Elvish writing looks distinctive and compact partly because consonants are treated like letters and vowels are treated like punctuation marks. In the Quenya Elvish variation that I use, vowels are drawn over (or sometimes under) the consonants they follow. So the name John Brady is written like this:

What about when a word starts with a vowel? In that case, the initial vowel sits on a little carrier symbol as in the name Alan shown below.

Sometimes other abbreviations occur for double consonants or other special combinations. Look at the name Donna Anderson, for example.

It can get quite complex. This page is merely meant to give a flavor of how the writing works. If you want to learn more about how to write Elvish yourself, look at my page Write Your Name in Elvish in Ten Minutes, and if you really want to learn about all the details, I recommend the Tolkien Script Publishing site.

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