The Tengwar script is an

artificial script A constructed script is a new writing system specifically created by an individual or group, rather than having evolved as part of a language or culture like a natural script. Some are designed for use with constructed languages, although several ...

, one of several scripts created by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...

, the author of ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...

''. Within the fictional context of

Middle-earth Middle-earth is the fictional setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the ''Miðgarðr'' of Norse mythology and ''Middangeard'' in Old English works, including ''Beowulf''. Middle-earth is t ...

, the Tengwar were invented by the

Elf An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes "ligh ...

Fëanor Fëanor () is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Silmarillion''. He was the eldest son of Finwë, the King of the Noldor, and his first wife Míriel. As a great loremaster and creator, he improved the Sarati alphabet, inventing T ...

, and used first to write the Elven tongues

Quenya Quenya ()Tolkien wrote in his "Outline of Phonology" (in ''Parma Eldalamberon'' 19, p. 74) dedicated to the phonology of Quenya: is "a sound as in English ''new''". In Quenya is a combination of consonants, ibidem., p. 81. is a constructed la ...

and

Telerin J. R. R. Tolkien constructed many Elvish languages; the best known are Quenya and Sindarin. These were the various languages spoken by the Elves of Middle-earth as they developed as a society throughout the Ages. In his pursuit for realism and ...

. Later a great number of

languages of Middle-earth Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

were written using the Tengwar, including

Sindarin Sindarin is one of the fictional languages devised by J. R. R. Tolkien for use in his fantasy stories set in Arda, primarily in Middle-earth. Sindarin is one of the many languages spoken by the Elves. The word is a Quenya word. Called in Eng ...

. Tolkien used Tengwar to write

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

: most of Tolkien's Tengwar samples are actually in English.

Internal history and terminology

According to J.R.R. Tolkien's ''

The War of the Jewels ''The War of the Jewels'' (1994) is the 11th volume of Christopher Tolkien's series ''The History of Middle-earth'', analysing the unpublished manuscripts of his father J. R. R. Tolkien. It is the second of two volumes—'' Morgoth's Ring'' bei ...

'', edited by his son

Christopher Tolkien Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) was an English academic editor, becoming a French citizen in later life. The son of author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien edited much of his father' ...

, at the time Fëanor created his script, he introduced a change in terminology. He called a letter, a written representation of a spoken phoneme (''tengwë''), a ''tengwa''. Previously, any letter or symbol had been called a ''sarat'' (from ''*sar'' "incise"). The alphabet of Rúmil of Tirion, on which Fëanor supposedly based his own work, was known as

Sarati Sarati is an artificial script, one of several scripts created by J. R. R. Tolkien. According to Tolkien's mythology, the Sarati alphabet was invented by the Elf Rúmil of Tirion. External history As Tolkien strove to create a world that w ...

. It later became known as "Tengwar of Rúmil". The plural of ''tengwa'' is ''tengwar'', and this is the name by which Fëanor's writing system became known. Since, however, in commonly used modes, an individual ''tengwa'' was equivalent to a consonant, the term ''tengwar'' in the fiction became equivalent to "consonant sign", and the vowel signs were known as ''ómatehtar''. By loan-translation, the tengwar became known as ''tîw'' (singular ''têw'') in Sindarin, when they were introduced to

Beleriand In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional legendarium, Beleriand was a region in northwestern Middle-earth during the First Age. Events in Beleriand are described chiefly in his work ''The Silmarillion'', which tells the story of the early ages of Middle-e ...

. The letters of the earlier alphabet native to Sindarin were called ''

cirth The Cirth (, meaning "runes"; sg. certh ) is a semi‑artificial script, based on real‑life runic alphabets, one of Tolkien's scripts, several scripts invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for the constructed languages he devised and used in his wor ...

'' (singular ''certh'', probably from ''*kirte'' "cutting", and thus semantically analogous to Quenya ''sarat''). This term was loaned into exilic Quenya as ''certa'', plural ''certar''.

