#quenya! all the vowels

[wanderer-clarisse]

the Fëanorians (inspired by traditional Filipino culture)

[sesamenom]

C&C vs PD: Tengwar Edition

[the-quiet-fire-of-defiance]

There was a post going around for a while about how kana means chicken in Finnish, making Kanafinwe = chicken Finwe. The thing is, a lot of Quenya names have te reo Māori meanings or can have funny meanings when transliterated into te reo. I've made a little list.

The most important thing to know is that 'wh' is pronounced 'f' in most dialects. Also, I took several liberties with the transliterations - when there were multiple options, I picked the one whose meaning I liked the best.

Translations

Maitimo: Māītimo means sour gardening tool. (Māī = sour, timo = a tool used to dig up sweet potatoes.) But if you're willing to mess around with the vowel sounds a little ... Māī-iti-mau [my-ee-tee-mo]* = to be a little sour to be captured.

*'au' is usually pronounced like the o in no.

Kanafinwe: Kana = wild stare / to stare wildly, making him Wild Stare Finwe.

Kano: either 1) colour or 2) bean.

Turukano: tūru means chair, so Tūrukano means chair bean

Ingo means desire, yearning, wanting. (Ingoldo becomes Ingoroto, a desire/yearning within.)

Amarie: Amārie = of peace, tranquility.

Arafinwe: ara means the waters breaking in childbirth. It also means path, but the first option is funnier.

Arakano: path bean

Angamaite: anga = to face, māī = sour, and tē = fart.

Curufinwe: Kuru has a lot of meanings including to hit/punch, to be tired, a piece of greenstone jewelry, or a mallet. So I guess that makes his name Tired Finwe, Ornamental Finwe, Mallet Finwe, or Punch Finwe. The last one would be in the imperative, making it a command.

Moringotto: we have to take out one of the t's to make this Mōringoto. It means either 1) intense unimportant person or 2) unimportant person to penetrate.

Transliterations

Feanaro: The best transliteration would be Wheanaro, which is pronounced the same as in Quenya. But my favourite interpretation is Whaea-ngaro; mother lost/missing.

(Edited to add that 'ng' is a soft sound pronounced like in sing. I'm cheating a bit here, because it's actually the equivalent of the Quenya ñ, not n like in Feanaro.)

Nelyo: We don't typically have l or y sounds. My preferred option for this would be Ngērō, meaning to scream inside.

Nelyafinwe -> Neriawhine or Nerawhine. Nera can mean nail (as in a metal nail) or to nail. Whine [fee-neh] isn't a word in most dialects, but in some very small areas it's the word for woman/women.* (In most areas the word is wahine.) So uhhhhh interpret that as you will, but this may be the single most ironic name on the list.

*Another possible transliteration of Finwe would be Whinewē, meaning woman liquid. This is physically painful to me so I'm sticking with Whine.

Findekano: In the same vein, Whinekano means bean woman or woman bean. If you prefer Whine-te-kano or Whine-tē-kano, the former means Woman The Beans and the latter means women fart beans.

Turko is Tūrukau: chair cow / nothing but a chair.

Makalaure could become Makarōre. Maka = to throw/fling and rōre = lord, making the full name Yeet Lord. A prophetic mother name.

Tyelkormo would become Terekomo. Tere= swift/fast. Komo... um. This is mostly used to describe putting on clothes. But it can also mean to thrust or insert. So basically the same as the Quenya

Moryo = Mōriau, a firm unimportant person / a howling unimportant person.

Curvo: if written as Kuruwau, in certain dialects it would mean hit me.

Pityo would be Pitiau: defeated smoke/mist.

Findarato: rātō means western, so Whinerātō = western woman.

There are also names that are pronounced the same in te reo Māori as they are in Quenya but have no Māori meaning, e.g. Anaire or Curumo.

Take this whole thing with a pinch of salt, because obviously we don't usually make word-for-word translations of transliterated names. Like I said, I've also taken some liberties with the transliterations. But to the best of my knowledge, all of these are accurate translations.

It's the House of Finwe uwu smol beans

[cilil]

Eönwë Week - Day 7: Freeform - Etymology

AN: So I promised to compile this a while ago and finally got to it. Enjoy!

Today's topic: A possible etymology and Valarin version for Eönwë (idea dump)

𓅛 The meaning of the name "Eönwë" is unfortunately unknown. The only thing we know for certain is the suffix "-wë", as it also occurs in many other names, which means simply person, being or individual. Fun fact: While it's generally masculine, it's not exclusively so, the main example being Elenwë.

𓅛 Before receiving the name Eönwë, he was known as Fionwë. For Fionwë we do have a meaning: "Fion" is glossed as hawk and/or haste, which I'm sure has many of you thinking "oh yeah that fits" right now and I agree.

𓅛 So we find ourselves in a bit of a weird spot where we have an old name that fits and gives us an idea what it could have been about and a new name without a clear meaning. I have a few ideas how to solve this, but please keep in mind that I'm not trying to do completely accurate and squeaky clean linguistics here, I'll be sticking to ideas and headcanons while trying to do my best to find something that makes at least a bit of sense. Alright? Alright.

𓅛 According to War of the Jewels, Eönwë's name was apparently adapted from Valarin (which, given how close the known Valarin names are to their Quenyan counterparts and how Quenya even borrows some names from Valarin, is not surprising). Therefore, my first idea was that perhaps the meaning of Fionwë ("hawk-person", "haste-person") still applies, but whatever the Valarin word it comes from is just slightly different (has an e instead of an i). Someone would then have to come up the Valarin word in question (and it won't be me, at least for now >:D).

𓅛 My second idea was that "fion" and "-wë" are just two elements of the name, with an additional third element conveyed in the "e". There are various things you could "shove" in there, but one idea I'm currently liking is that it's tied to "ea" (existing, being) or "ëala" (being, spirit (non-incarnate), the general term for Ainurin souls). This would correspond with my headcanon that Eönwë was the first Maia to be born/created and the meaning would be "haste/hawk spirit being" (loosely translating).

