The Tengwar () script is an artificial script, one of several scripts created by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

, the author of ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...

''. Within the context of Tolkien's fictional world, the Tengwar were invented by the

Elf An elf (: elves) is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic peoples, Germanic folklore. Elves appear especially in Norse mythology, North Germanic mythology, being mentioned in the Icelandic ''Poetic Edda'' and the ''Prose Edda'' ...

Fëanor, and used first to write the Elvish languages Quenya and Telerin. Later a great number of Tolkien's constructed languages 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

Within the context of Tolkien's fictional world, the Tengwar were invented by the

Fëanor in Valinor, and used first to write the Elven tongues Quenya and Telerin. According to

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

'' (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". 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.

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'' * ''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 Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo- ...

text written in Tengwar (with a few Adûnaic and Quenya words), 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 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 feature In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonology, phonological structure that distinguishes one Phone (phonetics), sound from another within a language. For example, the feature Voice (phonetics), voice''distinguishes ...

s of the sounds they represent. The Quenya consonant system has five

places of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is an approximate location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a pa ...

: labial, 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 In articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the articulators (speech organs such as the tongue, lips, and palate) when making a speech sound. One parameter of manner is ''stricture,'' that is, h ...

. 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 produ ...

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 (, ), lip ...

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. 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 v ...

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 prod ...

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 Quenya 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 ...

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 (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, 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'' diacritics

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 standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

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

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

, depending on the

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

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 or sounder, a group of boar, see List of animal names * Singular (band), a Thai jazz pop duo *'' Singula ...

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

abugida An abugida (; from Geʽez: , )sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabetis a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit ...

s rather than true

s. 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.

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 English, Spanish, German, Swedish, French, Finnish, Italian, Hungarian and Welsh. Modes have also been devised for other

constructed language A constructed language (shortened to conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, orthography, and vocabulary, instead of having developed natural language, naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devise ...

Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...

and

Lojban Lojban (pronounced ) is a Logical language, logical, constructed language, constructed, human language created by the Logical Language Group which aims to be Syntactic ambiguity, syntactically unambiguous. It succeeds the Loglan project. The Log ...

. 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 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 19 ...

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 Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal D ...

written in English, according to the traditional

English orthography English orthography comprises the set of rules used when writing the English language, allowing readers and writers to associate written graphemes with the sounds of spoken English, as well as other features of the language. English's orthograp ...

. 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

Michael Everson Michael Everson (born January 1963) is an American and Irish linguistics, linguist, Character encoding, script encoder, typesetting, typesetter, type designer and Publishing, publisher. He runs a publishing company called Evertype, through which ...

made a proposal to include the Tengwar in the

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

standard in 1997. The range to U+160FF in the SMP was tentatively allocated for Tengwar in the 2023 Unicode roadmap.

ConScript Unicode Registry

Tengwar are included in the unofficial

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

(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

typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...

s that support this proposal are Everson Mono, Tengwar Telcontar, Constructium, Tengwar Formal Unicode, and FreeMonoTengwar (James Kass's Code2000 and

Code2001 Code2000 is a serif font, serif and pan-Unicode typefaces, Unicode digital font, which includes Grapheme, characters and symbols from a very large range of writing systems. As of the current version 1.176 released in 2023, Code2000 is designed ...

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. {, 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;" , , , 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;" , , , 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;" , , , 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;" , , , 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;" , , , 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;" , , , 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 , , Tehta amatixe3

, , U+E040 , , Tengwar SIGN THREE DOTS ABOVE , - , unutixe 3 , , , , U+E041 , , Tengwar SIGN THREE DOTS BELOW , - , amatixe 2 , , Tehta amatixe2

, , U+E042 , , Tengwar SIGN TWO DOTS ABOVE , - , unutixe 2 , , Tehta unutixe2

, , U+E043 , , Tengwar SIGN TWO DOTS BELOW , - , amatixe 1 , , Tehta amatixe1

, , U+E044 , , Tengwar SIGN AMATICSE (dot above) , - , unutixe 1 , , Tehta unutixe1

, , U+E045 , , Tengwar SIGN NUNTICSE (dot below) , - , tecco , , Tehta tecco

, , U+E046 , , Tengwar SIGN ACUTE (andaith, long mark) , - , , , , , U+E047 , , Tengwar SIGN DOUBLE ACUTE , - , rempe , , Tehta rempe

, , U+E048 , , Tengwar SIGN RIGHT CURL , - , , , , , U+E049 , , Tengwar SIGN DOUBLE RIGHT CURL , - , rempenuquerna , , Tehta rempenuquerna

, , U+E04A , , Tengwar SIGN LEFT CURL , - , , , , , U+E04B , , Tengwar SIGN DOUBLE LEFT CURL , - , amatwe , , Tehta amatwe

, , U+E04C , , Tengwar SIGN NASALIZER , - , unuatwe , , Tehta 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 , , Tehta 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 , , Tehta 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 fan (aficionado), 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 c ...

since the publication of ''The Lord of the Rings'' in the 1950s. With the exception of

John Rhys-Davies John Rhys-Davies (born 5 May 1944) is a Welsh actor known for portraying Gimli (Middle-earth), Gimli in The Lord of the Rings (film series), ''The Lord of the Rings'' trilogy and Sallah in the ''Indiana Jones'' franchise. He has received three ...

, the actors playing the Fellowship of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy have Tengwar tattoos of the English word ''nine''. Footballers such as Sergio Agüero 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'', 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
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
Tengwar Handbook
{{Constructed languages Abugida writing systems Alphabets Middle-earth writing systems Writing systems introduced in 1937 Miscellaneous Unicode blocks