External history

Precursors

The

sarati Sarati is an artificial script, one of several scripts created by J. R. R. Tolkien. According to Tolkien's mythology, the Sarati alphabet was invented by the Elf Rúmil of Tirion. External history As Tolkien strove to create a world that w ...

, a script developed by Tolkien in the late 1910s and described in ''

Parma Eldalamberon Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second mos ...

13'', anticipates many features of the tengwar: vowel representation by

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

s (which is found in many tengwar varieties); different tengwar shapes; and a few correspondences between sound features and letter shape features (though inconsistent). Even closer to the tengwar is the Valmaric script, described in ''Parma Eldalamberon 14'', which Tolkien used from about 1922 to 1925. It features many tengwar shapes, the inherent vowel found in some tengwar varieties, and the tables in the samples V12 and V13 show an arrangement that is very similar to one of the primary tengwar in the classical Quenya "mode". Jim Allan in his ''An Introduction to Elvish'' compared the tengwar with the ''Universal Alphabet'' by the London merchant

Francis Lodwick Francis Lodwick Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (or Lodowick; 1619–1694) was a pioneer of a priori language, ''a priori'' languages (what in the seventeenth century was called a 'philosophical language'). Biography Francis Lodwick was a mer ...

of 1686, both on grounds of the correspondence between shape features and sound features, and of the actual letter shapes.

Tengwar

The tengwar script was probably developed in the late 1920s or in the early 1930s. ''The Lonely Mountain Jar Inscription'', the first published Tengwar sample, dates to 1937. The full explanation of the tengwar was published in Appendix E of ''

'' in 1955. The ''Mellonath Daeron Index of Tengwar Specimina'' (DTS) lists most of the known samples of tengwar by Tolkien. There are only a few known samples predating publication of ''The Lord of the Rings'' (many of them published posthumously): * ''The Lonely Mountain Jar Inscription'', published 1937 * ''Middle Page from the

Book of Mazarbul Tolkien's artwork was a key element of his creativity from the time when he began to write fiction. The philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien prepared illustrations for his Middle-earth fantasy books, facsimile artefacts, more or less "pictu ...

'' * ''Last Page from the Book of Mazarbul, Last Line'', this and the above one originally prepared for inclusion in ''The Lord of the Rings'' * ''Steinborg Drawing Title'' * ''Ilbereth's Greeting'' from

The Father Christmas Letters ''The Father Christmas Letters'', also known as ''Letters from Father Christmas'', are a collection of letters written and illustrated by J. R. R. Tolkien between 1920 and 1943 for his children, from Father Christmas. They were released posthumo ...

, dating to 1937 * ''The Treebeard Page'' * ''Edwin Lowdham's Manuscript'' from

The Notion Club Papers ''The Notion Club Papers'' is an abandoned novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, written during 1945 and published posthumously in '' Sauron Defeated'', the 9th volume of ''The History of Middle-earth''. It is a time travel story, written while ''The Lord of ...

has

Old English language Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th cen ...

text written in tengwar (with a few Adûnaic and Quenya words), dating to 1945/6. * The Brogan Tengwa-greetings, appearing in ''

The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien ''The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien'' is a selection of J. R. R. Tolkien's letters published in 1981, edited by Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter assisted by Christopher Tolkien. The selection from a large mass of materials contains 354 lett ...

'', No. 118, tentatively dated to 1948 The following samples presumably predate the Lord of the Rings, but were not explicitly dated: * ''Elvish Script Sample I, II, III'', with parts of the English poems ''Errantry'' and ''Bombadil'', first published in the ''Silmarillion Calendar 1978'', later in ''Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien'', * ''So Lúthien'', a page of the English ''Lay of Leithian'' text

Description

Tengwar alphabet with row and column headings

Letters

The most notable characteristic of the tengwar script is that the shapes of the letters correspond to the

distinctive feature In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that distinguishes one sound from another within a language. For example, the feature oicedistinguishes the two bilabial plosives: and There are many diffe ...

s of the sounds they represent. The Quenya consonant system has five

places of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...

labial The term ''labial'' originates from '' Labium'' (Latin for "lip"), and is the adjective that describes anything of or related to lips, such as lip-like structures. Thus, it may refer to: * the lips ** In linguistics, a labial consonant ** In zoolog ...

