Writing using Tengwar characters

[Rían]

Ok, I did a search on this and found "speaking in Elvish" threads but not one specifically on writing using the Tengwar characters, so here goes...

I didn't have time/talent to learn elvish, so I decided to help satisfy my M.E. cravings by learning the Tengwar characters for the English mode and write in English using Tengwar. It is really fun, and also - I don't know, I guess almost physically enjoyable (to me, they just look so pretty! I think Tolkien wrote somewhere that he wanted to invent characters that were visually pleasing). They look nice written with a chisel-point pen, but a regular one works just fine, too.

It took a little bit of time to memorize them so I could write fluently, and I still can't read quickly (I have to go character by character except for words of 2 characters, which I can read right away), but it was well worth it, plus you can write ANYTHING you want down in a journal and not worry about someone finding it and reading it! (at least no one around me can read it!)

I know katya writes in Tengwar - anyone else?


***********Edit: It's almost 8 months later, and I"m still happily writing Tengwar! Some new Tengwar fans have recently joined, and just for the sake of convenience, I'm editing this post and adding the two best links on Tengwar that I've found: the passagen link and the elfique link .

***********Edit: I thought I would add some links to some of the attachments that people had, to show off our all our fun and unique and pretty Tengwar
Earniel's Elvish rock
RÃ*an's Nargothrond poem from Lays of Beleriand


Nov 2010 - edit to add links that changed - passagen is now at http://at.mansbjorkman.net/ and called Amanye Tenceli

[katya]

hey RÃ*an!! (see look i copied the "Ã*"-I feel so special!!!) I think that Tengwar writing is visually pleasing too. That's half the reason I learned it. How did you learn it RÃ*an? Did you go to any particular website or did you just try to learn it using the LotR appendix like I did? I kind of got my own version from there then later I ended up looking it up on the internet. And I downloaded some fonts but it's hard to use because the keys don't corrrespond with the letters. Anyone know of a way to fix that?

[Sminty_Smeagol]

I don't know tengwar, and I don't know how to learn it but that'd be neat. Last year I typed out the names of my subjects on my computer and converted the font to Tengwar and wrote that on my folder.

Anyone have a good website for learning the tengwar? or any other of the runes and stuff?

-~*SmintZ

[Rían]

Glad to see you two here Just time for a quick post, will do more later - I started with LoTR Appendix, but it didn't seem complete and was also confusing what with the different modes represented (Quenyan, Sindarin and English - whew!) so I searched on the internet and found some good sites.

The two best (for me) are (sorry, don't know how to make links, I'll just type it out) http://hem.passagen.se/mansb/at/tengwar.htm and http://wwwusers.imaginet.fr/~smartin...nglish_eng.htm .

The table from the first site was useful, but still confusing because it used some phoenetic symbology that I didn't understand. I made a copy of it, 'cause I liked the format and a lot of the info on it, then added notes from the info in the second site, which gave examples for each letter ("T" as in "TIE", etc). Then just straight memorization until I got to where I could write without referring to the table. (actually, I found I could memorize them in similar-sounding groups, but no time to explain now, I'll try later). Good Luck!

[Rían]

...and I don't have the computer fonts working, either!! I've tried several times and something always gets fouled up. Can't help you there, katya - keep me informed on the keyboard issue, though, 'cause I'm sure I'll get them downloaded eventually... thanks!

[katya]

oh yeah...that was kind of hard. i think I ended up somehow getting the fonts (i have three) saved to something i dont remember...then i followed the instructions on the page but it was still kind of messed up. it's confusing to do. well good luck with it anyway. they do have tengwar translators out there too but think maybe you need to have a font on your computer. but anyway it is a method of avoiding the keyboard problem (that doesn't involve more memorizing). either way, it's still more fun to write it out yourself.
ps-my screen saver is in tengwar.

[Sminty_Smeagol]

how long did it take you to learn it? can you write in it fluently? how old are you?

[Rían]

Originally posted by katya
hey RÃ*an!! (see look i copied the "Ã*"-I feel so special!!!)

Hey, great job! Doesn't it look prettier that way? I picked RÃ*an for my Entmoot name because I always liked the way it looks and sounds, not because of anything to do with the character, who has a rather sad story, and only a couple of lines in the Sil. Her son, Tuor, is nice, though!

One of these days I'll get my nerve up and pm Ñólendil (who not only has TWO accent marks in his name, but usually puts lots of Quenyan names with lots of accent marks all over them in his posts) and ask him how he types them in.

[Sminty_Smeagol]

thanks a lot for answering my post
heh

Anyways, here's a link for all those Alt characters :
http://www.lissaexplains.com/alt.shtml

But I read that in Elvish named you don't have to use them when you're just writing notes, but since their pronunciation notes, you would only use the marks when they are going to be read aloud.


-~*Smintz

[Rían]

Originally posted by Sminty_Smeagol
how long did it take you to learn it? can you write in it fluently? how old are you?

did you mean me or katya?

Thanks for the link - I'll check it out asap.

[Rían]

Sorry this is coming in such short little snatches, but I'm really busy this weekend ... Hope to have more time Monday.

Just a quick note to tell you that if you try to translate the Tengwar inscription at the top of the page on the first link, you might have trouble with the 5th and the last words. Because they are actually Quenyan words, they are written in the Quenyan mode, where you read letter symbols that are in the same column from the bottom up, instead of from top down (like the English and Sindarin modes). The 5th word is "Aman", and the last word is "Tengwar" (the second consonant symbol is "NGW" in the Quenyan mode. Now have I totally confused you?) Try to translate the rest - let me know what you come up with! Good luck - feel free to ask me more questions if I can help you.