𓅛 Another alternative I found during my research is "ëa"/"ëaren" (eagle) which could also be cool, though I suppose in that case it'd be better to read "fion" as haste rather than hawk because having two bird species in one name would be a bit weird. The meaning would then be "hasty eagle person" (again, translating somewhat loosely).

𓅛 Funnily enough, I found coming up with an idea what Eönwë's Valarin name could be easier than putting all of the above together. Since we know so little about Valarin, this will once again be guesswork and ideas.

𓅛 Conveniently, we have half of his name thanks to Manwë -> Mānawenūz, if we take it that "-wenūz" is the general Valarin version of "-wë" (and not an isolated instance of this particular name being that way).

𓅛 If we then see how "man-" simply becomes "mana-" and observe the trend of Valarin words having additional syllables with vowels compared to their Quenyan counterparts, such as:

ayanūz -> Ainu iniðil -> indil (lily)

An easy solution would then be Eōnowenūz.

(I have admittedly not yet dared to take all the words above that I suggested could be part of his etymology, attempt to translate them all into Valarin and see if everything would still fit (more or less), but if I'm really bored one day I might.)

So yeah, these are just some ideas and stuff I dug up, please don't take it as absolute fact or gospel and I hope it was interesting or at least entertaining to see me flail around trying to make sense of that poor man's name. Feel free to let this inspire you and make use of my findings, just be a dear and give me a cute little shout out if you do :)

taglist: @asianbutnotjapanese @a-world-of-whimsy-5 @blauerregen @bluezenzennie @edensrose

@elanna-elrondiel @i-did-not-mean-to @just-little-human @singleteapot

@stormchaser819 @urwendii @wandererindreams @eonweweek

[eri-pl]

Post-TA Quenya HC

So, Quenya is pronounced like Latin, right? Except Quenya has "c" alwaqys read as "k", never as "s", regardless of the vowels around it.

But so did Latin, originally. In Roman Empire, Latin was all c->k and also I think v->w (when you're sad, remember: ueni, uidi, uiki. It always makes me laugh.)

Hence, I propose a headcanon: After most of the Elves sail, and the rest hides, people who still use Quenya (scholars) drift the pronunciation like it happened with Medieval Latin. And they say "Sirdan the shipwright" and stuff like this.

(Cut to Maglor being called on his "wrong" pronunciation, or stuff like that) (and then you have English church Latin and "Chirdan". Yes, pronouncing c as ch in Latin is my pet peeve, it just sounds wrong to me, sorry to all Italians, it's fine in Italian, just please not Latin) (Also people pronounce Earendil as Ee-rendil anyway :( )

(@dfwbwfbbwfbwf that's the HC which I was talking about in the comment)

[silverbridge-harbor]

Celebrimbor's Letter to Durin IV

A Tengwar Analysis

ayyy first time doing something like this, so it might suck but lets goooooo

My credentials are here.

In Rings of Power s02e02, Celebrimbor sends a letter to Durin. The first thing to note is that it is written in the "full writing" Beleriand style, where vowels are written as separate characters instead of diacritics. This is correct for second-age Elven writing in Eriador. Points there.

When I watched the episode, I was expecting this to be Sindarin, but it is actually English, transliterated phonetically. This means they are using a phonetic English full mode based on the Sindarin mode of Beleriand. Tolkien had a couple of these, but as far as I can tell, they came up with this one themselves. But it was done a bit...oddly.

First off, here it is as plain Standard English™, in ASCII:

Durin IV, I humbly request your attendance in Eregion, that I might present a new offer for the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm. Despite your recent misfortunes, I believe your ears are best suited to listen to this proposition. My people are in your debt, and I...

Okay, mostly ASCII. But anyway, this is what the letter says. No need to obsess over it and spend several hours dissecting it and writing a deep analysis.

...Unless?

Lets number the lines.

Now, lets go through it line by line, phonetically. I will be using the Quenya names for the tengwar given on Amanyë Tenceli.

1: Durin 4,

Not all that much to say yet. Note the doubled stem on the first tengwa, Ando. This is comparable to the ornate first letters in illuminated manuscripts, and does not change anything. It looks a bit like a friend we will meet in a moment, though, so it was worth mentioning.

They didnt use a dot or ring to mark the 4 as a number, but since its a single digit below 10, no big deal.

2: ai hambly rikwest yór (I humbly request your)

So this suddenly became a mess. But, actually, not really; remember, this is a phonetic transcription, so strictly speaking, anything goes, as long as it sounds right when you read it back out.

The first thing I noticed was the tehta on the last word, the rightward hook. That is the O-tehta, used to mark a consonantal tengwa with a preceding or following O-vowel...something a full mode is specifically supposed to not be doing. Here, it is over Anna, which also represents an o in the Beleriand mode. So I figured it was standing for a lengthened ó, but in a weird way similar to how diphthongs are written. Then I saw the same tehta over Úrë on a later line, and realized: the way to lengthen a vowel in the Beleriand mode is to use an andatehta. This is usually the E-tehta, which looks like an acute accent. Here, they simply swapped that out for the more interesting looking O-tehta. I havent seen this before, but I like it. Sauron did something vaguely similar, using the O-tehta in the ring inscription to represent U-vowels in the Black Speech.

Lets talk about those ys. That tengwa is Ára, which is used for a consonantal i, in words like iâth and iorhael. Basically, think of it as a J in Latin. (I am having trouble digging up my old source on this, but the transcriptions on Eldamo seem to agree with me.) The point is, as a consonant, Ára fits perfectly for "your", but doesnt really make sense for "humbly". The Beleriand Sindarin mode already has a vocalic y, using Silmë Nuquerna; it represents a vowel we do not even have in English, so there would be no conflict to simply repurpose it for this. Ára was an odd choice.

3: itendins in eregion, (attendance in Eregion,) 4: dhaet ai mait prezent i (that I might present a)

Here it gets weird. The first i on line 3 and the last on 4, both Telco, both represent what was originally a. A few things could be happening here.

In the Classical mode, for Quenya, Telco is a carrier mark, with no sound of its own. Additionally, the A-tehta can be dropped where it can be assumed, because it is both the most common vowel in Quenya and the most complicated tehta to write. Because of these two facts, a lone Telco can be read as an A-vowel. But this is a different mode for a different language. I hope this isnt what they were going for.