, dental,

palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...

velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...

, and glottal. The velars distinguish between plain and labialized (that is, articulated with rounded lips, or followed by a sound). Each point of articulation, and the corresponding tengwa series, has a name in the classical Quenya mode. Dental sounds are called ''Tincotéma'' and are represented with the tengwar in column I. Labial sounds are called ''Parmatéma'', and represented by the column II tengwar; velar sounds are called ''Calmatéma'', represented by column III; and labialized velar sounds are called ''Quessetéma'', represented by the ''tengwar'' of column IV. Palatal sounds are called ''Tyelpetéma'' and have no tengwa series of their own, but are represented by column III letters with an added diacritic for following . Similarly shaped letters reflect not only similar places of articulation, but also similar manners of articulation. In the classical Quenya mode, row 1 represents voiceless stops, row 2 voiced prenasalized stops, row 3 voiceless fricatives, row 4 voiceless prenasalized stops, row 5 nasal stops, and row 6 approximants.

Regularly formed

Most letters are constructed by a combination of two basic shapes: a vertical stem (either long or short) and either one or two rounded bows (which may or may not be underscored, and may be on the left or right of the stem). These principal letters are divided into four series ("témar") that correspond to the main places of articulation and into six grades ("tyeller") that correspond to the main

manners of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the articulators (speech organs such as the tongue, lips, and palate) when making a speech sound. One parameter of manner is ''stricture,'' that is, h ...

. Both vary among modes. Each series is headed by the basic signs composed of a vertical stem descending below the line, and a single bow. These basic signs represent the

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...

less

stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...

s for that series. For the classical Quenya mode, they are , , and , and the series are named ''tincotéma'', ''parmatéma'', ''calmatéma'', and ''quessetéma'', respectively; téma means "series" in Quenya. In rows of the ''general use'', there are the following correspondences between letter shapes and manners of articulation: * Doubling the bow turns the

voiceless consonant In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...

into a voiced one. * Raising the stem above the line turns it into the corresponding

fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

. * Shortening it (so it is only the height of the bow) creates the corresponding nasal. In most modes, the signs with shortened stem and single bow do not correspond to the

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...

nasals, but to the

approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...

s. In addition to these variations of the tengwar shapes, there is yet another variation, the use of stems that are extended both above and below the line. This shape may correspond to other consonant variations required. Except for some English abbreviations, it is not used in any of the better known tengwar modes, but it occurs in a

mode where the tengwa Parma with extended stem is used for and the tengwa Calma with extended stem is used for . The tengwar with raised stems sometimes occur in

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

variants that look like extended stems, as seen in the inscription of the

One Ring The One Ring, also called the Ruling Ring and Isildur's Bane, is a central plot element in J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'' (1954–55). It first appeared in the earlier story ''The Hobbit'' (1937) as a magic ring that grants the w ...

. An example from the ''parmatéma'' (the signs with a closed bow on the right side) in the "general use" of the tengwar is:

* The basic sign, named ''parma'', (with descending stem) represents (it happens to look much like the Latin letter ''P''). * With the bow doubled, ''umbar'', it represents . * With a raised stem, ''formen'', it represents . * With a raised stem and a doubled bow, ''ampa'', it represents generally but possibly (depending upon the language). * With a short stem and double bow, ', it represents . * With short stem and single bow, ''vala'', it represents , or if that has the phonological behaviour of a sonorant (e.g. in Quenya). In languages such as Quenya, which do not contain any voiced fricatives other than "v", the raised stem + doubled bow row is used for the common nasal+stop sequences (''nt'', ''mp'', ''nk'', ''nqu''). In such cases, the "w" sign in the previous paragraph is used for "v". In the mode of Beleriand, found on the door to Moria, the bottom ''tyellë'' is used for nasals (e.g., ''vala'' is used for ) and the fifth ''tyellë'' for doubled nasals (' for ).

