Elvish writing. Elvish writing. Principles of vowel recording
You may ask - why speak in invented languages, because no one understands them? That's the point! Suppose you need to talk about something very important on the phone (or, more recently, on Skype), and you definitely don’t want your competitors to overhear you, and even less so the intelligence agencies. No, they will eavesdrop, but they probably won’t understand a word. All you need is for your partner at the other end of the line (on the other side of the monitor) to also know this language.
Plus, learning any new language is a great workout for the brain. And for this you don’t need to go to language courses – just patience and the Internet
The Utopian Language of Thomas More
I hope from your history lessons you remember who Thomas More was? A professor, writer, lawyer, diplomat and politician who lived at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries and disliked English society so much that he came up with a country of prosperity long before Marx-Engels-Lenin, and called it “Utopia”, which also means “the best place.” " and "missing place". The voluminous work was published in 1516 and was written in Latin. However, Thomas More assumed that fundamental in the new ideal society was new language, unlike anything before.
Tolkien's Tengwar (Elvish) language
Well, don't tell me that you've never been thrilled with Liv Tyler speaking Sindarin Tengwar fluently. This is the language of Valarin, Telerin, Sindarin, a bunch of other places, and even the Dark Language of Mordor. When you master the language perfectly and you have “our Charm” in your hands, that is, the Ring of Omnipotence, do not rush to destroy it. It might come in handy.
Kirt - Tolkien's dwarven language
And, if we started talking about Middle-earth, then we must not forget about the numerous people of gnomes. The population of Moria successfully integrated the Kirt alphabet (or Kertas Daeron) into their Khuzdul language, because... well, you know, dwarves don’t write - they carve words in stone. In principle, there is an assumption that Tolkien almost exactly “rolled” the kirth from the Celtic runes. So, at the same time, learn the language that is still spoken in some places in Ireland.
Futurama Alien Language
If you think that the strange icons that appear in many episodes of Futurama are just a set of symbols that came into the head of Matt Groeneng, then you are very mistaken. Just as, until recently, we were mistaken. Cartoon aliens even have punctuation marks. This means that this language is the future :)
Klingon language from Star Trek
How can you make a list of fictional languages and not mention Klingon? This language has gained such popularity that there are a certain number of people in the world who speak it fluently. Moreover, Shakespeare and even the Bible are translated into Klingon. The only inconvenience with Klingon is that, most likely, in the “cunning schools” all over the Earth, just in case, they are already teaching it.
Aurek Besh - the language of the Jedi
Despite the fact that Aurek Besh first appeared only in the film Return of the Jedi, I can assume that the Jedi have been speaking it for many centuries.
Kryptonian - Superman's language
Kryptonian (or Kryptonese) is spoken, not surprisingly, on Krypton, Clark Kent's home planet. When you decide to learn this language, don’t forget about Superman’s curse, and also think about the fact that when you end your post on Facebook (VKontakte, Twitter, etc.) with a double exclamation mark, you are actually writing the letter “a”.
Language of the Ancients from Stargate
If you believe the SG-1 series, then this is the language the Ancients wrote and spoke – the people who created (including) earthly civilization millions of years ago. Although, it should be noted that the appearance of this font, we, in fact, owe to an old Czech poster, on the basis of which it was created by artist Boyd Godfrey for the pilot episode " Star Gates: Atlantis".
Dragon runes
The language of dragons is considered the most ancient of all that existed on Earth. Dragons are generally taciturn creatures, but if they began to speak, they expressed themselves exclusively in this language. People in the Middle Ages often used Draconic as a universal language of magic. Now it’s difficult to check exactly how it sounds. And all thanks to Saint George, who destroyed, they say, the last living dragon on the planet.
