Um. Hi. First time Redditor here. Someone in another group I’m in bought this fabric and is trying to translate it. I know absolutely nothing about Tengwar, but I am hopeful someone can tell me if this actually says anything or if it’s just gibberish printed on fabric to appeal to LOTR fans. It looks to me like half of it is upside down, but other than that, I got nothing. Thanks for any help!

Hi. I have been trying to find the correct way to get "All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given us" written in Tengwar. I have found a number of posts about this but they all seem to have a different answer. Is there a right answer to this? I have an appointment for a tattoo in August and just want to make sure it is as accurate as possible.

This post here is one of the examples that I keep finding https://www.reddit.com/r/Tengwar/comments/euthjo/elvish_all_we_have_to_decide_is_what_to_do_with/

I have also tried the different transcription tools and I am getting different results between the 3 of them.

https://preview.redd.it/22xereuhpiwc1.png?width=2154&format=png&auto=webp&s=c991699ea61c192cf2d9f0ec1d91c17b7e6de7a0

https://preview.redd.it/ltvovidnpiwc1.png?width=605&format=png&auto=webp&s=598124b15dc2cd4459dcbdf4956c5edea80cb670

https://preview.redd.it/juzpdtvrpiwc1.png?width=625&format=png&auto=webp&s=4570505169fab6af05ee6765f40f8ff3a6cfb829

Any help would be appreciated!

Edit:

So what I am understanding from that other post that either of these two would be pretty good transcriptions

https://preview.redd.it/ok3w9ueb7jwc1.png?width=2154&format=png&auto=webp&s=401ae457b6bc47548091d4d43b67aff71a7298ce

https://preview.redd.it/oyu8g86e7jwc1.png?width=2154&format=png&auto=webp&s=48a42e076156b0aca158da0a04f07bc952a8760c

From Balin's inscription, a Mithril inspired ring

So. There's one of the variant Sindarin words for "rider," which is "Rochon."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 'ch' in Rochon is pronounced like "loch."

In tengwar, the calma character is used to pronounce 'ch' as in "China" or "chair," and the quessë is pronounced like in "chameleon" or "chemical."

My guess is that that the /k/ pronunciation, as represented by those latter words, was historically pronounced as the guttural "ch" as in "loch," and therefore the correct character to use would be the quessë. Is this correct?

If the quessë, may I have a quick explanation as to when to use the quessë vs. the extended quessë?

Is this correct? It looks like the R-rule is applied correctly, and I checked the individual letter symbols but just wanted to ask knowledgeable folks here because I'm new to this.

https://preview.redd.it/xue40niyl8wc1.png?width=721&format=png&auto=webp&s=f18249c72b5b0afa7e9c52b8b8bba90c678f8cc0

Hi all!

Could I please check with you if this is the correct transcription for the names Torsten and Espen for tattoo purposes?

Thank you so much! ☺️

This should read Waterman like a name, not two separate words.

I'm still confused about how the different writings work but I've only just started.

I was told a Tengwar Mode for English exists, but I have not managed to find any resources for it; does anyone happen to know where I can find them/does anyone have links?

In "Sauron Defeated" we are treated with the Notion Club Papers that contain two drafts (three pages) of a document written in Old English in a variety of what is there identified as Númenorean script, i.e. a tengwar mode from Númenor that is applied to Old English.

Many features of this mode are very unique, which makes it very interesting to me. But the most interesting (and mysterious) aspect is the glimpse that it gives us into how Númenoreans appear to have written their own language as well as Elvish. There are two names in the later one of these texts (the one we're focusing on) that aren't Old English - one being Quenya Tarcalion and the other Adûnaic Zigûr - and these names show some differences in spelling from the Old English application. The chart I provide shows my interpretation of how this Númenorean tengwar mode might look like, based upon these documents and the Adûnaic phonology as presented in that same book.

First of all the témar application might be a stage between the original Eldarin scheme (t-, p-, k- and kw-series - exemplified in both the classical Quenya and the antique Sindarin modes) and the later possibly Manish scheme (t-, p-, ch- and k-series). Adûnaic proper doesn't possess a post-alveolar ch-series like Westron (with [tʃ], [dʒ], [ʃ],...), but Primitive Adûnaic did possess a palatal one (with [c], [ɟ], [ç],...) and was quite similar to Old English in this respect. The Old English in this document does differentiate <c> before front vowels ([c], written with calma) from <c> before back vowels ([k], written with quesse) and also <g> in the same position (the exact phonology being yet more complicated), so I think it's very safe to assume that this is exactly the situation we find in early sources of Adûnaic spelling when a tengwar mode was first created.