Irregularly formed

There are additional letters that do not have regular shapes. They may represent, e.g., , , and . Their use varies considerably from mode to mode. Some aficionados have added more letters not found in Tolkien's writings for use in their modes.

Tehtar

A ''tehta'' (Quenya "marking") is a

placed above or below the tengwa. They can represent vowels, consonant doubling, or nasal sound. As Tolkien explained in Appendix E of ''The Lord of the Rings'', the ''tehtar'' for vowels resemble Latin diacritics: circumflex (î) , acute (í) , dot (i) , left curl (ı̔) , and right curl (ı̓) . Long vowels, excepting , may be indicated by doubling the signs. Some languages from which is absent or in which compared to it appears sparsely, such as the Black Speech, use left curl for ; other languages swap the signs for and . A vowel occurring alone is drawn on the vowel carrier, which resembles

dotless i I, or ı, called dotless I, is a letter used in the Latin-script alphabets of Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz, Kazakh, Tatar, Kyrgyz, and Turkish. It commonly represents the close back unrounded vowel , except in Kazakh where it represen ...

(ı) for a short vowel or dotless j (ȷ) for a long vowel.

Modes

Just as with any

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...

ic writing system, every specific language written in tengwar requires a specific

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...

, depending on the

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

of that language. These tengwar orthographies are usually called ''modes''. Some modes follow pronunciation, while others follow traditional orthography. Some modes map the basic consonants to , , and (classical mode in chart at right), while others use them to represent , , and (general mode at right). The other main difference is in the fourth ''tyellë'' below, where those letters with raised stems and doubled bows can be either voiced fricatives, as in Sindarin (general mode at right), or nasalized stops, as in Quenya (classical mode).

Ómatehtar

In some modes, called ''ómatehtar'' (or ''vowel tehtar'') modes, the vowels are represented with

s called ''

tehta The Tengwar script is an artificial script, one of Tolkien's scripts, several scripts created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of ''The Lord of the Rings''. Within the fictional context of Middle-earth, the Tengwar were invented by the Elf (M ...

r'' (Quenya for 'signs'; corresponding

singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...

: ''tehta'', 'sign'). These ómatehtar modes can be loosely considered

abjad An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels ...

s rather than true

s. In some ómatehtar modes, the consonant signs feature an inherent vowel. These ómatehtar modes can be considered alphasyllabaries. ''Ómatehtar'' modes can vary in that the vowel stroke can be placed either on top of the consonant preceding it, as in

, or on the consonant following, as in

, English, and the notorious Black Speech inscription on the One Ring.

Full writing

In the ''full writing'' modes, the consonants and the vowels are represented by Tengwar. Only one such mode is well known. It is called the "mode of

" and one can read it on the

Doors of Durin In the fictional world of J. R. R. Tolkien, Moria, also named Khazad-dûm, is an ancient subterranean complex in Middle-earth, comprising a vast labyrinthine network of tunnels, chambers, mines and halls under the Misty Mountains, with doors on ...

Modes for other languages

Since the publication of the first official description of the Tengwar at the end of ''

'', others have created modes for other languages such as

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

, French,

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

, Hungarian and

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

. Modes have also been devised for other

constructed language A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...

Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...

and

Lojban Lojban (pronounced ) is a logical, constructed, human language created by the Logical Language Group which aims to be syntactically unambigious. It succeeds the Loglan project. The Logical Language Group (LLG) began developing Lojban in 1987. ...

. Tolkien had used multiple modes for English, including full writing and ómatehtar alphabetic modes, phonetic full modes and phonetic ómatehtar modes known from documents published after his death.