In the Elvish languages, there are two writing systems, two alphabets. Today we will talk about the oldest of them. It is called tengwar. Tengwar was invented by Fëanor ("Fiery Spirit") (according to another version, Rumil of Tirion, a Noldor elf), the inspirer of the Noldor rebellion and the creator of the three Silmaril diamonds. There are 24 signs in the tengwar, which are divided into 4 series (témara) and 6 levels (tyellë). Tengwar signs are called tengwa. Tengvas consist of a “trunk” (telko) and a semicircle (lúvë). Both of these elements are determined by the phonetics of the sound denoted by tengwa. Namely: the barrel lowered down means a short sound; raised up - spirant; the arch is open - the lips are open; the arch is closed - the lips are closed (labial sounds). Doubling the arc means voicing the sound. Vowel sounds were indicated in tengwar by superscripts. These superscripts were called tehts. Tehts were placed above the tengwa preceding the vowel sound (in Quenya), or above the subsequent one (in Sindarin). If a word began with a vowel sound, then a special symbol “andait” was used, which in itself does not mean anything, but is needed only so that a tehta can be placed above it. The technical notes looked like this:
The diphthongs ai, oi, ui were drawn with the corresponding tehts above the tengwa yanta. For the diphthongs au, eu, iu, the tehts a, e and i were placed above the tengwa úrë.
Let's take a closer look at the Tengwar alphabet itself. As already mentioned, it is divided into 4 topics and six rows.
IN first theme - it is called after its upper tengwe tincotéma - the arc is open at the bottom and is located to the right of the trunk. This - dental sounds t, nd, þ, nt, n, r.
In second – parmatema – the same, but arc closed. Here are labial sounds p, mb, f, mp, m, v.
Third – calmatéma – the same as the first, but the arc is located to the left of the trunk and is open at the top. This - postopalatine sounds k, also known as c, s, ng, kh, nk, e (semi-vowel, semi-consonant sound).
AND fourth , quessetéma is an exact copy of the second, only also turned to the left of the trunk and open at the top. This labial posterior palatal– kw, also known as q, ngw, khw, nkw/nq, nw and simply w or v.
As for the horizontal tieller levels, they look like this:
First - tincotyellë, named as you understand, by its first letter - it is, as it were, basic, all the others are its modifications: in it the trunk is directed downward, and there is one arc with it. This - voiceless short– t, p, k, kw (q) .
Second – andotyellë, depicted as a double arc with the trunk down, contains in Quenya tengwar nasal voiced short sounds, namely nd, mb, ng and ngw.
Third – thuletyellë – one arch, but the trunk is up. These are deaf spirants - th, f, kh, khw.
Fourth – antotyellë, trunk up and double arch – nasal And brief same, but deaf: nt, mp, nk and nkw, aka nq.
Fifth – numentyellë – the trunk is short, that is, there is no direction of the trunk, and there is a double arc. These are nasal and sonorant n, m, ng, ngw.
AND sixth – óretyellë, short trunk and one arc – the so-called semi-voiced sounds: r, v, y (our “th short”) and w.
There is also the so-called additional tengwar, which is absolutely necessary for the Elvish languages. It also has four series and three levels, but there is no system in it. Most likely, sounds were included there that both Rumil and Feanor found it difficult to classify according to the scheme of the main tengwar.
It includes the trill r, the sounds rd, l, ld, s, z, hy, it contains tengwa yanta for depicting i-diphthongs and úrë for u-diphthongs, as well as tengwa for voiceless h, such as in the word hlókë.
Tengwar Quenya Main
Tengwar Quenya Additional
An interesting set of concepts was used to name the tengwar letters.
It is possible to divide them into the following groups.
1) Cardinal directions: formen, numen, romen, hyarmen.
2) Words related to language and speech: parma – “book”, anto – “mouth”, anca – “jaw”, ore – “thought”, “inner mind”, hwesta – “breath”, thule (sule) – “spirit”, “breath”, lambe – “language”, esse – “name”.
3) Words related to craftsmanship: tinco – “metal”, calma – “lamp”, harma – “treasure”, anga – “iron”, malta – “gold”.
This may also include ando – “gate”, yanta – “bridge”, ampa – “hook”, quesse – “feather” (which can be an ornament), anna – “gift” (after all, the Noldor usually gave their creations as gifts) .
Other names are difficult to group together according to their meaning. However, I believe that for any of the Eldar such concepts as silme - “starlight”, wilya - “air, sky”, alda - “tree”, arda - “terrain”, “Universe” were important; for any of the Noldor of Aman - ngoldo (“Noldo”) “wise, knowledgeable”, vala “strength”.