They may be using Telco to represent Schwa. This fits perfectly for these two occurrences, and several other lines, but I would expect it to also be used, for example, in "hambly" above and "av" below.

It could be an indeterminate vowel, essentially meaning "figure it out yourself". This seems feasible, to me; this is the default in many languages, including Khuzdûl, and the letter is being written to a Dwarf, after all. But also, the letter is being written to a Dwarf, by an Elf. This is a diplomatic letter. An indeterminate vowel seems a bit too...casual? for this context.

The ae diphthong in "dhaet"/"that" is a bit odd too, but it might be based on IPA [æ], the vowel in "that".

5: nú ófir fór dhi dwórvz (new offer for the Dwarves) 6: av khazaddúm. (of Khazad-dûm.)

I appreciate "khazaddúm" being run together like this. Fun fact: the hyphens in names (like this and "Gil-galad") are for our benefit only; they are not used when writing with the Tengwar (at least as far as I have ever seen, but I cant afford the really good sources like Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon).

Also note the use of Quessë for kh. This is very strange. First, the Beleriand mode does not use tengwar from the quessetéma (fourth column), except for Wilya, so this use of Quessë was added for the show. Secondly, the Beleriand mode already has a tengwa that represents this sound: Aha (or Harma).

However, Aha is usually romanized as ch, instead of kh. It may be that the transliterator was working from a character table, saw "ch", assumed it to represent [tʃ] (as in English) instead of [x], and decided to repurpose an unused tengwa.

7: dispait yór ryisint (Despite your recent) 8: mysfórchinz, ai bylyiv (misfortunes, I believe)

Ope, here we go using Ára as a vowel again.

Wait...what? Why are you using Ára, which you are already using as a Y-vowel, with the Y-tehta? Treating that as a diphthong like ai, it turns out as yi. What is this? Is this supposed to be like "Kyiv"? Is this even still the same person as the first half?

EDIT 2024-09-03: Skimming over this again, they did indeed use Aha here to represent [tʃ], the English value of ch, and I totally missed the connection. I guess I was distracted by this yi business. Anyway, this shows that they were at least aware of Aha, and most likely did see it labelled as "ch". I am okay with the idea of reassigning it, as it is in one of the three primary témar in the mode, and English does use [tʃ] vastly more than [x]. But, as mentioned below, Hwesta is used for [x] in Gondor, so I would have simply borrowed that, rather than arbitrarily assigning Quessë. That might be slightly anachronistic, though.

Also, @tragedykery in the replies has pointed out that the vowel /iː/ can become the diphthong [ɪj] in certain situations in Celebrimbor's accent (thanks :D), which may have been the intent behind the Ára diphthong I interpret as yi. This also fits well with ae representing [æ].

9: yór yrz or best sútyd (your ears are best suited)

"OR"??? ...Okay, I see what happened here, actually. Anna looks like ɑ (and its name even starts with an A), but in the Beleriand mode, it actually represents an O-vowel. This one was most likely just a proofreading slip.

Gonna have to put Ára up on the high shelf soon, though. You know, the high shelves? The ones who have seen the light of the coat trees.

10: tú lysin tú dhys (to listen to this) 11: propizyʃin. mai pyipil (proposition. My people)

Here they used Hwesta to represent, presumably, [ʃ]. This is another repurposed tengwa from the quessetéma. This one, however, does not already have an equivalent in this mode. Fair play.

Incidentally, Hwesta is directly adjacent to Aha on the chart, and is itself used to represent [x] in the mode of Gondor.

"Pyipil" is very strange. But then, so is "people". And so are people.

12: or yn yor det, ind ai (are in your debt, and I)

This is the last line, with the bottom cut off, but I think this is right, looking at the line weights. Featuring the return of our friend "or".

Vocalic Ára aside, "yn" is very interesting, because "in" has already shown up, way back on line 3. I really do wonder whether they had two people on this.

Also interesting is "yor", without a long vowel. This one is definitely just a simple proofreading mistake.

Overall, I would say this is...decent. Again, it is a phonetic transcription, and it is 100% legible. From that angle, mission accomplished. I do wish they had written it in Sindarin, or, failing that, defined a more comprehensive and consistent Beleriand English mode to work from.

And of course, this still absolutely puts Shadow of War to shame.

Finally, here is the full actual text of the letter, in the Tengwar, according to the character mapping of the Free Tengwar Font Project. I have absolutely no idea how Tumblr is going to respond to this. For science :D

                                            

Ah. Looks like thats the same Unicode block Tumblr uses for their own custom characters. So its probably not worth it to try to get Tumblr to use a Tengwar font, because it would break other stuff. Should be able to paste that mess into a compatible text editor and look at it there, though, so I will leave it in.

[eight-pointed-star]

vowels in quenya can and do undergo lengthening and reduction under certain conditions, both morphological and phonological. an example taken directly from this beautiful article (chapter of a textbook): telumë “roof” + -va “posessive suffix” = teluméva “roof’s”

(if you're interested, please check out the link! eldamo is a very useful resource. the link is to the quenya textbook; they also have a dictionary i really recommend checking sometimes. also the site has info on sindarin and other tolkien languages as well, i'm just focusing on quenya)

this is all to say, nár n. “fire” and Anar n. “Sun” and  Narsil [þ] pn. “Red and White Flame” are of the same root

side note: i've seen many people spell it Cánafinwë, probably because the shortened form would be Cáno. it's Canafinwë

additionally,

the shift from [θ̠] = þ = th to [s] isn't "incorrect" and it blows my mind that apparently some people unironically believe that. no version of a language used by native speakers is incorrect. a phonetic shift is a natural process and denying it is like saying we should all say modor instead of mother because over a thousand years ago old english speakers used to say that. don't be a fëanor, prescriptivism is not welcome in linguistics

[thegreatzombieartisan]

Rings of Power + Tolkien Fusion Meta

What’s in a Name: Case for ‘Halbrand’ as Sauron’s True Name - One That Shall Never Be Known Part t. 2

Series : Pt 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Why does Sauron have an Elvish name? Well ‘Mairon’ isn’t a name, it’s a title

*

The most pragmatic reason? Sauron once coexisted with the Eldar in Valinor and moved among them. Not far-fetched, as even post-prison Melkor was re-welcomed among the Noldor, who ‘took delight in the hidden knowledge that he could reveal to them' [1]. If so, dare it be asked, did the Eldar bestow their future tormentor “The Admirable” title? After all —Sauron, Gorthaur, Thû —Elves ain’t shy about giving old boy nicknames.