Encoding schemes

Legacy encoding

The contemporary

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

standard in the tengwar user community maps the tengwar characters onto the ISO 8859-1 character encoding following the example of the tengwar typefaces by Dan Smith. This implies a major flaw: If no corresponding tengwar font is installed, a string of nonsense characters appears. Since there are not enough places in ISO 8859-1's 191 codepoints for all the signs used in tengwar orthography, certain signs are included in a "tengwar A" font which also maps its characters on ISO 8859-1, overlapping with the first font. For each tengwar diacritic, there are four different codepoints that are used depending on the width of the character which bears it. Other tengwar typefaces with this encoding includ
Johan Winge's Tengwar Annatar
o
Michal Nowakowski's Tengwar Formal
(note that most of these differ in details). The following sample shows the first article of the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal De ...

written in English, according to the traditional

English orthography English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, and p ...

. It should look similar to the picture at the top of the page, but if no tengwar font is installed, it will appear as a jumble of characters because the corresponding ISO 8859-1 characters will appear instead.

j#¸ 9t&5# w`Vb%_ 6EO w6Y5 e7`V`V 2{( zèVj# 5% 2x%51T`Û 2{( 7v%1+- 4hR 7EO 2{$yYO2 y4% 7]F85^ 2{( z5^8I`B5$I( 2{( dyYj2 zE1 1yY6E2_ 5^( 5#4^(7 5% `C 8q7T1T W w74^(692^H --

Note: Some browsers may not display these characters properly.

Unicode

A proposal has been made by

Michael Everson Michael Everson (born January 9, 1963) is an American and Irish linguist, script encoder, typesetter, type designer and publisher. He runs a publishing company called Evertype, through which he has published over a hundred books since 2006. His ...

to include the tengwar in the

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

standard. The codepoints are subject to change; the range to U+160FF in the SMP is tentatively allocated for tengwar according to the curren
Unicode roadmap

ConScript Unicode Registry

Tengwar are currently included in the unofficial

ConScript Unicode Registry The ConScript Unicode Registry is a discontinued volunteer project to coordinate the assignment of code points in the Unicode Private Use Areas (PUA) for the encoding of artificial scripts including those for constructed languages. It was founded by ...

(CSUR), which assigns codepoints in the

Private Use Area In Unicode, a Private Use Area (PUA) is a range of code points that, by definition, will not be assigned characters by the Unicode Consortium. Three private use areas are defined: one in the Basic Multilingual Plane (), and one each in, and nearl ...

. Tengwar are mapped to the range U+E000 to U+E07F; see

External links An internal link is a type of hyperlink on a web page to another page or resource, such as an image or document, on the same website or domain. Hyperlinks are considered either "external" or "internal" depending on their target or destination ...

. The following Unicode sample (which repeats the one above) is meaningful when viewed under a typeface supporting tengwar glyphs in the area defined in the ConScript tengwar proposal.

⸬ ⸬

Some

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are list of type ...

s that support this proposal are Everson Mono
Tengwar Telcontar
Constructium

an
James Kass
s

Code2000 Code2000 is a serif font, serif and pan-Unicode typefaces, Unicode digital font, which includes Grapheme, characters and symbols from a very large range of writing systems. As of the current final version 1.171 released in 2008, Code2000 is d ...

and Code2001 use an older, incompatible version of the proposal). The eight “Aux” variant fonts o
Kurinto
(Kurinto Text Aux, Book Aux, Sans Aux, etc.) also support Tengwar. {, class="wikitable" , + Tengwar letters CSUR encoding ! Name !! Image !! CSUR , , Designation annotation , - , tinco , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa tinco

, , U+E000 , , TENGWAR LETTER TINCO , - , parma , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa parma

, , U+E001 , , TENGWAR LETTER PARMA , - , calma , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa calma

, , U+E002 , , TENGWAR LETTER CALMA , - , quessë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa quesse