The remaining concepts for writing: umbar - "rock", ungwe - "web", ynkwe - "emptiness", ngwalme - "torment", ur - "heat", perhaps associated with the dark times of the exodus of the Noldor.
The explanation for this is that either these names appeared already in Middle-earth, and initially the letters were called differently (after all, the name “are” appeared - “ sunlight" as an alternative to "esse"); or, if Feanor gave the names, it was a kind of foresight.
They used Tengwar to paint with a brush. This is what the tengwar inscription looks like:
Homework:
1) What are the names of: a) a sign of the Elvish alphabet, b) elements of a letter, c) a sign denoting a vowel sound, d) a special symbol to denote a vowel sound at the beginning of a word?
2) Describe in detail the possible positions of the tengwa elements and their meanings.
3) What is techtar? Why are techs needed?
4) Describe the sounds of any series and any row of tengwar.
5) Why was it necessary to create an additional tengwar?
Additional tasks:
1) Why do you think such words as umbar – “rock”, ungwe – “web”, ynkwe – “emptiness”, ngwalme – “torment” – were used in the names of tengwar signs? (5 points)
2) Translate the inscription given in the lecture from Elvish into Russian, using additional literature. Please indicate where these lines come from. Please indicate which type of Tengwar, Quenya or Sindarin it is. How did you determine this? (10 points)
3) Report “Tengwar Quenya and Tengwar Sindarin. Comparative analysis"
4) Essay - role-playing: “The Invention of the Tengwar” on behalf of Feanor or Rumil.
5) Find an inaccuracy in the lecture and write what it is (5 points).
* tables by Yagami Light & Adeline Delhi-Shafer
from left to right
24 main ones, 12 more additional ones, 2 andaites and 5 techtars
U+E000…U+E07F
Tengwar(sq. "writing") is one of the types of writing in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium.
Origin story
Legend
According to the plot of the Legendarium, the Tengwar was created by Fëanor, an elf of the Noldor people, based on the earlier Sarathi alphabet and was used to write most of the languages of Middle-earth, both Elvish (Quenya, Sindarin) and other peoples (Westron). Depending on the phonology of the language, different uses of tengwar are used.
Word tengwar translated from Quenya means “writing, signs for writing.” So the word tengwa makes it up singular and stands for one tengwar symbol.
Structure
The main 24 tengwar signs are combined into 4 row (temar), depending on the place of pronunciation. Rows I and II ( tincotema And parmatema) are almost always used for dental and labial consonants, respectively, row III - for palatal or velar, row IV - for velar or labiovelar.
Four rows divided into six steps (tyeller) depending on the method of articulation and use of the voice. Degrees 1 and 2 are used for voiceless and voiced stop consonants, 3 and 4 for voiceless and voiced fricatives, 5 for nasals and 6 for semivowels.
For convenience, additional signs are also combined into stages, but less regularly. Signs silmë And essë They exist in upright and inverted versions for ease of placement of superscripts.
To indicate vowels, in most variants, superscript vowel marks are used - tehts ( tehtar). Depending on the language, vowels are placed above the previous or next consonant (as seen in the examples, in Sindarin the vowels are placed above the next consonant, while in Annatara and Quenya they are placed above the previous consonant). There is also a complete notation in which andites are used for vowels, followed by tehts. There are andites for long (long andite, similar to j) and short vowels (short andite, similar to i).
Features of application
Quenya
Quenya uses the following scheme of correspondence between tengwar signs and pronunciation:
- ¹ is used before consonants and at the end of a word
- ² "empty" consonant, with two horizontal dots, used to represent the semivowel [j]
- ³ are used as part of the diphthongs ai, ei, oi, ui, au, eu, ou, iu
- 4 “h”, somewhat deafening subsequent “r” or “l”. For example, "hlare". In Age III Quenya, sound is not deafened, but is recorded in the same way
For vowels, symbols (“tehtar”, singular “tehta”) are used, written above the previous consonant (in Sindarin - above the next one) or above a special “carrier”. You can see them in the picture on the right.
