta 'e' above it.

I would use the 'NGW' tengwa because it is the only way to stress that there is a 'w' in the word 'Manwë'!

EDIT: Actually, instead of using ungwe you could use [númen + wilya/vilya], because the tengwa vilya can be used both as a 'v' and a 'w'.

[BlackCaptain]

But there's a 'W' letter in the Tengwar. I think it's called Vala. You could just put the ~ nasalation symbol above it to show an 'N' before it. But I guess you could do it your way too... Iduno, I might be wrong.

And the tehtar don't go above the letter that they're after. If you were writing 'Man' you'd put the 'M' symbol then the 'N' symbol with an 'A' tehtar over it.;)

[Helcaraxë]

Sry. What I meant by prev. chart was the main part of the chart. There is a smaller section for vowels and teir full mode forms at the bottom. What I was saying was that..hmmm...how to put it?

For example, lets take the tengwa that you would use to write the letter "e" in full mode. If you look to the main part of the chart, yanta's sindarin value is "e", which matches the vowel part of the chart. But the Quenya value is different. Therefore, how would u write full mode in quenya? Also, there are two full-mode tengwar for the letter "a" one looks sort of like the english letter "c." the other is identical to the tengwa "vilya," but even in its sindarin valure, vilya transliterates to the letter "w," not "a." Bad explanation sry.:( :o

[Lantarion]

Originally posted by BlackCaptain
But there's a 'W' letter in the Tengwar. I think it's called Vala. You could just put the ~ nasalation symbol above it to show an 'N' before it. But I guess you could do it your way too... Iduno, I might be wrong.

And the tehtar don't go above the letter that they're after. If you were writing 'Man' you'd put the 'M' symbol then the 'N' symbol with an 'A' tehtar over it.
The tengwa Vala has the value of 'v' in Quenya, and 'w' in "English".
And actually, you're wrong: Quenya and Sindarin are both written like I described the word 'manwë'. Only Black Speech/Westron is written how you descibed it. You were correct that 'man' would be written with the tehta above the 'n'; but 'Manwë' is a Quenya word, and so should be written as Quenya words are.

bane, I se what you mean now. :)
The full tehta for 'a' that looks like a 'C' is the only correct form that I know of. The second one must either be a weird value for 'Ä', or was one of the values that Tolkien juggled before deciding to use the 'C'.
The full valued tehtar are always the same, in all forms/languages of writing. It's true that yanta and the full tehta 'e' are the same: but when writing Quenya one very seldom uses the full tehtar, because the script iself is very concise, and each letter has its place (this is because the tehtar are palced above the consonant immediately behind them).

[Helcaraxë]

I c. Thx Lant. But say for some bizzarre reason you were writing with the full tehtar in Quenya, and you had "e" b4 whatever consonant yanta is in Qu., then u would have 2 of the same letter because the full tehtar are always the same?

[Lantarion]

As silly as that seems, I think so, yes.

[Helcaraxë]

Thats an interesting coincedence. Perhaps Tolkien was a seer and predicted that we would be having this conversation and formulated the language just so that in the situation I described would occur. :rolleyes: ;)

(j/k sry bad joke)

[Lantarion]

Ooh, that conniving little Proffessor!!
:D

[BelDain]

Originally posted by BlackCaptain
I find it simple to just spell words differently... Like take Manwë. I just spell it with the

*M*
*W, A symbol above, N nasal symbol above*
*Y symbol, E above*

I still get across that it's Manwë, but I just spell it Manwey, which is pretty close to how it's pronounced. I think...

Unfortunately the w sound represented by vala is in a series whose nasal is the 'm' sound so using the nasal symbol would not work.
Also I think Manwë would be pronounced with an 'eh' at the end not 'ay', not a dipthong, so just a short e sound would go after the w sound.

[BelDain]

Originally posted by Morgoth"sBane
I c. Thx Lant. But say for some bizzarre reason you were writing with the full tehtar in Quenya, and you had "e" b4 whatever consonant yanta is in Qu., then u would have 2 of the same letter because the full tehtar are always the same?

I think that if you were writing Quenya mode then that would never happen because yanta is only used for consonental y and there is no tengwa for the e sound used in that mode. The tecco or tixe tehta is used.

Likewise if you are using the Sindarin Beleriand mode where yanta is used for 'e' then you would use silme nuquerna for 'y' sounds.

[BlackCaptain]

Well I actualy have a question... Does the tehtar go above the tengwa that is before it? Like if I was writing 'Man' in the tengwar would I put the M symbol, then the N symbol with an A tehtar above it? Or would it be an M with an A tehtar symbol above it, then the N. I always thought that it was the first way, but I could be wrong. Can they be used interchangably?

[BelDain]

It depends what language you are speaking in.
If you want to write Quenya or Sindarin where words are predominantly ended with a vowel sound then the rule was that the following tehta goes above the tengwa.
If you are writing in English where most words end in consonental sounds then the preceding vowel sound tehta goes above the tengwa.

[Lantarion]

Exactly. Perfect presentation, Bel. :D

[Cian]

For Quenya, an a-tehta (for example) goes above the preceding tengwa (if available) -- for Sindarin this same tehta goes above the following tengwa (though there is more than one mode anyway, for example the 'full' mode on the Doors of Moria).

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