, , U+E003 , , TENGWAR LETTER QUESSE , - , ando , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa ando

, , U+E004 , , TENGWAR LETTER ANDO , - , umbar , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa umbar

, , U+E005 , , TENGWAR LETTER UMBAR , - , anga , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa anga

, , U+E006 , , TENGWAR LETTER ANGA , - , ungwë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa ungwe

, , U+E007 , , TENGWAR LETTER UNGWE , - , súlë / thúlë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa súle

, , U+E008 , , TENGWAR LETTER THUULE (suule) , - , formen , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa formen

, , U+E009 , , TENGWAR LETTER FORMEN , - , harma / aha , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa aha

, , U+E00A , , TENGWAR LETTER HARMA (aha) , - , hwesta , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa hwesta

, , U+E00B , , TENGWAR LETTER HWESTA , - , anto , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa anto

, , U+E00C , , TENGWAR LETTER ANTO , - , ampa , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa ampa

, , U+E00D , , TENGWAR LETTER AMPA , - , anca , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa anca

, , U+E00E , , TENGWAR LETTER ANCA , - , unquë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa unque

, , U+E00F , , TENGWAR LETTER UNQUE , - , númen , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa númen

, , U+E010 , , TENGWAR LETTER NUUMEN , - , , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa malta

, , U+E011 , , TENGWAR LETTER MALTA , - , noldo / ñoldo , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa noldo

, , U+E012 , , TENGWAR LETTER NOLDO (ngoldo) , - , nwalmë / ñwalmë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa nwalme

, , U+E013 , , TENGWAR LETTER NWALME (ngwalme) , - , órë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa óre

, , U+E014 , , TENGWAR LETTER OORE , - , vala , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa vala

, , U+E015 , , TENGWAR LETTER VALA , - , anna , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa anna

, , U+E016 , , TENGWAR LETTER ANNA , - , vilya / wilya , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa wilya

, , U+E017 , , TENGWAR LETTER VILYA (wilya) , - , rómen , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa rómen

, , U+E018 , , TENGWAR LETTER ROOMEN , - , arda , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa arda

, , U+E019 , , TENGWAR LETTER ARDA , - , lambë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa lambe

, , U+E01A , , TENGWAR LETTER LAMBE , - , alda , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa alda

, , U+E01B , , TENGWAR LETTER ALDA , - , silmë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa silme

, , U+E01C , , TENGWAR LETTER SILME , - , silmë nuquerna , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa silme nuquerna

, , U+E01D , , TENGWAR LETTER SILME NUQUERNA , - , essë / áre/áze , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa esse

, , U+E01E , , TENGWAR LETTER AARE (aaze, esse) , - , essë nuquerna / áre/áze nuquerna , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa esse nuquerna

, , U+E01F , , TENGWAR LETTER AARE NUQUERNA (aaze n., esse n.) , - , hyarmen , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa hyarmen

, , U+E020 , , TENGWAR LETTER HYARMEN , - , hwesta sindarinwa , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa hwesta sindarinwa

, , U+E021 , , TENGWAR LETTER HWESTA SINDARINWA , - , yanta , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa yanta

, , U+E022 , , TENGWAR LETTER YANTA , - , úrë , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa úre

, , U+E023 , , TENGWAR LETTER UURE , - , halla , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa halla

, , U+E024 , , TENGWAR LETTER HALLA , - , telco , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa telco

, , U+E025 , , TENGWAR LETTER SHORT CARRIER , - , ára , , style="color: black !important; background-color: white !important;" , Tengwa ára

