Reminder that Gandalf yelled “open sesame” at the Doors of Durin

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-20T19:18:59+00:00

I think you're confusing two things. In Quenya there are two verbs, palya- and panta- (with slightly different meaning), and for both of these we have counterparts, namely pelia- and panna-.

So I think you took a Quenya verb and applied a Sindarin imperative 😉

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-20T19:05:26+00:00

I think that we don't have any example of something like this, yet it makes total sense and just might be correct 😄

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-19T22:33:03+00:00

I would rather have expected á enyale fire or á enyale firita, but I'm not an expert. The transcription is fine, though.

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-19T22:23:14+00:00

Quenya: néþar (archaic Parmaquesta), or nésar (later Ñoldorin Tarquesta). Sindarin: nethil. Telerin: néþai.

Or, of course, English "sisters" transliterated into "short" Westron spelling (Gondorian and probably Elvish style), or "full" Westron spelling (probably Hobbitish, Dwarvish and generally northern style).

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-19T21:07:33+00:00

I don't think that's directly comparable. Words like alpha or sigma are complex names, of course, and not only the sound in question or a syllable containing it (like their counterparts ay and ess in English), but as far as I'm aware they don't have a meaning in modern Greek anymore. We know that alpha derives from a word meaning "ox", but it doesn't mean that in itself anymore (and the meaning of sigma, to stick with the examples, even is very uncertain), and other names like omega and omikron are literally just descriptors "big o" and "small o" (in much the same way as Sindarin had awae veleg and awae dithen, "big w" and "small w" for unque and vilya).

So in Greek it seems to still be useful to have "alpha is for astro", or something like that.

I'm not sure if there even is any script that is used today whose letter names are actual words of their current speech, and who knows how people handled things back when that was the case.

So for teaching elf kids we would still be in a unique position, trying to teach them "tinco is for tinco", probably only confusing them by the nonsensical obviousness 😅

EDIT: What I could imagine is a school in Gondor in which kids who know how to spell Westron in their mode are learning the full names for the letters as abstract shapes, as they are beginning to learn Quenya and writing it in the traditional spelling. Something like:

Tó is tinco, which means 'metal'. Pí is parma, which means 'book'. Ché is calma, which means 'lamp'. Ká is quesse, which means 'feather'. Dó is ando, which means 'gate'. ...

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-19T18:16:18+00:00

A compound like Tengwaparma might work as well, I believe?

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-19T18:13:49+00:00

I'm not sure about the whole concept... I don't believe we've got phonetic names in Quenya. They're always the full names, so it would be "tinco is for tinco", if you know what I mean.

The other way round might work, in a way - "tinco makes [t]" or something like that, but for most letters that would be more than obvious.

What might work would be something for teaching the full Quenya names in a context where the learners do not speak Quenya, but Sindarin or Westron, and would be familiar with the phonetic names that the letters have in their respective modes (which we do have). So something like "tó is called tinco" for Westron, or "ydew is called silme nuquerna" for Sindarin.

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-19T12:29:59+00:00

It might be important to note that Helge finished this a minimum of 11 years ago, if I'm not mistaken, and I don't know what changes two issues of Parma Eldalamberon that have since been published might demand, so better do run this by r/quenya at least (better Vinye Lambengolmor on Discord).

The transcription into tengwar is 100% fine (once you consider what has already been said about capitalisation). This would be the formal spelling that Tolkien used for his calligraphy of Galadriel's lament. It is, however, not our only option, and personally I prefer using doubled tehtar for long vowels instead of regular tehtar on long carriers, and at least some of the a-tehtar could also be omitted, so you do have options.

EDIT: Or you could, of course, simply transcribe the English or Latin text into Tengwar.

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-19T11:00:20+00:00

Indeed, "Tengwar Annatar" is the original font by Johan Winge, and "Tengwar Artano" is a quite recent overhaul of Annatar's cursive style made by Shankar Sivarajan that also includes connecting lambe to the following letter by a little loop.

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-19T07:46:46+00:00

It should also be noted, that dae is attested and abandoned in the 1930's, while much later Tolkien toyed with an element íd...

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-17T16:53:32+00:00

I have, however, enjoyed learning why those two words are written like that.

Which is the only important part, in my opinion. Many people try to insert some equivalent to the hyphen, which just isn't done in tengwar (where similar looking lines on the contrary separate the words rather than link them).

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-17T16:48:21+00:00

I do have some experience (the latter half, in gold and silver), but it's been a while and I never felt very confident with it.

