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The Cirth (, meaning "
rune Runes are the letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, a ...
s"; sg. certh ) is a semi‑ artificial script, based on real‑life
runic alphabet Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
s, one of several scripts invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for the constructed languages he devised and used in his works. ''Cirth'' is written with a capital letter when referring to the writing system; the letters themselves can be called ''cirth''. In the fictional history of Middle-earth, the original ''Certhas'' was created by the
Sindar In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the Elves or Quendi are a sundered (divided) people. They awoke at Cuiviénen on the continent of Middle-earth, where they were divided into three tribes: Minyar (the Firsts), Tatyar (the Seconds) and Nelyar ( ...
(or Grey Elves) for their language,
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 ...
. Its extension and elaboration was known as the ''Angerthas Daeron'', as it was attributed to the Sinda Daeron, despite the fact that it was most probably arranged by the
Noldor In the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Noldor (also spelled Ñoldor, meaning ''those with knowledge'' in his constructed language Quenya) were a kindred of Elf (Middle-earth), Elves who migrated west to the blessed realm of Valinor from the conti ...
in order to represent the sounds of other languages like
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 in ...
. Although it was later largely replaced by the Tengwar, the Cirth was nonetheless adopted by the Dwarves to write down both their Khuzdul language (''Angerthas Moria'') and the languages of Men (''Angerthas Erebor''). The Cirth was also adapted, in its oldest and simplest form, by various races including Men and even Orcs.


External history


Concept and creation

Many letters have shapes also found in the historical
runic alphabets Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
, but their sound values are only similar in a few of the vowels. Rather, the system of assignment of sound values is much more systematic in the Cirth than in the historical runes (e.g., voiced variants of a voiceless sound are expressed by an additional stroke). A similar system has been proposed for a few historical runes but is in any case much more obscure. The division between the older Cirth of Daeron and their adaptation by Dwarves and Men has been interpreted as a parallel drawn by Tolkien to the development of the Fuþorc to the
Younger Fuþark The Younger Futhark, also called Scandinavian runes, is a runic alphabet and a reduced form of the Elder Futhark, with only 16 characters, in use from about the 9th century, after a "transitional period" during the 7th and 8th centuries. The r ...
. The original Elvish Cirth "as supposed products of a superior culture" are focused on logical arrangement and a close connection between form and value whereas the adaptations by mortal races introduced irregularities. Similar to the Germanic tribes who had no written literature and used only simple runes before their conversion to Christianity, the Sindarin Elves of Beleriand with their Cirth were introduced to the more elaborate Tengwar of Fëanor when the Noldorin Elves returned to Middle-earth from the lands of the divine Valar.


Internal history and description


''Certhas''

In the Appendix E to '' The Return of the King'', Tolkien writes that the
Sindar In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the Elves or Quendi are a sundered (divided) people. They awoke at Cuiviénen on the continent of Middle-earth, where they were divided into three tribes: Minyar (the Firsts), Tatyar (the Seconds) and Nelyar ( ...
of Beleriand first developed an alphabet for their language some time between the invention of the Tengwar by
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 ...
( YT 1250) and the introduction thereof to Middle-earth by the Exiled
Noldor In the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Noldor (also spelled Ñoldor, meaning ''those with knowledge'' in his constructed language Quenya) were a kindred of Elf (Middle-earth), Elves who migrated west to the blessed realm of Valinor from the conti ...
at the beginning of the
First Age In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the history of Arda, also called the history of Middle-earth, began when the Ainur entered Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä, the fictional univer ...
. This alphabet was devised to represent only the sounds of their
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 ...
language and its letters were mostly used for inscribing names or brief memorials on wood, stone or metal, hence their angular shapes and straight lines. In
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 ...
these letters were named ''cirth'' (sing. ''certh''), from the Elvish root ''*kir-'' meaning "to cleave, to cut". An
abecedarium An abecedarium (also known as an abecedary or ABCs or simply an ABC) is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria (or abecedaries) are practice exercises. Non-Latin alphabe ...
of ''cirth'', consisting of the runes listed in due order, was commonly known as ''Certhas'' (, meaning "rune-rows" in Sindarin and loosely translated as "runic alphabet"). The oldest ''cirth'' were the following: The form of these letters was somewhat unsystematic, unlike later rearrangements and extensions that made them more
featural In a featural writing system, the shapes of the symbols (such as letters) are not arbitrary but encode phonological features of the phonemes that they represent. The term featural was introduced by Geoffrey Sampson to describe the Korean alpha ...
. The ''cirth'' and were used for and , but varied as to which was which. Many of the runes consisted of a single vertical line (or "stem") with an appendage (or "branch") attached to one or both sides. If the attachment was made on one side only, it was usually to the right, but "the reverse was not infrequent" and did not change the value of the letter. (For example, the variants or specifically mentioned for ''h'' or ''s'', also or for ''t'', etc.)


