First article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English, written with a spelling-based pointed mode of Tengwar. The first three lines: "All human beings are / born free and equal / in dignity and rights. /..."
Within the context of Tolkien's fictional world, the Tengwar were invented by the ElfFëanor in Valinor, and used first to write the Elven tongues Quenya and Telerin. According to J. R. R. Tolkien's The War of the Jewels, at the time Fëanor created his script, he introduced a change in terminology. He called a letter, a written representation of a spoken phoneme (tengwë), a tengwa. Previously, any letter or symbol had been called a sarat (from *sar "incise"). 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".[1]
The plural of tengwa is Tengwar, and this is the name by which Fëanor's writing system became known. Since, however, in commonly used modes, an individual tengwa was equivalent to a consonant, the term tengwa in the fiction became equivalent to "consonant sign", and the vowel signs were known as ómatehtar. By loan-translation, the Tengwar became known as tîw (singular têw) in Sindarin, when they were introduced to Beleriand. The letters of the earlier alphabet native to Sindarin were called cirth (singular certh, probably from *kirte "cutting", and thus semantically analogous to Quenyasarat). 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 (which is found in many Tengwar varieties); different Tengwar shapes; and a few correspondences between sound features and letter shape features (though inconsistent).
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 [a] 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".
In his An Introduction to Elvish, Jim Allan compared the Tengwar with the London merchant Francis Lodwick's 1686 Universal Alphabet, both on grounds of the correspondence between shape features and sound features, and of the actual letter shapes.[2]
Tengwar
The two-line inscription on the One Ring, written in the Black Speech of Mordor using Tengwar: "Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul / ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul".Tengwar "atul" element recurring in the ring inscription
The Tengwar script was probably developed in the late 1920s or in the early 1930s. The Lonely Mountain Jar Inscription, the first published Tengwar sample, dates to 1937.[3] The full explanation of the Tengwar was published in Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings in 1955.[4]
The Mellonath Daeron Index of Tengwar Specimina (DTS) 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 (many of them published posthumously):
The Lonely Mountain Jar Inscription, published 1937[5]
The following samples presumably predate the Lord of the Rings, but 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,[13]
So Lúthien, a page of the English Lay of Leithian text[14][15]
Description
Tengwar alphabet with the name of each tengwa, arranged phonetically according to the Quenya mode
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 (that is, articulated with rounded lips, or followed by a [w] sound). 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 [j].
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.[16]
Regularly formed
Most letters are constructed by a combination of two basic shapes: a vertical stem (either long or short) and either one or two rounded bows (which may or may not be underscored, and may be on the left or right of the stem).
These principal letters are divided into four series ("témar") that correspond to the main places of articulation and into six grades ("tyeller") 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 voicelessstop consonants for that series. For the classical Quenya mode, they are /t/, /p/, /k/ and /kʷ/, 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:
Raising the stem above the line turns it into the corresponding fricative.
Shortening it (so it is only the height of the bow) 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.
In addition to these variations of the Tengwar shapes, there is yet another variation, the use of stems that are extended both above and below the line. This shape may correspond to other consonant variations required. Except for some English abbreviations, it is not used in any of the better known Tengwar modes, but it occurs in a Quenya mode where the tengwa Parma with extended stem is used for /pt/ and the tengwa Calma with extended stem is used for /kt/.[17] The Tengwar with raised stems sometimes occur in glyph variants that look like extended stems, as seen in the inscription of the One Ring.
An example from the parmatéma (the signs with a closed bow on the right side) in the "general use" of the Tengwar is:
The basic sign, named parma, (with descending stem) represents /p/ (it happens to look much like the Latin letter P).
With the bow doubled, umbar, it represents /b/.
With a raised stem, formen, it represents /f/.
With a raised stem and a doubled bow, ampa, it represents generally /v/ but possibly /mp/ (depending upon the language).
With a short stem and double bow, malta, it represents /m/.
With short stem and single bow, vala, it represents /w/, or /v/ if that has the phonological behaviour of a sonorant (e.g. in Quenya).
In languages such as Quenya, which do not contain any voiced fricatives other than "v", the raised stem + doubled bow row is used for the common nasal+stop sequences (nt, mp, nk, nqu). In such cases, the "w" sign in the previous paragraph is used for "v". In the mode of Beleriand, found on the door to Moria, the bottom tyellë is used for nasals (e.g., vala is used for /m/) and the fifth tyellë for doubled nasals (malta for /mm/).