What is sure, as Noldor royalty, Galadriel and Mairon would have definitely met under better circumstances.

In contrast to the published The Silmarillion -- which has Mairon yelling #YOLO and joining Melkor in Middle-Earth long before the Elves awoke -- Tolkien did experiment with such a backstory origins storyline[8].

In S1:01, we see the light of the Two Trees of Valinor destroyed.

In The Silmarillion, Melkor forms an uneasy partnership with a giant spider named Ungoliant to carry-out the dastardly deed [2].

But in a different version, Sauron replaces her as the reason why Elves can’t have nice things before joining Melkor in Middle-Earth.

Sure, The Silmarillion is a draft yet it’s unlikely Tolkien would have reintroduced a plotline where Sauron and Eldar could be potential besties. It would require rewriting intricate lore. Besides, pre-Second Age was Melkor's time to wreak havoc on the Elves.

So again, why is Mairon an Elvish name?

*

'Mairon' is a Quenya Elvish translation of 'The Admirable' in the Ainur Language

Valarin -- the "tongue of the gods" -- predates all Elvish forms. Few every learn it ,as most little Elf ears judged Valarin as unpleasant and alien AF. Some Valarin words and names into “fair Eldarin” (Elvish) [4].

See translations below. Listen to them said in Valarin here:

Aulë - Aȝūlēz

Telperion - Ibrîniðilpathânezel 

Manwë - Mânawenûz 

⁠Oromë - Arǭmēz

Ossë - Oššai/Ošošai

In Valarin, ‘Mairon’ is most likely Mayarônôz (pronounced my-yah-row-noze)

Although Tolkien never fleshed out Valarin, enough exists to fairly conceptualize ‘Mairon’. Translation credit to @valarinventures [4]:

Known Valarin words starting with a “M” + vowel translate exactly into Quenya. Now it’s ‘M’.

In Valarin, Ainur = Ayanûz. So the ‘ai’ of ‘Mairon’ is translated into ‘aya’ in Valarin. Now it’s ‘My-yah’.

(+/- z) suffix might indicate the nominative singular or plural noun. That is, Mayarônôz (+ z) might be ‘The Admirable’ (singular), while Mayarônô (- z) might be ‘The Admirables (plural).

If Mayarônôz left Valinor before they awoke, how did the Eldar learn of his name? In the Valaquenta, it’s written:

Among those of his servants that have names the greatest was that spirit whom the Eldar called Sauron… he was of the Maiar of Aulë, and he remained mighty in the lore of that people.

Surely, the Valar warned the Eldar of Melkor and Mairon wickedness. Possibly Oromë told them first, as he was tasked to find and protect the newly awakened Elves in Middle-Earth.

Did Galadriel know Valarin? Once Aulë’s apprentice, Yavanna's handmaiden, and Melian protege — it's likely Galadriel would know more Valarin than most Eldar.

Mayarônôz is still not Sauron's true name

Now the names that we have for the Valar or the Maiar, whether adapted from the Valarin or translated, are not right names but titles, referring to some function or character of the person; for though the Valar have right names, they do not reveal them. Save only in the case of Oromë…[Quendi] asked him what that signified, and again he answered: Oromë. To me only is it given; for I am Oromë. Yet the titles that he bore were many and glorious; but he withheld them at the time, that the Quendi should not be afraid [3].

(Say, what’s with the Ainur “no name reveal” policy?)

Oromë's admission here is profound: Ainur true names lack a primitive root meaning in Valarin. Only the sound of their names distinguish them. He also states that his name (and presumably all Ainur) was "given" to him. By Eru Illuvatar or other Ainur? It's unknown.

Thank you for reading! Your likes and tagged reblogs are appreciated. Got feedback?

What did you like? Got theories or insights to share?

Disagree? I love good faith debate and sparring!

Need clarity on points? Got feedback on readability?

Spot an inaccuracy? Hey, Tolkien's work is complex. Drop it in comments or DM.

Works Cited

[1] On Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor, Morgoth’s Ring

[2] On the Darkening of Valinor, Morgoth’s Ring

[3] Quendi and Eldar

[4] Valarin - Like the Glitter of Swords

[5] Why You Should Love Your Guardian Angel (And Not Name Him)

[6] Osanwe - Tolkien Gateway

[7] Orkish and the Black Speech - base language for base purposes

[8] Name for a Dark Lord

[9] Quenya Grammar

[paradife-loft]

language & writing headcanon dump

some Quenya, some Sindarin; mostly just wanted them collected in one place

some of the first sarati texts written in Aman, prior to the invention of paper, were written on bamboo strips. early early beginnings of writing, of the sort that Rúmil (&co) would've worked on during the Great Journey, would've been on animal hides, but in Aman, most of what was produced by hunting and raising livestock was diverted to other purposes instead - it was relatively a rarer material, that couldn't be replenished as quickly & easily as bamboo groves could be, and people wanted leather for clothing & shoes. (I'm also contemplating the idea of bamboo growing prominently on Taniquetil, which a) is pretty and b) would lend another spiritual dimension to its use as a writing material.)

the presence of the bar that each sarat attached to in most attested "standard"/book use, then originally started out as a representation of the edge of each bamboo strip that a line of text would be written on, for aesthetic reasons as well as greater clarity between lines when written on paper (or other materials). (vowel diacritics, since they go on the opposite side of the bar from each consonant sarat, were then a later addition once paper took over as the primary writing material - and I'm inclined to say could still be left off if the writer chose to do so. written texts didn't start out intended as stand-alone documents, but more like memory aids to known oral Quenya traditions.)