It appears, however, that this distinction was indeed only found in old inscriptions, and we know that Adûnaic z was not written with anga (since it derived from [ɟ] - more on that below), so that it seems that series III was entirely abandoned in regular use. Only [j] (<y>), the sole palatal survivor, would need a letter and that could easily have been yanta (this is not found in Old English where this sound derived from g and was hence spelt with anca, which wouldn't make any sense in Adûnaic).

The voiceless spirants of Adûnaic were most likely spelt the same way they were in Eldarin: mostly using the third tyelle, with <th> being written with súle and <s> with silme, just as in Sindarin and old-fashioned Quenya. No voiced spirants existed, at first, and only later did [z] derive from [ɟ] and was obviously assigned to the unused letter anto because this is the only logical choice for a voiced spirant of the t-series in a scenario where esse (the letter for [z] in later modes) was consistently used for [s:] in both Quenya and Sindarin. Yes, in Old English indeed esse was used for [z] but that is probably simply due to the fact that all four spirants (s, z, þ and ð) need representation and this seems like the only logical system. The last interesting note on consonants is that similar to Sindarin it was apparently felt that only one letter for <r> is needed, but other than in Sindarin óre is consistently used for all <r>, with rómen being reassigned to <w>, even though vala and úre would have been available (vilya probably rather representing the glottal stop of Primitive Adûnaic).

The vowels pose more problems... They are represented by tehtar placed upon the preceeding consonants and seem to be of the regular assignment for the most part, only the common <u> and <o> being swapped, which is not entirely unusual. However - "Tarcalion" is in our example written without a-tehtar, with the vowelless <r> and <n> being stopped by a subscript dot, so that it seems that the common Quenya method of abbreviating this vowel was adopted. It is also found in one occurrence of "Zigûr" under the <r>, so it seems this kind of spelling isn't limited to spelling Quenya, especially considering how extremely common <a> is in Adûnaic (even more so than in Quenya, it appears).

This stopping of vowelless consonants presents its own problems, though. In representing Old English the subscript vowel tehtar are only used for the second vowel in a diphthong. We only have diphthongs <eo>, <io> and <ea> in our corpus (and so only find subscript <o> and <a>), but if we had diphthongs ending in <-i> it is reasonable to assume that a subscript dot would be used for those. Adûnaic has four diphthongs, two of which end in <-i>, so what to do? Does this mean that the Old English method of writing diphthongs was in fact created for the (uncommon) diphthongs of Old English and we would simply spell Adûnaic diphthongs out? Unfortunately that seems like the safest bet and I wouldn't suggest that anything else would even be likely, but I have a pet idea... The fact of the matter is that "Tarcalion" is not actually spelt with a single dot for <i> but with a double one. Might this be a simple alternative tehta, not being used for long [i:] (as sometimes seen in Classical Quenya) but for regular short [i]? How would this come about? Well, maybe the two dots were originally introduced into Adûnaic writing with the same value they had in Classical Quenya: as [j], which is consonantal [i], of course. We do know that Eldarin always liked to write the -i and -u in diphthongs with their consonantal counterparts (-j and -w), so maybe originally Adûnaic diphthongs in -i were spelt with the respective first vowel on top of the preceding tengwa and two dots below represented the second part? I think it's a possibility, though a very slim one. This might explain how the general idea even came about and at the same time explain the alternative tehta itself. For my calligraphic endeavours (a few of which might follow) I chose to do so and also used two dots for regular <i> occasionally, though only when another vowel (not part of a diphthong) followed, as in "Tarcalion", but I do not expect anyone to buy into this.

Long vowels can be written with a long carrier, but this can also be cut in half, so to speak, and be placed like a tehta underneath the preceding consonant. Note, however, that all four Adûnaic diphthongs have a long first vowel, which might again cause problems with the diphthong spelling I propose (having a long stem under the tengwa as well as a vowel tehta), but the <ô-> and <ê-> of ôi and êu could alternatively be written with doubled tehtar, and simply spelling out the a-tehta for âi and âu could be considered a long vowel (as in some spellings of Quenya) since absence of tehta counts as <a>. Likewise we might have several options for <e> and <o>. We've know from phonological development that they are always long (deriving from /ai/ and /au/), but the transcription doesn't always seem to represent that and if the long form is the only version these vowels appear in - is there then even a point in marking their length?

That should be all, I believe, but I would love to hear some opinions about my ideas.