[Sminty_Smeagol]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
did you mean me or katya?

Thanks for the link - I'll check it out asap.

either one lol... i was just being a cynical little person.

-~*Smintz

[Rían]

I'm 43, female, it took me about a month to really learn the characters so I didn't have to peek at my cheat sheet, and while I can't quickly scribble, I write pretty fluently now. How old are you guys? If I remember, I think you were both in your teens, but I could be way off... If I don't write anything for a week or so, I sometimes have to resort back to my cheat sheet, but after a couple of days, I get fluent again.

[Ñólendil]

I mess around with Tengwar now and then, in Quenya. I've done Elvish genealogies in it, and things like that. I even did the Altariello Nainië Lóriendesse, before I found out that Tolkien already did it and had it all printed out nice and neat in The Road Goes Ever On.

I think this would be a perfect place to note that I believe you've made a mistake in your Tengwarin name, RÃ*an.

If you're doing it in Quenya, you should have an "R" with the tehta for "i" over it, but then you should have that character like an "i" without the dot, with the tehta for "a" over that, then the "n". This is because, as I am sure you are aware, the vowel signs are always placed over the preceeding consonant, where possible, or otherwise over that dotless "i" character.

In other words both your vowel signs need to be bumped back one, unless "RÃ*an" is ... oh. It's Sindarin, isn't it? My bad. Somehow I must have got "RÃ*el" in my head.

[Rían]

I got the name from the Sil (also in Morgoth's Ring, one of my favorites) - Tuor's mom, as I'm sure you know. I just always thought it looked and sounded pretty. I wouldn't think it's Quenyan, it could be Sindarin, but really I am just writing it in the English mode since it is a non-Elvish person (English mode places the vowels like the Sindarin mode). (See my post a few posts ago where I was trying to warn Sminty about reading Quenyan words and how the vowel placement is different from English and Sindarin modes. Really threw me for a loop for awhile, until I found the vowel placement description.)

While you're here, could you please tell me how you type in all those special accent marks (tilde over n, accented vowels, umlaut, circumflex, etc)? Do you do it with the alt key and a number code, like Sminty's link, or is there a better way? I have just copied and pasted in the past, but sometimes can't find the right thing to copy. Thanks (ps - really enjoy your posts, esp. all those lovely Quenyan names you put in!)

[Sminty_Smeagol]

Originally posted by RÃ*an
I'm 43, female, it took me about a month to really learn the characters so I didn't have to peek at my cheat sheet, and while I can't quickly scribble, I write pretty fluently now. How old are you guys? If I remember, I think you were both in your teens, but I could be way off...:

I am 13. I asked the age considering it tends to have an effect on ability to learn new things...


-~*Smintz

[katya]

sminty, i will answer your quetion too. i am 14 years old. it didn't take me long to learn it at all. i had it memorized so that i didnt have to look at the sheet in about a day, with maybe one glance or two the next day for weird ones. then after that to be really fluent i just wrote a lot of stuff down like songs and things until i pretty much had it. that is really a never ending process but i could write without thinking about every single thing pretty quickly, in a couple of days. of course, i kept changing my mind on how things should be as far as vowels and things because my version is a little different than the english version on the internet. you're right about how age affects your learning abilities. that is why i want to learn a lot of languages while it is still easier for me, like quenya and french.

[Sminty_Smeagol]

It takes me FOREVER to learn any language stuff. I'm not dumb, but I'm challenged when it comes to new languages lol (even though I am young) I studied Quenya pretty consistently for a month and I only know like 3 phrases and I hardly remember anything.

I will study the Tengwar today if I get a chance, we have company over. I hope it doesn't take me TOO long to learn it.

-~*Smintz

[katya]

good luck sminty, and anyone else who is going to learn

[Rían]

Originally posted by katya
you're right about how age affects your learning abilities. that is why i want to learn a lot of languages while it is still easier for me, like quenya and french.

It's DEFINITELY easier to learn languages when you are younger! Let me redefine the month it took for me to learn - it was mostly study a bit one day, skip 3 or 4 days, study a bit for one day, skip 3 or 4 days, etc., until I just decided I had to do every day if I was going to get anywhere. Then it took about 5 or 6 days to really get it down. It's not as hard as learning a language, as you are still working in English - just different characters.

Katya - how fast can you read what you wrote if you come back to it a few days later (and it is just random writing, not a phrase from the book or something you have memorized). I have to read letter-by-letter for most of the word, except for really short words.

Sminty - I found memorizing in groups helped. Start with what I called the "P" group (the Tengwar character looks like a "P" - the group is t, p, then d and b. The Tengwar characters are the open p-looking-thing, the closed-p-looking-thing, the double-open-p-looking-thing, then the double-closed-p-looking-thing. Also, if you read the links I provided, you'll notice that the open Tengwar characters you say with open lips, and the closed ones you say with lips touching or teeth touching lips. Tolkien really knew his language stuff and did this on purpose.

After the "p" series, I did the "b" looking series of th, f, soft th and v. Again, open tengwars mean open lips, closed mean teeth closed to lips.

Well, I'll stop now - you get the idea - just ignore if this doesn't help, but I am very interested in language theory and enjoyed how the closed/open tengwar characters cooresponded with various mouth/teeth/lip positions.

Katya - did you memorize in groups or patterns, or just flat-out memorize?