(genuinely don't remember if this is explicitly written in canon anywhere, but it's heavily enough implied either way - the Quendi absolutely developed a strong oral culture, and most groups retained this to a significant degree, even when the Noldor showed up later with writing.)

even though the tengwar eventually displaced it (among the Noldor anyway) for regular use, I do really like the idea of heavily stylized, artistic sarati calligraphy continuing to be a thing - at least in Aman, for sure; I think it'd probably drop by the wayside in Beleriand in favor of. well if you're doing calligraphy, do it in the letters we can all actually read. (less interest in things with a vibe of being intentionally antiquated, for one; and less interest (though certainly not none) in things that would be purely beautiful without a corresponding functional aspect.) - but yeah, calligraphic sarati perhaps being one of the main places the doubled/mirrored letter forms would get used; also I'm thinking about ways the bar attachment would be stylized in single-sided compositions, with broken-up pieces of it just the right size to demarcate the boundaries between words.

on a different note - I've mentioned/alluded to this a couple times, but it's 100% my headcanon that the tengwar Mode of Beleriand was a Curufin invention - and I'm even more in favor of this after discovering that, per the general tengwar page on the same site, "Contrary to the beliefs of Rúmil and his contemporaries, Feanor thought that the vowels had a phoneme value equal in importance to that of the consonants. The vowels were in the Tengwar, as in the Sarati, still usually represented by diacritic marks, called ómatehtar or “vowel-marks”. This was solely for the sake of compactness, though, and Feanor also constructed a mode for Quenya where each vowel was assigned to a tengwa. This mode was primarily intended for the “loremasters”, and was rarely used." like I just love the idea of Curvo setting out to standardize writing for Sindarin and going okay y'know what, if we get to start from scratch, we are BRINGING BACK DAD'S LINGUISTIC THEORIES (which are objectively correct) while we're at it!

(and then people still went largely and used tehtar for Sindarin anyway. silly people.)(like I mean sure it's "what they're used to" and such, but, c'mon. innovation!!!!! justice for vowels!!!!)

(if you're wondering where you've heard of the mode of Beleriand from in the actual canon - the answer is "the Doors of Durin". it's the mode used for the inscription on the arches of the Doors of Durin. why yes this is all very intentional of me, why do you ask? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

another Curufin-and-writing thing - y'know what a quanta sarme/full-vowel mode is easier for than an omatehtar mode is? developing a movable-type printing press. I really like the idea of that being something Curufin & contemporaries were working on during the Long Peace in Himlad - perhaps intended initially for economic records, currency notes, etc. in East Beleriand (because what writing invention isn't first used for economic purposes lol), but also perhaps mass-distribution of musical scores, and general literacy promotion (esp among the Sindar who settled there too). I can also see the overall machine being something they'd gift to the Ered Luin dwarves, perhaps aiding in their wider adoption of the cirth.

alas, you probably can't lug printing presses halfway across the continent with a train full of refugees, so the existing models wouldn't have made it to Nargothrond after Himlad fell. and in general, I feel like elves would have less motivation to use or recreate them in a lot of circumstances - between the combination of oral traditions, good memories, small population sizes, lack of central written religious documents, and hand-writing/calligraphy/illumination absolutely being a defined craft among the Noldor, that would lend kind of an attitude of "okay but why though" to the whole idea of mechanically-produced writing, even in places where having mass-produced books for a civilian populace might've been more contextually appealing (cough, Gondolin). so ultimately, like a lot of things, the invention probably doesn't make it through the First Age intact.

.....unless I maybe wanna bring it back again for Ost-in-Edhil? we'll see. though even there, I feel like the elves would largely lack a lot of the time pressure that makes it an attractive invention in other contexts...? one reason I like Himlad/East Beleriand generally as a good setting for printing press development, is the way the war with Morgoth would create that time pressure in a way that wouldn't instinctively exist for many elves otherwise. so... yeah.

[444names]

quenya names + quenya names with all accents removed and all vowels replaced with "E"