Basic scheme
Most languages use one variation of the tengwar "basic pattern":
| t | p | ch | k |
| d | b | j | g |
| th [θ] | f | sh [ʃ] | kh[x] |
| dh [ð] | v | zh [ʒ] | gh[ɣ] |
| n | m | ñ | ng |
| [ɾ] | w | y[y] | - |
| r | rh 4 | l | lh 4 |
| s | s | z | z |
| h | hw[ʍ] 4 | e 5 | u 5 |
4 blind options r, l and w
5 are used as part of the diphthongs ai, ei, oi, ui, aw, ew, ow, iw
Scheme of Beleriand
| t | p | k | kw? |
| d | b | g | gw? |
| th [θ] | f | ch | chw? |
| dh | v | gh[ɣ] | ghw? |
| nn | mm | ng [ŋ] | ngw? |
| n | m | - | w |
| r | rh 4 | l | lh 4 |
| s | y | z | z |
| h | hw [ʍ] 4 | e 5 | u 5 |
4 blind options r, l and w
5 are used as part of the diphthongs ai, ei, oi, ui, aw, ew, ow, iw Note. Halla is used for i
Example text
The following is text from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights English language transliterated in tengwar.
⸬ ⸬
Translation:
All people are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and must act towards each other in a spirit of brotherhood.
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Links
- - Wikibook in English.
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Excerpt characterizing Tengwar
You probably heard about the heroic feat of Raevsky, who hugged his two sons and said: “I will die with them, but we will not waver!” And indeed, although the enemy was twice as strong as us, we did not waver. We spend our time as best we can; but in war, as in war. Princess Alina and Sophie sit with me all day long, and we, unfortunate widows of living husbands, have wonderful conversations over lint; only you, my friend, are missing... etc.Mostly Princess Marya did not understand the full significance of this war because the old prince never talked about it, did not acknowledge it and laughed at Desalles at dinner when he talked about this war. The prince's tone was so calm and confident that Princess Marya, without reasoning, believed him.
Throughout the month of July, the old prince was extremely active and even animated. He also laid out a new garden and a new building, a building for the courtyard workers. One thing that bothered Princess Marya was that he slept little and, having changed his habit of sleeping in the study, changed the place of his overnight stays every day. Either he ordered his camp bed to be set up in the gallery, then he remained on the sofa or in the Voltaire chair in the living room and dozed without undressing, while not m lle Bourienne, but the boy Petrusha read to him; then he spent the night in the dining room.
On August 1, a second letter was received from Prince Andrei. In the first letter, received shortly after his departure, Prince Andrei humbly asked his father for forgiveness for what he had allowed himself to say to him, and asked him to return his favor to him. The old prince responded to this letter with an affectionate letter and after this letter he alienated the Frenchwoman from himself. The second letter from Prince Andrei, written from near Vitebsk, after the French occupied it, consisted of brief description the entire campaign with the plan outlined in the letter, and with considerations for the further course of the campaign. In this letter, Prince Andrei presented his father with the inconvenience of his position close to the theater of war, on the very line of movement of the troops, and advised him to go to Moscow.
At dinner that day, in response to the words of Desalles, who said that, as heard, the French had already entered Vitebsk, the old prince remembered Prince Andrei’s letter.
“I received it from Prince Andrei today,” he said to Princess Marya, “didn’t you read it?”
“No, mon pere, [father],” the princess answered fearfully. She could not read a letter that she had never even heard of.
“He writes about this war,” said the prince with that familiar, contemptuous smile with which he always spoke about the real war.
“It must be very interesting,” said Desalles. - The prince is able to know...
- Oh, very interesting! - said Mlle Bourienne.
“Go and bring it to me,” the old prince turned to Mlle Bourienne. – You know, on a small table under a paperweight.
M lle Bourienne jumped up joyfully.
“Oh no,” he shouted, frowning. - Come on, Mikhail Ivanovich.
Mikhail Ivanovich got up and went into the office. But as soon as he left, the old prince, looking around uneasily, threw down his napkin and went off on his own.
“They don’t know how to do anything, they’ll confuse everything.”
