Writing using Tengwar characters - II

[Galin]

I think it's great that you employed words that are poetic and Tolkienian!

I haven't really looked at all the words chosen, but about the writing, I hate to say it (and stating again that I'm no expert) but I don't agree with three out of your first four words for example, your versions of ninque ar laure cala as written in the Elvish script.

I agree with ar. It is more often the practice in Quenya to write the vowels above the preceding consonant (if available, which there is not one available in ar of course, in any case), but I guess if you are consistent you can say the whole text is in the general mode, so I'll ignore vowel placement.



In the following, the numbered chart is the one in the Appendices to the book The Return of the King.

ninque

I would suggest that ninque be written with the tengwa (letter) called unque (number 16 in the chart), which is used for nqu (nkw).

You have quesse rather, and a letter after it, but all you need is the one Elvish letter for -nqu-, as Tolkien himself uses in the word enquantuva.

By the way, at least one person thinks Tolkien should not have used this letter for enquantuva: Vincente Velasco states: "The phoneme nqu (nkw) is written with the tengwa unque. While this may be correct, it is my opinion that it should be written with a númen and a quesse. The reason for this is in order for the reader to be aware that enquantuva is a compound of en- "re-, again" and quantuva, the future tense form of quanta- "fill". The use of two tengwar instead of one preserves this construction,..."

But even if so for the word "en-quantuva", for ninque I would use unque.

ar

As I said, I agree. Although Tolkien himself writes the vowel over a carrier and followed it with the consonant -- but again that is merely choice of vowel placement. The suggestion to use preceding consonant (if available) for writing Quenya is seemingly due to the fact that a lot of Quenya words end in a vowel.

laure

Au is a diphthong in Quenya and is written with the vowel sign for a above the tengwa úre (number 36 in the chart). Tolkien wrote laurie this way, attested in his tengwar version of Galadriel's Namárie, published by him in The Road Goes Ever On in the 1960s.

Also, for -r- in laurie Tolkien uses the letter rómen (in the Quenya word ar the r sound ends the word, so there I agree with your use of óre).

The website Amanye Tenceli explains that with one exception, in the Namárie manuscripts óre represents r before consonants and word-finally, while rómen is used before vowels, and as I say, rómen is used between the diphthong -au- and the vowel i in the word laurie -- technically the vowel i is above the preceding consonant in Tolkien's script of course, even though I use "between" to describe it here.


cala

You seem to use quesse for both qu (kw) and c (k). But for c I suggest the tengwa calma (number 3 in the chart). I would employ quesse (number 4) for -qu- (just the one Elvish letter). And generally speaking, unque for nqu, as I noted above.

Well, I'll stop here. I don't really have time to go through it all (nor do I want to annoy you any further if I disagree with anything else) but my general advice is to follow Tolkien whenever possible, which I think I have here, about this much anyway...

... unless JRRT makes a mistake

And he actually makes one when writing in Elvish in the documentary narrated by Judi Dench... and catches himself!

[tolkienfan]

Galin - thanks for the feedback! I'm always interested to learn more about quenya, tengwar, and really anything to do with middle earth

As I said, I made this when I was in college. All my books were at home, so I was working from memory. I'm not at all surprised that I forgot some of the more unique letters and that it's generally riddled with mistakes

Also, I was (and am) much more concerned with the actual quenya. The poem is actually an excerpt from a libretto that I wrote for a 3-part symphony based on the Ainulindale. I tried very hard to write what I thought Tolkien might have written, so I'm glad you thought I got close!

[Alcuin]

Tolkien himself made mistakes writing Elvish! Take it from him in this part of his interview from the 1968 BBC series In Their Own Words British Authors.

[Galin]

Yes I think that's the same footage (Tolkien writing in Elvish and saying he's made a mistake) used for the special narrated by Judi Dench.

Thanks Alcuin!

Tolkienfan -- working from memory there? In that case wow! For myself I had totally forgotten about unque for the moment, for example...

... until I accidentally tripped over Mr. Velasco's disagreement with Tolkien