Adollese Ainussicem Alcel Alercari Alindy Alinweded Allië Altarnë Ambalmeng Ambarianst Ambechien Amereete Amieler Amirer Andencáno Anduanta Angeleber Anyar Arace Arave Arelpë Arinar Arper Arted Aucards Aucava Bernië Bluer Breelles Briontië Butelve Calaia Calambarte Calarned Canwë Caree Carie Cassiginds Cavise Ceeglomerd Ceembarcir Ceeróna Celdacil Celdacir Celendil Cemeruss Cends Cengs Cerderdele Cerefereen Cerenwifts Cerinemirë Ceruhitë Cheettare Chessë Cirasse Clangahter Clans Clecemerd Clendi Cleng Coarion Coussour Cundórë Dafin Damar Daren Deledy Delmalme Delmes Dered Doron Drionisil Earne Earte Ecere Ecirildes Edmon Eeelpeo Eemeldeck Eenden Eendóriume Eengee Eengenda Eenst Eerelove Eeten Eevick Elcar Eldesters Eldil Eldore Eldómë Eleberto Eleeng Eleeve Eleme Elesecere Eleven Elpeeter Elpelled Emeeno Encat Endel Endeltarë Endick Endorel Enduingwa Endónë Enellon Enent Enerds Enereldórë Enewete Enews Engend Enneler Entard Entareendë Enteldeer Entring Epeteende Ercarix Erdembel Ereerumbar Ereht Erekerin Erend Ermer Erriondë Erucol Erukyel Eshist Esteeqee Esten Estrinér Etancantur Ethessë Ethley Ethwe Evelenere Evenge Eventar Everee Everessege Facánords Faindesse Fainwe Faitë Falarion Farmenet Fasse Fassë Feaver Feeshel Fendamacon Fendeete Feneleen Fenelen Fenereente Feneths Ferds Ferme Ferwey Fingezer Folder Foonds Forme Formenewe Foroneer Forñor Frened Frukyen Fírigheste Galtarmen Gelon Gelond Gembeleng Gerexarmë Germa Golled Grelwe Grenceng Handernor Hands Hanelesto Hanelven Heelpë Heenwë Heercel Helderee Helor Henge Hercen Herne Hernes Heronnar Herrámë Herukoren Hesseere Hesseme Hesta Hientar Hirisil Holkaing Hriondo Hromenenis Hrose Hyeeeces Hyern Hyete Imingee Indand Ingwelvelf Ircle Irinds Irstere Isseld Isteres Jewengezed Jewer Laherdecer Lambar Landendil Lanye Larro Lastarri Latary Ldele Lecer Leeleng Lefeteler Lemee Lemen Lendendi Lentë Lepvelva Lerde Lesselcar Lesto Levalal Limang Lingeed Loftyer Lorondon Lorow Losser Lowever Lundelend Lunte Macilindo Mambeteree Mands Manksgen Mantë Manónë Maride Marta Mecengallë Meldë Mendamide Mender Mendiévar Menelendo Mengesseel Mereenge Milleen Mings Miondo Mirer Mourestman Mussen Nambar Namees Naras Naverende Neegolke Neldenca Nembard Nenótë Neratuar Nerengber Nernee Neser Nesseed Nesser Nessë Nesto Netee Newvar Nommisi Nondelemp Nontár Noreppede Norler Nornente Norñoll Nárinands Návindecen Númena Númirst Núnar Ofarperme Oldant Onded Oneht Onótë Ordari Ordië Oreme Orgol Oring Parage Pelma Persumbeen Pewne Pherwë Phestrene Pired Plearn Pleester Pollostar Preleeve Preneds Pritarte Qeeds Qeenenna Qeerem Qeetener Qeeve Qeeven Quamide Queng Quentár Quest Quetereght Reenderu Reenenda Referd Regrer Rendeling Renote Renónë Retyeldë Ridentë Rindil Rodusk Rohil Romee Romylers Rondee Rímar Rónastehed Secelefer Secen Secer Secto Selyendo Sener Sentamarn Senwë Serdar Sernenden Shaitë Shannan Shede Sheelk Shete Shiril Silmir Smendómë Sornë Sparo Speeng Spennan Steen Stele Stive Stment Sturce Suffeet Sumotteet Súlinussed Tandes Tarne Tarnilles Telcamirre Teldo Temylande Tendeleek Tendë Tereghte Terelee Terem Terster Theamone Theelpilme Theldil Thfuler Thwee Tiond Tirin Treendeen Trendo Tressent Turcanelf Turna Tyeldereep Túnalaitë Túron Unceleeng Uncermanna Untar Unúna Vaita Valate Valdomen Vantere Varquen Vatale Velee Velenter Velleverni Vemerfer Vennótë Verdereel Vessë Viévals Votereld Vánanwessë Weeneldë Wendecer Weren Wessë Wilingelfs Woree Yamire Yendel Yeter Yetil Y��now Ñorgemeng Ñorinya Úvalma

[syyskirjat]

Okay I’m reading the pronunciation/transciption appendix now

The Westron or Common Speech has been entirely translated into English equivalents. An Hobbit names and special words are intended to be pronounced accordingly: for example, Bolger has g as in bulge, and mathom rhymes with fathom.

Not gonna lie, I have always pronounced these wrong. I guess it’s just me being influenced by Finnish a bit too much.

K is used in names drawn from other than Elvish languages, with the same value as c; kh thus represents the same sound as ch in Orkish Grishnákh, or Adûnaic (Númenórean) Adûnakhôr.

There's something kind of interesting to me about this choice and what it says about Tolkien's associations. Latin style spelling for Elvish while everybody else gets... well idk, I feel like kh tends to be used to transcribe that sound in non-Western European languages?

Although k of course is used a lot in Northern Europe (including Dutch and German and even English).

(This got a bit long so the rest is under a cut)

L represents more or less the sound of English initial l, as in let. It was, however, to some degree 'palatalized' between e, i and a consonant, or finally after e, i. (The Eldar would probably have transcribed English bell, fill as beol, fiol.) LH represents this sound when voiceless (usually derived from initial sl-). In (archaic) Quenya this is written hl, but was in the Third Age usually pronounced as l. 

So I unfortunately don’t know much about the Celtic languages but I know Tolkien studied them and was inspired by them and this is where I think that shows? Based on what little I do know about like Irish spelling. And of course the voiceless L as its own sound rather than an allophone of voiced L.

NG represents ng in finger, except finally where it was sounded as in English sing. The latter sound also occurred initially in Quenya, but has been transcribed n (as in Noldo), according to the pronunciation of the Third Age. 

This is another interesting choice because I feel like if Noldo was spelled Ngoldo it would immediately look non-European.

R represents a trilled r in all positions; the sound was not lost before consonants (as in English part). 

You can tell Tolkien is a linguist because he says “before consonants“, because of course it doesn’t fully disappear (even in non-rhotic dialects) if it’s followed by a vowel.

The Orcs, and some Dwarves, are said to have used a back or uvular r, a sound which the Eldar found distasteful. 

Sure, the Eldar found it distasteful, not you of course...

RH represents a voiceless r (usually derived from older initial sr-). It was written hr in Quenya. Cf. L. 

I’m not entirely sure what sound this is supposed to mean? I assume a non-sibilant voiceless alveolar fricative? I have to admit, I don’t think I’ve run into that kind of sound before. Apparently it appears in some English accents as an allophone of t?

The use of the circumflex in other languages such as Adûnaic or Dwarvish has no special significance, and is used merely to mark these out as alien tongues (as with the use of k). 

... weird but okay.

The groups er, ir, ur (finally or before a consonant) are not intended to be pronounced as in English fern, fir, fur, but rather is English air, eer, oor. 

So my instinct is to assume that the ur has the same vowel as the u described earlier (with the same u as in brute in English) but the pronunciation of oor seems very inconsistent in English and depends heavily on the accent so idek.

Is it like poor or like door? Or neither? And if it is one of those then according to which accent? Or is it just IPA [ur] which would make it consistent with the er and ir?

In Dwarvish, which did not possess the sounds represented above by th and ch (kh), th and kh are aspirates, that is t or k followed by an h, more or less as in backhand, outhouse. 

Ooooh this interesting actually. So I assume this means Dwarvish has a distinction between aspirated and unaspirated plosives?

