Tengwar
Tengwar is an artificial script which was invented by J. R. R. Tolkien. In his works, the Tengwar script, supposedly invented by FÃÂëanor, was used to write a number of the languages of Middle-earth, including Quenya and Sindarin. However it can also be used to write other languages, such as English (most of J. R. R. Tolkien's tengwar samples we know of are actually in English).
The word tengwar is Quenya for "letters." The Tengwar were based on the older Sarati alphabet by RÃÂúmil of Valinor.
The most notable characteristic of the tengwar script is that the shapes of the letters correspond to the features of the sounds they represent.
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, called ÃÂómatehtar (or vowel tehtar) modes, represent vowels with diacritics called tehtar, whilst other modes, called full writing modes, represent vowels by normal letters. Some modes map the basic consonants to /t/, /p/, /k/, and /k_w/, whilst others use them to represent /t/, /p/, /tS/, and /k/. Some modes follow pronunciation, whilst others rather follow traditional orthography. The 'full writing' modes are sometimes called Beleriandic mode.
The 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 underlined, and may be on the left or right of the stem).
The principal letters are divided into 4 series that correspond to the main places of articulation and into 6 rows 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 voicelessless stop consonants for that series. For the classical Quenya mode, they are: t,p,c,qu, and the series are named: tincotÃÂéma, parmatÃÂéma, calmatÃÂéma, quessetÃÂéma (tÃÂéma means "series" in Quenya).
In rows of the general use, there are the follwing correspondences between letter shapes and manners or articulation:
- Doubling the bow turns the voiceless consonant into a voiced one.
- 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. It must be noted though that like in most modes, the signs with shortened stem and single bow don't correspond to the voiceless consonant nasalss, but to the approximants.
- The basic sign represents "p" - which looks much like the letter p (the bow is to the right and underlined).
- With the bow doubled, it represents "b"
- With a raised stem, it represents "f"
- With a raised stem and a doubled bow, it represents "v"
- With short stem and double bow, it represents "m".
- With short stem and single bow, it represents "w".
- With descending stem and double bow, we have "mb"
- With ascending and double bow, we have "mp".
However, as many of the consonants can be rotated to form other valid consonants (as in Shavian), there exists a high potential for dyslexia among users of Tengwar.
Since the publication of the first official description of Tengwar at the end of The Lord of the Rings, others have created modes for other languages such as Spanish, German, Esperanto, and Lojban.
Tolkienists have created several Tengwar fonts for various computer systems. A proposal has been made to include Tengwar in the Unicode standard.
Peter Jackson's movie trilogy commencing with features numerous books and artifacts with Tengwar inscriptions. Even though they were scrupulously researched for accuracy, they still show a couple of peculiarities and inconsistencies not found in J. R. R. Tolkien's own tengwar samples.
Another movie problem is that the Hobbits are shown writing in the Latin alphabet, while the books state that the Hobbits used Tengwar according to the Beleriandic (full writing) mode.
Other conscripts by Tolkien include the Cirth.
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