''Angerthas Daeron''

In Beleriand, before the end of the
First Age In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the history of Arda, also called the history of Middle-earth, began when the Ainur entered Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä, the fictional univer ...
, the ''Certhas'' was rearranged and further developed, partly under the influence of the Tengwar introduced by the Noldor. This reorganisation of the Cirth was commonly attributed to the Elf Daeron, minstrel and loremaster of King
Thingol Elu Thingol or Elwë Singollo is a fictional character in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He appears in ''The Silmarillion'', ''The Lays of Beleriand'' and ''The Children of Húrin'' and in numerous stories in ''The History of Middle-ea ...
of Doriath. Thus, the new system became known as the ''Angerthas Daeron'' (where "angerthas" is from Sindarin + "certhas" , meaning "long rune-rows"). In this arrangement, the assignment of values to each ''certh'' is systematic. The runes consisting of a stem and a branch attached to the right are used for voiceless
stops Stop may refer to: Places *Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States * Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina Facilities * Bus stop * Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck dri ...
, while other sounds are allocated according to the following principles: # adding a stroke to a branch adds voice (e.g., → ); # moving the branch to the left indicates opening to a spirant (e.g., → ); # placing the branch on both sides of the stem adds voice and nasality (e.g., → ). The ''cirth'' constructed in this way can therefore be arranged into series, each corresponding to a place of articulation: * labial consonants, based on ; * dental consonants, based on ; *
front consonant {{See also, grave and acute (phonetics) From an articulatory perspective, phonemes can be described as front or back. Front vowels refer to vowels articulated towards the front of the mouth. This can either refer to vowels that are more front tha ...
s, based on ; * velar consonants, based on ; *
labialized velar consonant A labialized velar or labiovelar is a velar consonant that is labialized, with a -like secondary articulation. Common examples are , which are pronounced like a , with rounded lips, such as the labialized voiceless velar plosive and labialized ...
s, based on . Other letters introduced in this system include: and for and , respectively; runes for
long vowel In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...
s, evidently originated by doubling and binding the ''certh'' of the corresponding short vowel (e.g., → two
front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...
s, probably stemming from ligatures of the corresponding
back vowel A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be c ...
with the -''certh'' (i.e., → , and → some homorganic nasal + stop clusters (e.g., Back to the fictional history, since the new and encompass sounds which do not occur in Sindarin but are present in
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 ...
, they were most probably introduced by the Exiled
Noldor In the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Noldor (also spelled Ñoldor, meaning ''those with knowledge'' in his constructed language Quenya) were a kindred of Elf (Middle-earth), Elves who migrated west to the blessed realm of Valinor from the conti ...
who spoke Quenya as a language of knowledge. By loan-translation, the Cirth became known in Quenya as ''Certar'' , while a single ''certh'' was called ''certa'' . After the Tengwar became the sole script used for writing, the ''Angerthas Daeron'' was essentially relegated to carved inscriptions. The Elves of the West, for the most part, abandoned the Cirth altogether, with the exception of the Noldor dwelling in the country of Eregion, who maintained it in use and made it known as ''Angerthas Eregion''. In this article, the runes of the ''Angerthas'' come with the same peculiar transliteration used by Tolkien in the Appendix E, which differs from the (Latin) spelling of both Quenya and Sindarin. The
IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners ...
transcription that follows is applicable to both languages, except where indicated otherwise.
Notes:


