The Tengwar script is an artificial script, one of several scripts created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's bo ...

''. Within the fictional context of Middle-earth, the Tengwar were invented by the Elf

Fëanor Fëanor () is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's '' The Silmarillion''. He was the eldest son of Finwë, the King of the Noldor, and his first wife Míriel. As a great loremaster and creator, he improved the Sarati alphabet, inventing ...

, and used first to write the Elven tongues

Quenya Quenya ()Tolkien wrote in his "Outline of Phonology" (in '' Parma Eldalamberon'' 19, p. 74) dedicated to the phonology of Quenya: is "a sound as in English ''new''". In Quenya is a combination of consonants, ibidem., p. 81. is a constructed l ...

and

Telerin J. R. R. Tolkien constructed many Elvish languages; the best known are Quenya and Sindarin. These were the various languages spoken by the Elves of Middle-earth as they developed as a society throughout the Ages. In his pursuit for realism and i ...

. Later a great number of languages of Middle-earth were written using the Tengwar, including

Sindarin Sindarin is one of the fictional languages devised by J. R. R. Tolkien for use in his fantasy stories set in Arda, primarily in Middle-earth. Sindarin is one of the many languages spoken by the Elves. The word is a Quenya word. Called in E ...

. Tolkien used Tengwar to write

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

: most of Tolkien's Tengwar samples are actually in English.

Internal history and terminology

According to J.R.R. Tolkien's ''

The War of the Jewels ''The War of the Jewels'' (1994) is the 11th volume of Christopher Tolkien's series ''The History of Middle-earth'', analysing the unpublished manuscripts of his father J. R. R. Tolkien. It is the second of two volumes—''Morgoth's Ring'' bei ...

'', edited by his son Christopher Tolkien, 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". 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 ''tengwar'' 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 The Cirth (, meaning " runes"; sg. certh ) is a semi‑artificial script, based on real‑life runic alphabets, one of several scripts invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for the constructed languages he devised and used in his works. ''Cirth'' is ...

'' (singular ''certh'', probably from ''*kirte'' "cutting", and thus semantically analogous to Quenya ''sarat''). 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

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s (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 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 in his ''An Introduction to Elvish'' compared the tengwar with the ''Universal Alphabet'' by the London merchant

Francis Lodwick Francis Lodwick Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (or Lodowick; 1619–1694) was a pioneer of a priori language, ''a priori'' languages (what in the seventeenth century was called a 'philosophical language'). Biography Francis Lodwick was a mer ...

of 1686, both on grounds of the correspondence between shape features and sound features, and of the actual letter shapes.

Tengwar

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. The full explanation of the tengwar was published in Appendix E of ''

'' in 1955. 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 * ''Middle Page from the

Book of Mazarbul Tolkien's artwork was a key element of his creativity from the time when he began to write fiction. The philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien prepared illustrations for his Middle-earth fantasy books, facsimile artefacts, Tolkien's maps, more ...

'' * ''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 ''The Father Christmas Letters'', also known as ''Letters from Father Christmas'', are a collection of letters written and illustrated by J. R. R. Tolkien between 1920 and 1943 for his children, from Father Christmas. They were released posthumo ...

, dating to 1937 * ''The Treebeard Page'' * ''Edwin Lowdham's Manuscript'' from The Notion Club Papers has

Old English language Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

text written in tengwar (with a few

Adûnaic Adûnaic (or Adunaic) ("language of the West") is one of the fictional languages devised by J. R. R. Tolkien for his fantasy works. One of the languages of Arda in Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, Adûnaic was spoken by the Men of Númenor ...

and Quenya words), dating to 1945/6. * The Brogan Tengwa-greetings, appearing in ''

The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien ''The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien'' is a selection of J. R. R. Tolkien's letters published in 1981, edited by Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter assisted by Christopher Tolkien. The selection from a large mass of materials contains 354 lett ...

'', No. 118, tentatively dated to 1948 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'', * ''So Lúthien'', a page of the English ''Lay of Leithian'' text

Description

Tengwar alphabet with row and column headings

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 The term ''labial'' originates from '' Labium'' (Latin for "lip"), and is the adjective that describes anything of or related to lips, such as lip-like structures. Thus, it may refer to: * the lips ** In linguistics, a labial consonant ** In zoolog ...

, dental, palatal, velar, and glottal. The velars distinguish between plain and labialized (that is, articulated with rounded lips, or followed by a 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 . 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

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

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

less

stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), li ...

s 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 In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...

into a voiced one. * Raising the stem above the line turns it into the corresponding

fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...

. * Shortening it (so it is only the height of the bow) creates the corresponding

nasal Nasal is an adjective referring to the nose, part of human or animal anatomy. It may also be shorthand for the following uses in combination: * With reference to the human nose: ** Nasal administration, a method of pharmaceutical drug delivery * ...