[jennelikejennay]

Oh god I can't imagine 😭 Having studied Quenya and Sindarin, the LOTR movies drive me nuts because NOBODY does it right. They just assume it doesn't matter because nobody will get it. The vocal parts of the soundtrack are especially bad. Whole syllables dropped to fit, vowels and consonants given entirely different sounds.

But I went to an orchestral performance of the soundtrack, with a different person doing all the vocals. Can't remember the name; she was Scandinavian though.

And she did it PERFECTLY 😭

No one but a conlanger can understand how meaningful it is to hear people making a genuine effort, as if it were a real language and not a random collection of syllables that don't really matter.

i know it's been said many times before but i will never get over how jacob anderson, a british man with a british accent, not only nailed a louisiana creole accent but also developed a studiously (almost eerily) generic accent that louis uses in the present AND showed the first accent bleeding into the second accent at key moments as a way of aurally externalizing his character's inner journey. what did god put in this man when she created him.

[glorthelions]

feeling possessed by the ghost of fëanor curufinwë in this house

[exercise-of-trust]

the character dynamics here are already delightful but i did also get extremely nerdsniped trying to figure out how you'd make scrabble work in quenya on a mechanics level, so. enjoy.

my first thought was "huh, is there a hebrew edition of scrabble? what's the playstyle like on that?", since the tengwar operate pretty similarly orthographically (base letters are consonants; vowels are mostly represented as floating diacritics). a webpage cataloging non-english scrabble variants informed me that hebrew scrabble does (did?) exist, but in actual practice it's mostly the province of children and people learning hebrew as a foreign language. (Shockingly, All-Consonants Scrabble Is Not Fun Or Interesting To Play For Adults Who Are Fluent In The Language.) also, per PE17 [1], primitive eldarin roots are (unlike in hebrew) not purely consonantal, so the absence of vowels as full letters in the tengwar is a purely orthographic quirk that doesn't actually represent some deeper linguistic truth. so our quenya-scrabble should definitely include some sort of vowel representation!

after messing around for a while i think i have something figured out that at least holds up under very basic testing:

this board is 11x11 instead of 15x15, which is totally intentional due to the condensed vowel system and not at all an arbitrary choice based on the size of my sketchbook, and yellow has been introduced to the color scheme to reference the finwean heraldic symbols. tengwar go in the big boxes, and tehtar go in the little ones: vowels in the right box, above the consonant they follow, and other tehtar in the left box below the consonant they apply to. (example: the top word in the second image is mirroanwi, so it gets played [malta][i-dot] + [romen][double-letter-tilde][o-hook] + [short-carrier][a-dots] + [numen] + [vilya][i-dot].) to compare, here's the actual word written out:

probably tengwar and tehtar tiles are drawn from separate bags, in roughly even amounts (how many total? do you take as many of each as you place? is it random? can you trade vowels for consonants and vice versa?). this format means you generally have to play by syllable (or, like, CV group, whatever) instead of by letter, but i think you can still add tehtar to a tengwa someone else has already placed in order to make your word work, as long as the original is still a valid word. (example: if the person before you plays min, meaning "one," and you want to branch off the last letter with a nyare, meaning "to tell/recite," you can add a two-dot tehta below the [numen] and a three-dot tehta above it to give minya, meaning "first," and then play the rest of your own word if you've still got the tiles for it.) i'm not sure how tengwar and tehtar should be scored relative to each other but there's probably some complicated rule about that too.

of course the most important question is: how do these mechanics affect finwean game nights? and to answer that, we have to consider some extremely important factors:

this is not an alphabet that lends itself to scrabble in the slightest, given the number of diacritics, their wild positioning relative to the base letters, and the frequent combination of consonant clusters into single glyphs, e.g. the single tengwa anca representing the [nc] cluster, despite [n] and [c] having their own separate letters already. also the guy who invented this alphabet is sitting at the table.

who actually came up with quenya scrabble? feanor? one of his kids? an off-the-books lambengolmor committee absolutely sloshed on miruvóre? whoever it is, they're getting almost as much heckling for designing the game as feanor is for his unplayable alphabet. the only person getting heckled more is whatever coward keeps suggesting they pick a different game if they hate this one so much.

quenya, like its real-world inspiration finnish, is a highly agglutinative language. there are so many allowable prefixes and suffixes. as an example, these are some of the possible inflections of the word cirya [2] — just grammatical ones, to be clear; we're not even touching on common adjective-noun compounds. behold:

you play a nice simple noun that you think is far enough away from the good strategic spots that you'll be safe and then BAM. your little brother comes crawling out of the woodwork to slap on a -lissenitya [3] he's been building up to for three rounds and gets a triple word square as he informal-thou's you to your face. good luck coming back from that one.

"valarin loanwords do NOT count" vs "commonly used loanwords following quenya phonotactics are fine" vs "telvo and i use that word all the time, intra-twin communication is a valid dialect of quenya, stop dialect-shaming us, if you can't pronounce dušamanûðân that sounds like a skill issue, yeah of course we always use these three high-value tiles to write the non-native sounds" <- and the worst part is they do have a solid phonological reasoning for those tile choices

in conclusion. this game would be a nightmare even if normal people were playing it but when half the participants have the equivalent of a doctorate in linguistics simply through childhood osmosis it transcends nightmarish and arrives somewhere in the realm of a flagrant affront to god, and if that isn't noldorin culture i don't know what is.

[1]: "In Eldarin structure every base consisted of a consonantal frame, most frequently biconsonantal, as K-L; but this was not complete or significant without its characteristic vowel (Q. sundóma [sic] 'root-vowel'). Thus KAL, KIL, KUL were distinct bases, not necessarily related in sense, indeed usually quite unconnected." PE17, J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. Christopher Gilson, pp. 104-105.

[2]: this wild case list is from eldamo, imo the best elven dictionary available on the internet bar none. i'm gonna marry their search system when i grow up.

