Comments on: Twilight of the Elves

By: Ashley

Ashley — Tue, 30 May 2006 04:39:58 +0000

Hi, my sister keeps having this nightmare where a figure says this phrase to her and then she dies. It’s occurred for a long time, and I think the phrase is in Elvish. I don’t know how to write it, but she said that it’s pronounced “doh-bah-tee-noh-mahn-toe-loe”. Can you help me out?

By: antonio

antonio — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 00:01:32 +0000

hi i really wanna learn elvish

By: Jonathan Meeks

Jonathan Meeks — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 18:57:53 +0000

Hey Ned
I’m a little middle-of-nowhere Utah kid who wants to learn the Elvish alphabet and how to use it quickly. Will you please send me a copy of your tutorial? I looked, but I can’t find my way around it.

By: hwarang

hwarang — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 09:04:51 +0000

Thanks for making your simple guide to writing elvish. I am one of those legions who wants to write their name in pretty elvish letters but not spend weeks, months and years studying tolkiens langauges. I really enjoyed your little tutorial, thankyou :)

By: Ned

Ned — Mon, 05 Apr 2004 03:19:49 +0000

Thanks for the thoughtful comments. Simplicity was my primary goal in making my little guide. There are many Elvish experts out there, but there are absolutely hordes of people who just want a quick way to see what their name looks like, but they can’t be bothered with too many details. I’m trying to help them.

In keeping with the simplest possible approach, I prefer to do a straight letter-for-letter transcription rather than a phonetic transliteration. There are many reasons why this might not be ideal, but it has the virture of being straightforward and unambiguous. Because of this, I generally don’t worry about long versus short vowels. I am well aware of the special treatment of diphthongs, and had I been writing a slightly longer guide, I would have included a mention of them.

I know that Tolkien typically placed the vowel over the following consonant in English transcriptions, but I learned Elvish by reverse-engineering a Quenya poem (Namarie), and so that approach became more comfortable for me. It’s a personal preference. As for the two dots signifying a vowel y when over the consonant, I’d be curious to know what your reference is for that.

Elvish has the advantage and disadvantage of being used mostly for display rather than communication. I have seen many variants presented in many places. Mine is just one.

By: Melroch

Melroch — Sun, 04 Apr 2004 13:06:04 +0000

Hi Ned,

your guide to writing English with Tengwar is IMO
rather well thought out in its simplicity.
I’m afraid you got one thing a little wrong:
The two dots for _y_ should be *over* the letter
when _y_ is a vowel as in “cycle”, but under
it when it is a consonant after another consonant
as in “canyon”. FWIW I would also use this sign
in words like “question” _kwestyon_
and “righteous” _rietyus_. Also you have omitted
the common mark for _w_ after a consonant, as
in “twist”, which is like a skewed S. You have
also omitted the common way of writing vowel
combinations like _ai, ay, ei, ey, oi, oy_ with
the sign for _a, e, o_ over tengwa #35 and
likewise _au, aw, eu, ew, ou, ow_ with the signs
for _a, e, o_ over tengwa #36 (and personally I
would use tengwa #24 similarly for _a_ in _ea,
oa_) I would also use the so-called long carrier
which looks like a Roman _j_ to write _ee, ie, oo_
at the very least. Moreover Tolkien preferred to
write the vowel sign over the *following* conso-
nant when writing English. IMO that looks rather
better especially when the consonant is followed
by a silent _e_, which is then written under the
preceding consonant.

As you say there are many ways to write English
with Tengwar, and spelling is essentially free,
but Tolkien mostly followed these conventions
himself.