, , U+E026 , , TENGWAR LETTER LONG CARRIER {, class="wikitable" , + Tengwar ligatures and extended letters CSUR encoding ! Name !! Image !! CSUR , , Designation annotation , - , , , , , U+E027 , , TENGWAR LETTER ANNA SINDARINWA , - , , , , , U+E028 , , TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED THUULE , - , , , , , U+E029 , , TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED FORMEN , - , , , , , U+E02A , , TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED HARMA , - , , , , , U+E02B , , TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED HWESTA , - , , , , , U+E02C , , TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED ANTO , - , , , , , U+E02D , , TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED AMPA , - , , , , , U+E02E , , TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED ANCA , - , , , , , U+E02F , , TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED UNQUE , - , , , , , U+E030 , , TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS OORE (digit zero) , - , , , , , U+E031 , , TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS VALA , - , , , , , U+E032 , , TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS ANNA , - , , , , , U+E033 , , TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS VILYA (digit one) {, class="wikitable" , + Tengwar accents CSUR encoding ! Name !! Image !! CSUR , , Designation annotation , - , amatixe 3 , , , , U+E040 , , TENGWAR SIGN THREE DOTS ABOVE , - , unutixe 3 , , , , U+E041 , , TENGWAR SIGN THREE DOTS BELOW , - , amatixe 2 , , , , U+E042 , , TENGWAR SIGN TWO DOTS ABOVE , - , unutixe 2 , , , , U+E043 , , TENGWAR SIGN TWO DOTS BELOW , - , amatixe 1 , , , , U+E044 , , TENGWAR SIGN AMATICSE (dot above) , - , unutixe 1 , , , , U+E045 , , TENGWAR SIGN NUNTICSE (dot below) , - , tecco , , , , U+E046 , , TENGWAR SIGN ACUTE (andaith, long mark) , - , , , , , U+E047 , , TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE ACUTE , - , rempe , , , , U+E048 , , TENGWAR SIGN RIGHT CURL , - , , , , , U+E049 , , TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE RIGHT CURL , - , rempenuquerna , , , , U+E04A , , TENGWAR SIGN LEFT CURL , - , , , , , U+E04B , , TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE LEFT CURL , - , amatwe , , , , U+E04C , , TENGWAR SIGN NASALIZER , - , unuatwe , , , , U+E04D , , TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLER , - , , , , , U+E04E , , TENGWAR SIGN TILDE , - , , , , , U+E04F , , TENGWAR SIGN BREVE , - , , , , , U+E050 , , TENGWAR PUSTA (putta, stop) , - , , , , , U+E051 , , TENGWAR DOUBLE PUSTA (putta) , - , , , , , U+E052 , , TENGWAR EXCLAMATION MARK , - , , , , , U+E053 , , TENGWAR QUESTION MARK , - , , , , , U+E054 , , TENGWAR SECTION MARK , - , , , , , U+E055 , , TENGWAR LONG SECTION MARK , - , thinnas , , , , U+E056 , , TENGWAR SIGN LONG CARRIER BELOW , - , , , , , U+E057 , , TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE ACUTE BELOW , - , , , , , U+E058 , , TENGWAR SIGN RIGHT CURL BELOW , - , , , , , U+E05A , , TENGWAR SIGN LEFT CURL BELOW , - , sarince , , , , U+E05C , , TENGWAR SIGN LEFT FOLLOWING SILME , - , , , , , U+E05D , , TENGWAR SIGN RIGHT FOLLOWING SILME {, class="wikitable" , + Tengwar digits CSUR encoding ! Name !! Image !! CSUR , , Designation annotation , - , title="STEMLESS OORE", 0 , , , , U+E030 , , TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS OORE (digit zero) , - , title="STEMLESS VILYA", 1 , , , , U+E033 , , TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS VILYA (digit one) , - , 2 , , , , U+E062 , , TENGWAR DIGIT TWO , - , 3 , , , , U+E063 , , TENGWAR DIGIT THREE , - , 4 , , , , U+E064 , , TENGWAR DIGIT FOUR , - , 5 , , , , U+E065 , , TENGWAR DIGIT FIVE , - , 6 , , , , U+E066 , , TENGWAR DIGIT SIX , - , 7 , , , , U+E067 , , TENGWAR DIGIT SEVEN , - , 8 , , , , U+E068 , , TENGWAR DIGIT EIGHT , - , 9 , , , , U+E069 , , TENGWAR DIGIT NINE , - , 10 , , , , U+E06A , , TENGWAR DUODECIMAL DIGIT TEN , - , 11 , , , , U+E06B , , TENGWAR DUODECIMAL DIGIT ELEVEN , - , , , , , U+E06C , , TENGWAR DECIMAL BASE MARK , - , , , , , U+E06D , , TENGWAR DUODECIMAL BASE MARK , - , , , , , U+E06E , , TENGWAR DUODECIMAL LEAST SIGNIFICANT DIGIT MARK