[3]: -li, partative plural (a subset of a larger group); -sse(n), locative case (in/on/at the base noun); -(i)tya, informal 2nd singular possessive pronoun (quenya, like korean, german, french, and many other languages including english even up through the early modern period, has polite and informal modes of address, and we don't take advantage of this nearly enough in fic). -sse is the singular locative, while -ssen is the plural — if your opponent adds this to one of your words, your only recourse is to start a fight about whether the -li already implies the plural, making the -n redundant and shortening the full word from ciryalissenitya to ciryalissetya, which is still bad but not as wildly humiliating, and if you're lucky everyone will be too busy arguing about grammar to remember how thoroughly you got dunked on.

I desperately would love love LOVE to introduce Feanorians to a Quenyan version of Scrabble and watch them explode

I imagine that they'd make a bigger board to be able to fit 10-12 players and it would go on for days. With bickerings on the validity of words and with Moryo as the score keeper who can't quite keep his mouth shut and joins in on the bickering on wheter the word choice is "so fucking stupid, Tyelko. It should be banned on principle. What the fuck-". Each of the Feanorion just keeps on making up new rules especially after the Ambarussa makes up new words and argues for a whole hour and a half that it "totally counts as a word. Trust us, Nelyo-", that time Meadhros tried to pass a whole ass sentence as a "word", when Feanor took almost 12+ hours to think up an appropriate word to put down and etc.

Because come on guys. Ñoldor? "Those with great knowledge"? Feanor? The guy who created a whole ass writing system (the Tengwar)? His family? Who is just as intense and competitive as him? His step-siblings who would no doubt love an excuse to throw down without getting into trouble with the Valar or Finwë? Scrabble is THE BEST for Ñoldor Family Game Night(s).

I can just imagine Feanor playing scrabble with Finwë, Indis, Nolofinwë, Arafinwë, Írimë and Findis. Oh boyy. Findis is keeping score but everyone keeps trying to justify how they should have a higher score that word. Nolo and Feanor are shouting. Accusing each other for cheating. Ara made a throwaway joke once and suddenly BOTH his brothers are shouting at him. Indis saw the chaos and wanted to put away the game but was immediately stopped. Finwë is just happy to spend time with his family. Írimë is, in fact, the one who is cheating

Edit: More Feanorion shenanigans here! For part 2

Edit: And another! For part 3

Edit: Part 4!

[Edited to keep it to one post. Was too excited to post]

[lalaithion]

Ranking the Sindarization of the Names of the House of Finwe

A completely objective list

The Good

Irissë -> Aredhel. Look, Irissë is a great name, but Aredhel, pronounced properly, with a voiced "th" sound, like in "this", and a tapped "r", like a "r" in Spanish or Italian, just sounds so wonderful. (Actually, can we talk about this? English speakers tend to refer to both the tapped r and the trilled r as "the trilled r", so which is it? Most of the written sources say “trilled r”, but most of the speaking samples I can find just tap the r instead of fully trilling it.)

Artanis Nerwen -> Galadriel. Artanis and Nerwen are both just such boring names. Galadriel has four syllables each more awesome than the last. High Queen of the Noldor in my heart.

Nelyafinwë Maitimo -> Maedhros. Not that I dislike either of his Quenya names, but (with the same pronunciation notes as Aredhel) Maedhros just sounds so cool. And yes, the fact that he's a war criminal with the name "sexy readhead" is just too funny.

The Meh

Curufinwë Fëanoró -> Feanor. Boring! You just cut the "ó" off the end. Feanor doesn't do anything by halves except this. Okay, granted, his family did this to him – he was a linguist, I'm confident he could have done better if he had been a better tactician.

Turcafinwë Tyelkormo -> Celegorm. These are all good names. Alright, the "finwe" theme of Feanor's father names are really bad, but his mother name and his Sindar name are both good. Still, Tyelkormo is better.

Morifinwë Carnistir -> Caranthir. Yeah, these are both fine. I personally have a hard time actually pronouncing "Carnistir" correctly without tripping on the unfamiliar-to-english combination of the tapped r and the n (It's not pronounced like carnage! You need to tap the r).

Curufinwë Atarincë -> Curufin. Once again, Boring! Maybe I shouldn't be so confident that Feanor could have done better than his family, if Curufin is also just going to cut off the last vowel.

Telufinwë Ambarussa -> Amras. Abarussa is a super cute name for the twins to call each other and for others to refer to them as a group, but this is better Sindar name of the twins, so it gets to go in meh.

Ñolofinwë Aracáno -> Fingolfin. Thank Eru he went with his father name instead of his mother name; Argon is a bad name for a minor character but it would be even worse for the High King of the Noldor.

Arafinwë Ingoldo -> Finarfin. Not great, not awful. I can't help but think of dogs for the "arf", but in honesty he does sound like the cuddliest of Finwë's sons.

Artaresto -> Orodreth. Both good names. Nothing to see here.

The Bad

Findekáno -> Fingon. Oh my god. Findekáno is great and this name change sucks. Why did you do this to me, Tolkien.

Turukáno -> Turgon. Okay, at least Findekanó is doing better than his brother. Whenever I see Turgon my brain autocompletes it to "turgid", which is not a good epessë to be carrying around.

Kanafinwë Macalaurë -> Maglor. Once again, what a loss. Macalaurë is so fun and beautiful to say out loud. Maglor sounds like a depressing brand name from the 50s.

Arakáno -> Argon. That's an element dude. Also another "gon", which sucks.

Ambaráto Aikanáro -> Aegnor. Not as bad as the upcoming Rods, but. It's still bad.

Angaráto Angamaitë -> Angrod. This is the first of the Rods, which round out the end of this list.

Pityafinwë Ambarussa/Umbarto/Ambarto -> Amrod. Another Rod, so nothing needs to be said.

Findaráto Ingoldo -> Finrod. It's just so bad. I'm sorry, I just can't deal with this one.

[pachelbelsheadcanon]

please... do you have a tengwar comic sans font that is downloadable...

in fact, i have 3! all available in both OTF and TTF file formats.

Tengwar Sans General - english or sindarin mode, vowels on the following consonant

Beleriandic Sans - mode of beleriand, vowels have their own letters

Quenya Sans - quenya mode, vowels on the preceding consonant

enjoy!