Is this the correct inscription for the one ring?

https://preview.redd.it/33yizvqw77vc1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bbd51128e52d375287263ad294c9414861b934a8

author says it means "may the moonlight guide your path."

hmmmmm

(im translating this manga rn, head hurts and now im learning Elvish)

https://preview.redd.it/fjf8enemiyuc1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=acd5ad5089ff23c4823317a6b95ce4dedf527bc0

I know it is technically just gibberish and not true Tengwar, but would someone be able to help me out with a simple chart of English letters and numbers (punctuation too)? I do a lot of quote journaling and would like to use the script for some things while still keeping the English format to preserve the actual quote itself if that makes sense. I’ve found some stuff online but I’d love it if someone here could help since I know you all will be truly accurate. Thank you!!

Hi everyone, I'm researching for a potential lotr tattoo of the word 'love' and I am finding it a bit confusing to translate to Quenya. I've looked at a couple of reddit posts and these are two options that I have seen repeatedly- would someone please be able to explain the difference, and if one would be better suited than the other for a tattoo? Thanks so much :)

​

https://preview.redd.it/zj23ksg4zpuc1.png?width=1181&format=png&auto=webp&s=bc9afe17f2c64a44a23298772e649b2ac74223cd

https://preview.redd.it/7awr4fzmypuc1.png?width=1295&format=png&auto=webp&s=b2f8df087d3f6fba9dd33ea2ce48612602c6d470

I am planning some tattoos of my daughters’ names. After typing them into Tecendil, here’s what I got.

My first daughter (the top name) is named Edel, pronounced “Ay•dl” like the edelweiss flower.

My second daughter is named Hilde, pronounced “Hill•dee”

I'm looking for someone to handwrite a transcription of a very long poem I wrote for a DnD game into Tengwar on a scroll I will buy for you. I am willing to pay for your hard work.

{hwesta-sindarinwa}{telco}[breve] {ando}{telco}[right-curl] {telco}[dot-above] {ungwe}[acute][right-curl-below]{alt-silme}[dot-above]{tinco} {formen}[dot-above] {nuumen}{tinco}[right-curl] {tinco}{telco}[right-curl] {umbar}{telco}[acute] {telco}[triple-dot-above] {umbar}{oore}[left-curl]{ando}{nuumen}[acute] {tinco}{telco}[right-curl] {malta}{telco}[breve] {lambe}{ampa}[right-curl][dot-below]{ando} {nuumen}[right-curl][dot-below]{hook}{question-mark}

Does anyone maintain, or know of, a list of tengwar texts that aren't yet on the DTS index or even its pre-index? I know the Tolkien Art Index lists some of these, but it specifically avoids items only consisting of tengwar or cirth (so it doesn't list anything new from Art of the Manuscript for example).

I'm currently establishing my own collection and would like to know what I'm missing.

I also have possibly "discovered" (it really wasn't hidden) another text to add to such a list—and a second depending on how unpublished texts are dealt with—as I've never read about them before. Nothing exciting, nothing new… and only six tengwar shared between these two "texts"!

The first is an inscription in a 1971 copy of The Hobbit for sale at Tolkien Library: "Tolkien" spelled the same way as DTS 70 (three years prior). Seems to be in ballpoint pen which makes it a little unique.

The second was part of an auction in 2019, another late example, this time from Tolkien's final year: an envelope addressed in Elvish script to "D". Unfortunately this is not shown in the only image.

I like this phrase very much....

Greetings!/Saludos! =)

https://preview.redd.it/lk56fr40oktc1.png?width=1500&format=png&auto=webp&s=73f9074d8f052cbf6d9ee3a5397d88172e67f6eb

Looking to get the word quilde tattooed. Using the listed resources this is what I get. Would it be correct?

Planning to engrave this inside a ring and wanted to double check that it looks good

Phrase I want "I love you to the Shire and back". Not necessary for it to be translated, just the alphabet is good. i did use two sites and find minor differences in how the word shire was written but both seem similar/fine to me

Tecendil version \"

glaemscrafu version \"I love you to the Shire & back\"

I need the text "Melodic Doom Metal from Austria" written in Tengwar for shirt designs for my band. Did Tecendil did a good job?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Thinking this might be tengwar and hoping someone can help with a translation or any suggestions. Have already tried deciphering with some of the sites listed in here but not seem to be getting anywhere. any help is appreciated!

https://preview.redd.it/5b7qltv3n5tc1.jpg?width=529&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cd0a5b41441afd232e5ab9d72fe6f258a19e7a7e

Hi guys! I would like to get the famous poem about Aragorn as tattoo, but would also like to add some lines later in the poem, as those speak more to me and have other meaning for me. How would I transcribe it?

Not all those who wander are lost From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring

Thank you so much in advance! Lots of love