. In most modes, the signs with shortened stem and single bow do not correspond to the

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...

nasals, but to the

approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce ...

s. 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

mode where the tengwa Parma with extended stem is used for and the tengwa Calma with extended stem is used for . The tengwar with raised stems sometimes occur in

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

variants that look like extended stems, as seen in the inscription of the

One Ring The One Ring, also called the Ruling Ring and Isildur's Bane, is a central plot element in J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'' (1954–55). It first appeared in the earlier story ''The Hobbit'' (1937) as a magic ring that grants the ...

. 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 (it happens to look much like the Latin letter ''P''). * 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 (depending upon the language). * 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 (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 Moria may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Moria (Middle-earth), fictional location in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien * '' Moria: The Dwarven City'', a 1984 fantasy role-playing game supplement * ''Moria'' (1978 video game), a dungeon-crawler g ...

, the bottom ''tyellë'' is used for nasals (e.g., ''vala'' is used for ) and the fifth ''tyellë'' for doubled nasals (' for ).

Irregularly formed

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'' (Quenya "marking") is a

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) , acute (í) , dot (i) , left curl (ı̔) , and right curl (ı̓) . 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 (ı) for a short vowel or dotless j (ȷ) for a long vowel.

Modes

Just as with any

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...

ic writing system, every specific language written in tengwar requires a specific

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

, depending on the

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

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 (classical mode in chart at right), while others use them to represent , , and (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

s called '' tehtar'' (Quenya for 'signs'; corresponding

singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar ...

: ''tehta'', 'sign'). These ómatehtar modes can be loosely considered

abjad An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vow ...

s rather than true

s. 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

, or on the consonant following, as in

, 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.

Modes for other languages

Since the publication of the first official description of the Tengwar at the end of ''

'', others have created modes for other languages such as

, Spanish,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

, Swedish,

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

, Finnish, Italian, Hungarian and

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

. Modes have also been devised for other

constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...

Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...

and

Lojban Lojban (pronounced ) is a logical, constructed, human language created by the Logical Language Group which aims to be syntactically unambigious. It succeeds the Loglan project. The Logical Language Group (LLG) began developing Lojban in 198 ...

. 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 ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...

standard in the tengwar user community maps the tengwar characters onto the

ISO 8859-1 ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, ''Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1'', is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in ...

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 includ
Johan Winge's Tengwar Annatar
o
Michal Nowakowski's Tengwar Formal
(note that most of these differ in details). The following sample shows the first article of the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt ...

written in English, according to the traditional

English orthography English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, ...

. 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 2{( zèVj# 5% 2x%51T`Û 2{( 7v%1+- 4hR 7EO 2{$yYO2 y4% 7]F85^ 2{( z5^8I`B5$I( 2{( dyYj2 zE1 1yY6E2_ 5^( 5#4^(7 5% `C 8q7T1T W w74^(692^H --

Note: Some browsers may not display these characters properly.

Unicode

A proposal has been made by Michael Everson to include the tengwar in the

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

standard. The codepoints are subject to change; the range to U+160FF in the SMP is tentatively allocated for tengwar according to the curren
Unicode roadmap

ConScript Unicode Registry

Tengwar are currently included in the unofficial

ConScript Unicode Registry The ConScript Unicode Registry is a discontinued volunteer project to coordinate the assignment of code points in the Unicode Private Use Areas (PUA) for the encoding of artificial scripts including those for constructed languages. It was founded by ...

(CSUR), which assigns codepoints in the Private Use Area. Tengwar are mapped to the range U+E000 to U+E07F; see

External links An internal link is a type of hyperlink on a web page to another page or resource, such as an image or document, on the same website or domain. Hyperlinks are considered either "external" or "internal" depending on their target or destination ...

. 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

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...

s that support this proposal are Everson Mono
Tengwar Telcontar
Constructium

an
James Kass
s Code2000 and Code2001 use an older, incompatible version of the proposal). The eight “Aux” variant fonts o
Kurinto
(Kurinto Text Aux, Book Aux, Sans Aux, etc.) also support Tengwar. {, class="wikitable" , + Tengwar letters CSUR encoding ! Name !! Image !! CSUR , , Designation annotation , - , tinco , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa tinco

, , U+E000 , , TENGWAR LETTER TINCO , - , parma , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa parma

, , U+E001 , , TENGWAR LETTER PARMA , - , calma , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa calma

, , U+E002 , , TENGWAR LETTER CALMA , - , quessë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa quesse

, , U+E003 , , TENGWAR LETTER QUESSE , - , ando , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa ando

, , U+E004 , , TENGWAR LETTER ANDO , - , umbar , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa umbar

, , U+E005 , , TENGWAR LETTER UMBAR , - , anga , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa anga

, , U+E006 , , TENGWAR LETTER ANGA , - , ungwë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa ungwe

, , U+E007 , , TENGWAR LETTER UNGWE , - , súlë / thúlë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa súle

, , U+E008 , , TENGWAR LETTER THUULE (suule) , - , formen , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa formen