While he walked, Princess Marya, Desalles, m lle Bourienne and even Nikolushka silently looked at each other. The old prince returned with a hasty step, accompanied by Mikhail Ivanovich, with a letter and a plan, which he, not allowing anyone to read during dinner, placed next to him.
Going into the living room, he handed the letter to Princess Marya and, laying out the plan of the new building in front of him, which he fixed his eyes on, ordered her to read it aloud. After reading the letter, Princess Marya looked questioningly at her father.
He looked at the plan, obviously lost in thought.
- What do you think about this, prince? – Desalles allowed himself to ask a question.
- I! I!.. - the prince said, as if awakening unpleasantly, without taking his eyes off the construction plan.
- It is quite possible that the theater of war will come so close to us...
- Ha ha ha! Theater of war! - said the prince. “I said and say that the theater of war is Poland, and the enemy will never penetrate further than the Neman.
Desalles looked with surprise at the prince, who was talking about the Neman, when the enemy was already at the Dnieper; but Princess Marya, who forgot geographical position Nemana thought that what her father was saying was true.
- When the snow melts, they will drown in the swamps of Poland. “They just can’t see,” said the prince, apparently thinking about the campaign of 1807, which seemed so recent. - Bennigsen should have entered Prussia earlier, things would have taken a different turn...
“But, prince,” Desalles said timidly, “the letter talks about Vitebsk...
“Ah, in the letter, yes...” the prince said dissatisfied, “yes... yes...” His face suddenly took on a gloomy expression. He paused. - Yes, he writes, the French are defeated, which river is this?
Desalles lowered his eyes.
“The prince doesn’t write anything about this,” he said quietly.
- Doesn’t he write? Well, I didn’t make it up myself. - Everyone was silent for a long time.
“Yes... yes... Well, Mikhaila Ivanovich,” he suddenly said, raising his head and pointing to the construction plan, “tell me how you want to remake it...”
Mikhail Ivanovich approached the plan, and the prince, after talking with him about the plan for the new building, looked angrily at Princess Marya and Desalles, and went home.
Princess Marya saw Desalles' embarrassed and surprised gaze fixed on her father, noticed his silence and was amazed that the father had forgotten his son's letter on the table in the living room; but she was afraid not only to speak and ask Desalles about the reason for his embarrassment and silence, but she was afraid to even think about it.
In the evening, Mikhail Ivanovich, sent from the prince, came to Princess Marya for a letter from Prince Andrei, which was forgotten in the living room. Princess Marya submitted the letter. Although it was unpleasant for her, she allowed herself to ask Mikhail Ivanovich what her father was doing.
TO To the great desire of the numerous and steadily growing masses of readers, the Professor tells us something about the writing of those languages that we touched upon in this textbook. Presumably, each of us, tormented by a hobbit passion for mysterious letters, spent a lot of time carefully copying elegant letters from disgusting photocopiers or the covers of leftist publications of some publishing house "Zhyldyz" in some city of Yoshkar-Ola and trying to calculate their reading by the most bizarre translations or, if one is lucky, based on the originals. This tradition could not help but lead to what it led to - to the fact that almost everyone now has their own Elvish writing, vividly reminding me of one of my roommates in one cheerful institution, who knew fourteen languages, and ten of them - - single-handedly across the globe.
So, now I will introduce you to the system that was used by a certain John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.
According to him, these letters were invented by a certain Rumil ( Rúmil), and after that their writing system was thoroughly edited by the famous genius of all times and peoples Feanor ( Fëanor), who, as it turns out, knew a lot about linguistics.
The letter is sent, exactly like ours, from left to right and from top to bottom. There is a theory that among the peoples who made a historical movement from the southeast to the northwest - among the Indo-Europeans, for example - writing is directed from left to right, while among the Semites who moved from north to south, for example - from right to left, that is, against the course of the sun. This theory believes that the direction of writing depends on which direction the sun shone mainly for this people. Well, the elves confirm it. However, the Japanese and Chinese write from top to bottom, and the Mayan Indians and Cretans of cultures A and B liked to write anything in a spiral. There will always be someone who takes pleasure in ruining a harmonious picture.