Angerthas Moria

According to Tolkien's ''legendarium'', the Dwarves first came to know the runes of the Noldor at the beginning of the Second Age. The Dwarves "introduced a number of unsystematic changes in value, as well as certain new cirth". They modified the previous system to suit the specific needs of their language, Khuzdul. The Dwarves spread their revised alphabet to
Moria Moria may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Moria (Middle-earth), fictional location in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien * '' Moria: The Dwarven City'', a 1984 fantasy role-playing game supplement * ''Moria'' (1978 video game), a dungeon-crawler g ...
, where it came to be known as ''Angerthas Moria'', and developed both carved and pen-written forms of these runes. Many cirth here represent sounds not occurring in Khuzdul (at least in published words of Khuzdul: of course, our corpus is very limited to judge the necessity or not, of these sounds). Here they are marked with a black star (★).


Notes on Angerthas Moria

In ''Angerthas Moria'' the cirth and were dropped. Thus and were adopted for and , although they were used for and in Elvish languages. Subsequently, this script used the certh for , which had the sound in the Elvish systems. Therefore, the certh (which was previously used for the sound , useless in Khuzdul) was adopted for the sound . A totally new introduction was the certh , used as an alternative, simplified and, maybe, weaker form of . Because of the visual relation of these two cirth, the certh was given the sound to relate better with that, in this script, had the sound .


Angerthas Erebor

At the beginning of the Third Age the Dwarves were driven out of Moria, and some migrated to Erebor. As the Dwarves of Erebor would trade with the Men of the nearby towns of
Dale Dale or dales may refer to: Locations * Dale (landform), an open valley * Dale (place name element) Geography ;Australia * The Dales (Christmas Island), in the Indian Ocean ;Canada * Dale, Ontario ;Ethiopia *Dale (woreda), district ;Norway *D ...
and Lake-town, they needed a script to write in Westron (the ''
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' of Middle-earth, usually rendered in English by Tolkien in his works). The ''Angerthas Moria'' was adapted accordingly: some new cirth were added, while some were restored to their Elvish usage, thus creating the ''Angerthas Erebor''. While the ''Angerthas Moria'' was still used to write down Khuzdul, this new script was primarily used for Mannish languages. It is also the script used in the first and third page of 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 "pictur ...
. Angerthas Erebor also features
combining diacritic In digital typography, combining characters are characters that are intended to modify other characters. The most common combining characters in the Latin script are the combining diacritical marks (including combining accents). Unicode als ...
s: *a
circumflex The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around"a ...
used to denote long consonants; *a macron below to indicate a
long vowel In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...
sound; *an underdot to mark cirth used as numerals. As a matter of fact, in the Book of Mazarbul some cirth are used as numerals: for 1, for 2, for 3, for 4, for 5. The ''Angerthas Erebor'' is used twice in '' The Lord of the Rings'' to write in English: # in the upper inscription of the title page, where it reads " h™Â·lord·ov· h™Â·riÅ‹s·translatᵊd·from· h™Â· red·b o' ..." (the sentence follows in the bottom inscription, written in Tengwar: "... of Westmarch by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Herein is set forth/ the history of the War of the Ring and the Return of the King as seen by the Hobbits."); # in the bottom inscription of Balin's tomb—being the translation of the upper inscription, which is written in Khuzdul using ''Angerthas Moria''. The Book of Mazarbul shows some additional cirth used in ''Angerthas Erebor'': one for a double ligature, one for the definite article, and six for the representation of the same number of English
diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s:


Notes on Angerthas Erebor


Other runic scripts by Tolkien

The Cirth is not the only runic writing system used by Tolkien in his ''legendarium''. In fact, he devised a great number of runic alphabets, of which only a few others have been published. Some of these are included in the "Appendix on Runes" of ''
The Treason of Isengard ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'' ('' The History of Middle-earth'', vol. VII), edited by
Christopher Tolkien Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 â€“ 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' ...
.