Irregularly formed
There are additional letters that do not have regular shapes. They may represent, e.g., /r/, /l/, /s/ and /h/. 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
Tehtar
A tehta (Quenya "marking") is a diacritic placed above or below the tengwa. They can represent vowels, consonant doubling, or nasal sound.
As Tolkien explained in Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings, the tehtar for vowels resemble Latin diacritics: circumflex (î) /a/, acute (í) /e/, dot (i) /i/, left curl (ı̔) /o/, and right curl (ı̓) /u/. Long vowels, excepting /a/, may be indicated by doubling the signs. Some languages from which /o/ is absent or in which compared to /u/ it appears sparsely, such as the Black Speech, use left curl for /u/; other languages swap the signs for /e/ and /i/.
A vowel occurring alone is drawn on the vowel carrier, which resembles dotless i (ı) for a short vowel or dotless j (ȷ) for a long vowel.
Modes
Three modes of Tengwar Yellow: Classical mode Pink: Mode of Beleriand Grey: General mode
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 /t/, /p/, /k/ and /kʷ/ (classical mode in chart at right), while others use them to represent /t/, /p/, /tʃ/ and /k/ (general mode at right). 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 (general mode at right), or nasalized stops, as in Quenya (classical mode).
Ómatehtar
In some modes, called ómatehtar (or vowel tehtar) modes, the vowels are represented with diacritics called tehtar (Quenya for 'signs'; corresponding singular: tehta, 'sign'). These ómatehtar modes can be considered abugidas rather than true alphabets.[18] In some ómatehtar modes, the consonant signs feature an inherent vowel.
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.
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.
Tolkien had 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.
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.
Note: Some browsers may not display these characters properly.
Unicode
Michael Everson made a proposal to include the Tengwar in the Unicode standard in 1997.[19] The range U+16080 to U+160FF in the SMP was tentatively allocated for Tengwar in the 2023 Unicode roadmap.[20]
Note: Part of the Private-Use Area, font conflicts possible[21]
Tengwar are included in the unofficial ConScript Unicode Registry (CSUR), which assigns codepoints in the Private Use Area. Tengwar are mapped to the range U+E000–U+E07F. The following Unicode sample (which repeats the one above) 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, Tengwar Telcontar,[22] Constructium, Tengwar Formal Unicode,[23] and FreeMonoTengwar[24] (James Kass's Code2000 and Code2001 use an older, incompatible version of the proposal). The eight “Aux” variant fonts of Kurinto (such as Kurinto Text Aux, Book Aux, Sans Aux) also support Tengwar.[25]
Tengwar ligatures and extended letters CSUR encoding
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 (digit zero)
U+E031
Tengwar LETTER STEMLESS VALA
U+E032
Tengwar LETTER STEMLESS ANNA
U+E033
Tengwar LETTER STEMLESS VILYA (digit one)
Tengwar accents CSUR encoding
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 (dot above)
unutixe 1
U+E045
Tengwar SIGN NUNTICSE (dot below)
tecco
U+E046
Tengwar SIGN ACUTE (andaith, long mark)
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 (putta, stop)
U+E051
Tengwar DOUBLE PUSTA (putta)
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
Tengwar digits CSUR encoding
Name
Image
CSUR
Designation annotation
0
U+E030
Tengwar LETTER STEMLESS OORE (digit zero)
1
U+E033
Tengwar LETTER STEMLESS VILYA (digit one)
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.[29]
With the exception of John Rhys-Davies, the actors playing the Fellowship of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy have Tengwar tattoos of the English word nine.[30]
^Shelton, Luke (25 October 2022). "Anna Voß's Experience — Tolkien Experience Project (212)". Luke Shelton. Retrieved 23 March 2023. Like most Tolkien obsessed teens, I used to teach myself writing Tengwar. Nowadays I research writing systems by way of typesetting/typography. It's a field very much connected to Philology.
Derzhanski, Ivan A. "The Fëanorian Tengwar and the Typology of Phonetic Writing Systems." Vinyar Tengwar 41 (2000): 20–23.
Hostetter, Carl F. ""Si man i-yulmar n(g)win enquatuva": A Newly-Discovered Tengwar Inscription." Vinyar Tengwar 21 (1992): 6–10.
Smith, Arden R., Irmengard Rauch and Gerald F. Carr. "The Semiotics of the Writing Systems of Tolkien's Middle-earth." In Semiotics around the World: Synthesis in Diversity, I-II, ed. Irmengard Rauch, 1239–42. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997.