The Elvish alphabetic writing, which we will study here, in contrast to the Elven runic writing of Kertar, which we will not study, is something like an alphabet - includes twenty-four letters - tengwa. They are combined into a table - tengwar, in which each vertical is called téma, series, series, and each horizontal - tyellë (note the non-standard plural - tyelle r!), levels, levels. The main, basic tengwar, therefore, contains four themes and six tellers.
Now I will describe the type and content of the Quenya tengwar, since Feanor dealt with it, systematized it better than anyone, and this tengwar served as the basis for all other tengwars, which in each language were slightly modified in accordance with the phonetics of that language.
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Tengwa consists of two elements: telco - the trunk and lúvë - the arc. Both of these elements are determined by the phonetics of the sound denoted by tengwa. Namely: the barrel lowered down means a short sound; raised up - spirant; the arch is open - the lips are open; the arch is closed - the lips are closed (labial sounds). Doubling the arc means voicing the sound. There are exceptions to these harmonious rules; They are apparently caused by the fact that we are not entirely strong in Elvish phonology and do not quite correctly imagine the sound and pronunciation of Elvish sounds. In addition, the dog could grow up during the journey. |
IN first theme - it is called after its upper tengwe tincotéma - the arc is open at the bottom and is located to the right of the trunk. This -- dental sounds t, nd, þ, nt, n, r postvocalic.
In second -- parmatema -- the same, but arc closed. Here are labial (bilabial) sounds p, mb, f, mp, m, v.
Third -- calmatéma - the same as the first, but the arc is located to the left of the trunk and is open at the top. This -- posterior palatal (velar) sounds k, also known as c, s, ng, kh, nk, e (the sound is apparently similar to one of the Old Russian nasal yuses - half-vowel, half-consonant).
AND fourth , quessetéma - an exact copy of the second, only also turned to the left of the trunk and open at the top. This labial non-occlusive posterior palatal-- kw, also known as q, ngw, khw, nkw/nq, nw and simply w or v.
As for the horizontal tieller levels, they look like this:
First - tincotyellë, named as you understand, by its first letter - it is, as it were, basic, all the others are its modifications: in it the trunk is directed downward, and there is one arc with it. This -- voiceless short-- t, p, k, kw (q).
Third -- thuletyellë - one arch, but the trunk is up. These are voiceless spirants - þ (well, I think it has long been clear to our hedgehog that this is not “th”), f, kh, khw.
Fifth -- numentyellë - the trunk is short, that is, there is no direction of the trunk, and there is a double arc. These are nasal and sonorant n, m, ng, ngw.
If the tengwar had been constructed with full and exact observance of the principle, then the second teller would have to contain voiced shorts of types d and b, the fourth - voiced spirants ð and gh, and the sixth - voiceless nasals of types nh and mh. But the ancient elves either did not know Irish and Welsh, or simply were not strong in theoretical phonetics, and in their own language there were no such sounds, and the need to reserve letters for them did not occur to their wondrous and bright heads. Therefore, even tellers look different, not as they should according to the logic of the continuation of the scheme.
Second -- andotyellë, depicted as a double arc with the trunk down, contains in Quenya tengwar nasal voiced short sounds, namely nd, mb, ng and ngw.
Fourth -- antotyellë, trunk up and double arc -- nasal And brief same, but deaf: nt, mp, nk and nkw, aka nq.
AND sixth -- óretyellë, a short trunk and one arc -- the so-called semi-voiced sounds. I don’t know, again, what exactly was meant here, but these are only the sounds r, v, y (our “th is short”) and w.
There is also the so-called additional tengwar, which is absolutely necessary for the Elvish languages. Apparently, for ease of drawing and mental representation, it also has four series and three levels, but there is no system in it. Most likely, sounds were included there that both Rumil and Feanor found it difficult to classify according to the scheme of the main tengwar. Of course, it is a mystery to me why these are important enough for Q the sounds did not get into the main tengwar, where some additions could have been made for them into the system, but in the end they did not go anywhere, which means everything is in order. This includes the trill r, the sounds rd, l, ld (there are doubts about the latter: did it simply mean a hard, dental “l”, which exists, say, in the Russian language, or some more intricate sound, like the Polish Ł) s, z, hy, there are tengs in it yanta for depicting i-diphthongs and urë for u-diphthongs, as well as tengwa for voiceless h, such as in the word hlókë, which, however, was no longer used in the Third Age.