Runes from ''The Hobbit''

According to Tolkien himself, those found in '' The Hobbit'' are a form of "English runes" used in lieu of the Dwarvish runes proper. They can be interpreted as an attempt made by Tolkien to adapt the
Fuþorc Anglo-Saxon runes ( ang, rūna ᚱᚢᚾᚪ) are runes used by the early Anglo-Saxons as an alphabet in their writing system. The characters are known collectively as the futhorc (ᚠᚢᚦᚩᚱᚳ ''fuþorc'') from the Old English sound va ...
(i.e., the
Old English 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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
runic alphabet) to the Modern English language. These runes are basically the same found in Fuþorc, but their sound may change according to their position, just like the letters of the Latin script: the writing mode used by Tolkien is, in this case, mainly orthographic. This means that the system has one rune for each Latin letter, regardless of pronunciation. For example, the rune can sound in , in , in , and even in the digraph . A few sounds are instead written with the same rune, without considering the English spelling. For example, the sound is always written with the rune whether in English it is spelt as in , as in , or as in . The only two letters that are subject to this phonemic spelling are and . Finally, there are also some runes which stand for particular English digraphs and diphthongs. Here the runes used in ''The Hobbit'' are displayed along with their Fuþorc counterpart and corresponding English grapheme: Notes:


Gondolinic runes

Not all the runes mentioned in ''The Hobbit'' are Dwarf-runes. The swords found in the Trolls' cave bore runes that Gandalf could not read. In fact, the swords
Glamdring Weapons and armour of Middle-earth are those of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings, such as ''The Hobbit'', ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Silmarillion''. Tolkien modelled his fictional warfare on the Ancient history, Ancient ...
and
Orcrist The Weapons and armour of Middle-earth are all those mentioned J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings, such as ''The Hobbit'', ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Silmarillion''. Tolkien modelled his fictional warfare on the Ancient a ...
(which were forged in the ancient kingdom of Gondolin) bore a type of letters known as ''Gondolinic runes''. They seem to have become obsolete and been forgotten by the Third Age, and this is supported by the fact that only Elrond could still read the inscriptions on the swords. Tolkien devised this runic alphabet in a very early stage of his shaping of Middle-earth. Nevertheless, they are known to us from a slip of paper written by J. R. R. Tolkien, a photocopy of which
Christopher Tolkien Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 â€“ 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' ...
sent to Paul Nolan Hyde in February 1992. Hyde then published it, together with an extensive analysis, in the 1992 Summer issue of Mythlore, no. 69. The system provides sounds not found in any of the known Elven languages of the
First Age In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the history of Arda, also called the history of Middle-earth, began when the Ainur entered Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä, the fictional univer ...
, but perhaps it was designed for a variety of languages. However, the consonants seem to be, more or less, the same found in Welsh phonology, a theory supported by the fact that Tolkien was heavily influenced by
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 ...
when creating Elven languages.


Encoding schemes


Unicode

Equivalents for some (but not all) cirth can be found in the Runic block of Unicode. Tolkien's mode of writing Modern English in Anglo-Saxon runes received explicit recognition with the introduction of his three additional runes to the Runic block with the release of Unicode 7.0, in June 2014. The three characters represent the English , and graphemes, as follows: * * * A formal Unicode proposal to encode Cirth as a separate script was made in September 1997 by Michael Everson. No action was taken by the Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) but Cirth appears in the Roadmap to the SMP.


ConScript Unicode Registry

Unicode Private Use Area layouts for Cirth are defined at the
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) and the Under-ConScript Unicode Registry (UCSUR). Two different layouts are defined by the CSUR/UCSUR: * 1997-11-03 proposal implemented by fonts like
GNU Unifont GNU Unifont is a free Unicode bitmap font using an intermediate bitmapped font format created by Roman Czyborra. The main Unifont covers all of the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). The "upper" companion covers significant parts of the Supplementa ...
and Code2000. * 2000-04-22 discussion paper implemented by fonts like Constructium and Fairfax. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols below instead of Cirth.


See also

*
List of runestones There are about 3,000 runestones in Scandinavia (out of a total of about 6,000 runic inscriptions). p. 38. The runestones are unevenly distributed in Scandinavia: The majority is found in Sweden, estimated at between 1,700 and 2,500 (depending o ...


References

{{Constructed languages Middle-earth writing systems Alphabets Runology Runiform scripts Miscellaneous Unicode blocks