, , U+E009 , , TENGWAR LETTER FORMEN , - , harma / aha , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa aha

, , U+E00A , , TENGWAR LETTER HARMA (aha) , - , hwesta , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa hwesta

, , U+E00B , , TENGWAR LETTER HWESTA , - , anto , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa anto

, , U+E00C , , TENGWAR LETTER ANTO , - , ampa , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa ampa

, , U+E00D , , TENGWAR LETTER AMPA , - , anca , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa anca

, , U+E00E , , TENGWAR LETTER ANCA , - , unquë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa unque

, , U+E00F , , TENGWAR LETTER UNQUE , - , númen , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa númen

, , U+E010 , , TENGWAR LETTER NUUMEN , - , , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa malta

, , U+E011 , , TENGWAR LETTER MALTA , - , noldo / ñoldo , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa noldo

, , U+E012 , , TENGWAR LETTER NOLDO (ngoldo) , - , nwalmë / ñwalmë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa nwalme

, , U+E013 , , TENGWAR LETTER NWALME (ngwalme) , - , órë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa óre

, , U+E014 , , TENGWAR LETTER OORE , - , vala , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa vala

, , U+E015 , , TENGWAR LETTER VALA , - , anna , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa anna

, , U+E016 , , TENGWAR LETTER ANNA , - , vilya / wilya , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa wilya

, , U+E017 , , TENGWAR LETTER VILYA (wilya) , - , rómen , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa rómen

, , U+E018 , , TENGWAR LETTER ROOMEN , - , arda , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa arda

, , U+E019 , , TENGWAR LETTER ARDA , - , lambë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa lambe

, , U+E01A , , TENGWAR LETTER LAMBE , - , alda , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa alda

, , U+E01B , , TENGWAR LETTER ALDA , - , silmë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa silme

, , U+E01C , , TENGWAR LETTER SILME , - , silmë nuquerna , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa silme nuquerna

, , U+E01D , , TENGWAR LETTER SILME NUQUERNA , - , essë / áre/áze , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa esse

, , U+E01E , , TENGWAR LETTER AARE (aaze, esse) , - , essë nuquerna / áre/áze nuquerna , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa esse nuquerna

, , U+E01F , , TENGWAR LETTER AARE NUQUERNA (aaze n., esse n.) , - , hyarmen , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa hyarmen

, , U+E020 , , TENGWAR LETTER HYARMEN , - , hwesta sindarinwa , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa hwesta sindarinwa

, , U+E021 , , TENGWAR LETTER HWESTA SINDARINWA , - , yanta , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa yanta

, , U+E022 , , TENGWAR LETTER YANTA , - , úrë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa úre

, , U+E023 , , TENGWAR LETTER UURE , - , halla , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa halla

, , U+E024 , , TENGWAR LETTER HALLA , - , telco , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa telco

, , U+E025 , , TENGWAR LETTER SHORT CARRIER , - , ára , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa ára

, , U+E026 , , TENGWAR LETTER LONG CARRIER {, class="wikitable" , + 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) {, class="wikitable" , + 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 {, class="wikitable" , + Tengwar digits CSUR encoding ! Name !! Image !! CSUR , , Designation annotation , - , title="STEMLESS OORE", 0 , , , , U+E030 , , TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS OORE (digit zero) , - , title="STEMLESS VILYA", 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 Tolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth legendarium which includes ''The Hobbit'', ''The Lord of the Rings'', and ''The Silmarillion''. The concept of Tolkie ...

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" (2004), 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 '' Atlantis: The Lost Tales'' (1997); 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. With the exception of John Rhys-Davies, the actors playing the '' Fellowship of the Ring'' in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy have tattoos of the English word ''nine'' written in Quenya-mode tengwar.
/ref> Footballers such as

Sergio Agüero Sergio Leonel Agüero del Castillo (born 2 June 1988), also known as Kun Agüero, is an Argentine former professional footballer who played as a striker. He is considered one of the best strikers of his generation and one of the greatest play ...

and Fernando Torres have tattoos with their first name in Tengwar on their forearms.

References

Sources

For a list of linguistic material by Tolkien published in the journals '' Parma Eldalamberon'' and ''

Vinyar Tengwar The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship (E. L. F.) is a "Special Interest Group" of the Mythopoeic Society devoted to the study of the constructed languages of J. R. R. Tolkien, today headed by the computer scientist Carl F. Hostetter. It was founded by ...

'', see bibliography in Elvish languages (Middle-earth). * 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.

External links

Amanye Tenceli – The Tengwar
A general presentation by Måns Björkman of the tengwar script, with some extrapolations.

nbsp;— a continuously expanding list of published Tengwar samples

A comprehensive list of tengwar fonts

Free Tengwar Font Project
a project promoting free and open tengwar fonts mapped into

private use code points {{Constructed languages Abugida writing systems Alphabets Middle-earth writing systems Writing systems introduced in 1937 Miscellaneous Unicode blocks