In principle, based on the material presented here, now everyone can build a tengwar for themselves at home. But there is also some additional information.
It is said that in the Tengwar of Feanor the third and fourth series were palatal (anteropalatal) sounds ty, ky and others like them, and the fifth and sixth levels are aspirated tx (now this means “thx”), kx (“kh”) and others like them. But in the writing of the Third Age these letters were not present, they were transmitted by combinations of other letters, and the tengwar had exactly the type with which I am about to introduce you. For details, I advise you to contact "Vinyar Tengwar" No. 8.
The z sound represented by tengwa áze, in the course of mysterious and nowhere clearly explained historical upheavals, turned into r. But for the sound r there already existed a tengwa (the one that you took for the second, if you followed the enumeration - it is for a completely different sound, which in our language is also represented by the letter “r”). Therefore tengwu áze, already renamed to árë, renamed again to essë and began to use ss for the sound.
In the same additional tengwar there are tengs silmë nuquerna And essë nuquerna, which are tengvas inverted horizontally, respectively, silmë And essë. They do not contain any secret meaning, but were introduced, as the Professor says, only for the convenience of writing. However, they were not superfluous.
Tengwar- a writing system invented by J. R. R. Tolkien. In Tolkien's universe, the tengwar was invented by the elf Feanor to record the Quenya, Telerin and Valarin languages. Many other Middle-earth languages later also began to be used by Tengwar, among them the Sindarin language. The word tengwar itself means “letters”, in the singular the letter is “tengwa”. Superscript characters are called techtar, singular - "tehta". Tolkien himself used tengwar, among other things, to write English. Tengvar can be used to record the Russian language; the rules by which this is done are described below.
The site contains a script - which converts Russian text, numbers and punctuation marks into the Tolkien alphabet.
Principles of recording consonants
Table 1. Tengvar for the Russian language.
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Consonant sounds in tengwar are written with the signs presented in table 1. The entire tengwar is presented on the left side of the table. The bottom line was added by me and contains additional characters for specific sounds of the Russian language. As can be seen from the table, not all tengwar signs are associated with the Cyrillic letter on the right side. Some tengwar signs represent sounds that are not found in the Russian language, so there are no suitable letters for them in the Russian alphabet. On the other hand, there were no signs for some Russian sounds in the tengwar, so they had to be constructed based on the existing ones. The constructed symbols occupy the bottom row.
So, in Tengwar there is no designation for the sound “u”. In Russian, “ш” means the sound /ɕː/, but in some dialects this sound sounds more like /ɕʨ/. In Ukrainian, “ш” means the sound /ʃʧ/. In the Belarusian language, the letter “sch” is absent from the alphabet, and in its place the combination “shch” is written. Based on this, the letter “sch” in tengwar is associated with a sign, which is a ligature of the signs “sh” and “ch”.
The letter “ts” is associated with the combination “t”, to which a tail is added, meaning the sound “s” in Tengwar, which gives the combination “ts” with one sign, suitable for expressing the letter “ts”. This icon can be attached to other consonants, resulting in combinations like “ks” and “ps”.
The Cyrillic alphabet has a soft sign used to indicate softness. In some cases it performs a separating function. In the Quenya language, the softness of consonants was indicated by two dots, which were written under the consonant. These points are used as the equivalent of a soft sign. A separate symbol is used for the hard sign.
Principles of vowel recording
Table 2. Vowels of the Russian language
Vowel sounds are written with superscript characters presented in Table 2. One sign for a vowel sound is called “tehta”, plural. h. - “techtar”. Tehta is written above the previous tengwa. For examples of vowel recording, see tables 3, 4 and 5.
If there is no previous tengwa, for example, at the beginning of a word, or in a situation where two vowels are in a row, a special character is inserted, which is called “andait”. By itself, it does not mean anything and is needed only in order to write technical notes over it. The extended andite is used to write long vowels.