In popular culture

Tengwar has been used in

Tolkien fandom Tolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth legendarium which includes ''The Hobbit'', ''The Lord of the Rings'', and ''The Silmarillion''. The concept of Tolkien ...

since the publication of ''The Lord of the Rings'' in the 1950s. Tengwar script appears in a bound volume in the

Within Temptation Within Temptation is a Dutch symphonic metal band founded in April 1996 by vocalist Sharon den Adel and guitarist Robert Westerholt. They have been classified by critics as gothic metal and symphonic metal, although each album contains other inf ...

music video for "Stand My Ground" (2004), though it appears to be a random selection of letters, with a Tehta vowel appearing about every five words or so. Many tengwar are also repeated for no apparent reason. Another instance of this stylistic use of tengwar is the computer game '' Atlantis: The Lost Tales'' (1997); again the tengwar are used meaninglessly. Tengwar is also used in '' Alone in the Dark'', a comic book, as a typeface describing an arcane language. With the exception of

John Rhys-Davies John Rhys-Davies (born 5 May 1944) is a Welsh actor best known for portraying Sallah in the ''Indiana Jones'' franchise and Gimli in ''The Lord of the Rings'' trilogy. His other roles include Michael Malone in the 1993 series ''The Untoucha ...

, the actors playing the '' Fellowship of the Ring'' in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy have tattoos of the English word ''nine'' written in Quenya-mode tengwar.
/ref> Footballers such as

Sergio Agüero Sergio Leonel Agüero del Castillo (born 2 June 1988), also known as Kun Agüero, is an Argentine former professional footballer who played as a striker. He is considered one of the best strikers of his generation and one of the greatest play ...

and

Fernando Torres Fernando José Torres Sanz (; born 20 March 1984) is a Spanish football manager and former player who played as a striker. He is the current manager of Atlético Madrid Juvenil A. Due to his consistent goalscoring rate as a young player, ...

have tattoos with their first name in Tengwar on their forearms.

References

Sources

For a list of linguistic material by Tolkien published in the journals ''

'' and '' Vinyar Tengwar'', see bibliography in Elvish languages (Middle-earth). * Derzhanski, Ivan A. "The Fëanorian Tengwar and the Typology of Phonetic Writing Systems." ''Vinyar Tengwar'' 41 (2000): 20–23. * Hostetter, Carl F. ""Si man i-yulmar n(g)win enquatuva": A Newly-Discovered Tengwar Inscription." ''Vinyar Tengwar'' 21 (1992): 6–10. * Smith, Arden R., Irmengard Rauch and Gerald F. Carr. "The Semiotics of the Writing Systems of Tolkien's Middle-earth." In ''Semiotics around the World: Synthesis in Diversity, I-II'', ed. Irmengard Rauch, 1239–42. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997.

External links

Amanye Tenceli – The Tengwar
A general presentation by Måns Björkman of the tengwar script, with some extrapolations.

nbsp;— a continuously expanding list of published Tengwar samples

A comprehensive list of tengwar fonts

Free Tengwar Font Project
a project promoting free and open tengwar fonts mapped into

private use code points {{Constructed languages Abugida writing systems Alphabets Middle-earth writing systems Writing systems introduced in 1937 Miscellaneous Unicode blocks