In the Russian language there is a letter "e" and there is a letter "e". The letter "e" at the beginning of the word clearly indicates the absence of iotation. But in the middle and at the end of the word its meaning blurs and can be confused with “e”. For example, in the word “manager” we pronounce “e”, but write “e”. Many words have a double pronunciation, some pronounce “e”, some “e”.
In tengwar there is no need to have two signs for the letter "e" and "e". At the beginning of a word, iotation is clearly indicated by the presence or absence of the “th” sign. And in the middle and at the end the words “e” and “e” do not differ, and are written with the same text “e”. There are very few words where in the middle there is a need to distinguish “e” from “e”, for example “meter” and “maitre”, “mer” and “mayor”. The same principle is used when writing Ukrainian “є” and “e”.
Table 3. Example of recording vowels
Table 4. Example of recording initial vowels
Table 5. Example of writing iotated vowels
Special mention should be made of the letter “s”. In the Russian language, in addition to “and” there is also such a sound. In the old Cyrillic alphabet it was a combination of a hard sign and the letter “i”. In modern Russian, “y” is the equivalent of the sound “i”, which occurs in the position after hard consonants. Compare "syr" and "cheese". Therefore, to denote “y”, the symbol of a hard sign is used, above which the text of the sound “i” is written. In Belarusian “i”, “y” have the same correspondences as in Russian.
Ukrainian has an “i”, which corresponds to the Russian “i”, and a letter “i”, which roughly corresponds to the Russian “y”, but is not its exact phonetic copy. In Ukrainian tengwar, “i” is written with one tehta, and “i” is written with a combination.
For an example of writing the vowel “ы”, see Table 6.
Table 6. Example of writing the vowel ы
Hard sign, soft sign, apostrophe and compound letters
The soft sign is written with two dots under the letter. The hard sign, which in the Ukrainian language corresponds to an apostrophe, is written with a separate sign. Examples of writing in table 7. Compound letters are written exactly the same as ordinary letters. An example of their use is in Table 8.
Table 7. Example of writing a soft sign, hard sign and apostrophe
Table 8. Example of recording the consonants Ts and Shch
Doubling consonants. Positional options
The letters “s” and “z” in the Tengwar script have positional variations. One option is directed tails down, the second up. The tail-up option is suitable for a letter that stands alone, or if it occurs in a word in a position where there is no vowel sound after it. The option with a tail down is more suitable when there is a vowel after a consonant, because then the vowel needs to be written at the top, and the tail will not intersect with it.
If a double consonant occurs in a word, it is written as a single consonant with a wavy line under it. This wavy line represents longitude or doubling. An example of doubling a consonant and a positional variant of the letter “c” can be seen in the following figure:
Consonant doubling and positional variations
In the example, the word “Russia” is given. The doubling of "c" is shown as a wavy line, and above the "c" there is a dot to represent "and". In the first version, “s” is used with the tail up, where the tail is quite close to the vowel sign. But in this version the wavy line does not intersect with the tail, as in the second word. In the right version, the vowel sign is placed more carefully. Which spelling to use is a matter of taste.
Tengwar fonts
The font Tengwar Annatar was used to type the examples. All examples of writing Russian words in the Tengwar alphabet in this text are typed in the Annatar font, and other fonts compatible with it can be found on the Internet: Quenya, Formal or Parmaite. They have the same character-to-key mapping, so text typed in one font will look correct in another.
In the fonts, the letters are mapped to the Latin keyboard, so they can be typed from the English layout. Some characters are entered in a special way:
- Two dots under the letter indicating softness are entered using the following key combinations: Alt+0204, Alt+0205, Alt+0206, Alt+0207, Alt+0180;
- Exclamation point: Alt+0193;
- Question mark: Alt+0192;
- Numbers from 0 to 11: Alt+0240 - Alt+0251.
Application
You can use the Russian tengwar as follows:
- For applying tattoos with the inscription in the Tengwar alphabet;
- Like secret writing;
- For application to souvenirs for decorative purposes;
- For designing inscriptions during role-playing games.
Connection
Have any questions about the Tengwar alphabet? Want to get a tattoo but aren't sure how to spell the words? Contact me using the contacts listed in the contact section, I will be happy to talk with you about the tengwar and help you with advice.
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