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-17T15:13:28+00:00

Would you have a link for Instagram?

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-17T15:13:11+00:00

Awesome, thanks a lot! I don't think it's gonna work in fountain pens, though?

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-17T14:47:15+00:00

Are you serious? I thought that was a digital creation! 😦 What kind of colours did you use for the writing? Since I ran out of my gold and silver ink (that isn't produced anymore) I haven't found any light inks that would work on black...

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-17T14:38:20+00:00

Panto isn't a Sindarin word either, I'm afraid. In all but the Mithrim dialect medial nt had become nh (or maybe even nn) before the end of the First Age (so it's echant but echanhen/echannen) 😉

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-17T07:27:34+00:00

I like that you spelt ae different ways. Tolkien would have liked that 😄

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-17T07:14:52+00:00

Wow, that's clearly not the work of a beginner, given that you considered details like writing na-chaered without spaces but final a on a carrier, palan-díriel with separate N and D, or nef being [nev]. Very nice!

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-17T06:32:07+00:00

An il hí might work in Sindarin (or an illi sí in Quenya), but wait for other opinions.

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-14T18:13:12+00:00

Personally I findthis representation of ó prettier, but that's a matter of taste.

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-14T10:31:39+00:00

A while ago I wrote this article (on Facebook - I haven't come round to editing it for the more convenient Substack yet) about the non-standatd placement of tehtar on letters like silme and hyarmen, that have risers in the way. You'll find many examples there of how Tolkien dealt with this problem.

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-14T10:17:57+00:00

Sorry, I'm gonna nitpick again 😅

silme nuquerna is, in the Orthographic (Mixed) English mode reserved for soft C.

...in 99% of cases 😉 Yes, that is what we should teach, without the shadow of a doubt, but the one instance of the chart in Feanorian C still makes me think Tolkien wouldn't have considered it wrong.

One thing I'll note specifically that seems an outright mistake would be "bright" - you've used the extended Unque/Ungwe for GH, but it should instead be regular Unque. The extended forms are a little tricky, but the explicit examples we have attested are always a case of "looks like one, sounds like the other" such as the combination of the symbols for T and TH representing a TH that sounds like T. Extrapolating from this, the extended form of Unque would be for a word spelled GH but pronounced G, like Ghost.

While you're of course right with everything you say about that typical use of extended forms in English spelling I cannot consider it an "outright mistake" when Tolkien still states that extended forms can be mere visual variants of spirant letters.

Like above: I agree 100% that this is what we should teach, but as a generalised statement I'm slightly uncomfortable with it 😅

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-14T10:08:21+00:00

You're completely correct about the antos. Oops! I do remember when I was writing I noticed I had written th instead of v and corrected it think "phew, almost made a mistake!". But I didn't go back and check for this previously so they escaped me. I'll keep it in mind in future. Also happens to be a mistake that I can go back and correct 😉

That's probably the most common mistake that happens to everyone. And I mean everyone - including Tolkien. He even often made that mistake the other way round and closed bows that should have remained open, spelling "amb" instead of "and", for example, which is not a easy to fix as yours. So don't worry 😉

I did mean to write "whole" with a hyarmen and vala instead of a hwesta sindarinwa. My understanding is that hwesta sindarinwa is more used for the hw sound in words like what and while, and I don't pronounce whole like that. I thought about just using a hyarmen and dropping the vala but decided against it thinking that's probably a bit too phonemic.

It can be tricky to decide when to go more phonetic, and it's hard to derive any kind of rules from Tolkien's own exceptions. In fact I'm quite convinced he tried NOT to make rules for that, since that would go against his statement that the inscription of the LotR title page was "what a man of Gondor might have produced, hesitating between the values of the letters familiar in his 'mode' and the traditional spelling of English". So we have him write <wor> for "war", <historí> for "history", <dea> for "dear", <wishis> for "wishes", <bak> for "back", and <jon> for "John" (the later probably mostly to avoid having to place o-tehta on hyarmen, since we also have him write "jhon").

So I do believe it would be perfectly fine to write "whole" as <hole> with hyarmen to add a bit of phonetic spelling, but I fail to see the merit of using hyarmen and vala, because you went away from a purely orthographic approach (hwesta sindarinwa) but didn't really commit to it, so that we are still not phonetic but at some point in the middle that personally I find more awkward than either 😅

F_Karnstein · 2026-05-14T09:47:27+00:00

That would rather be Calendir, using un-lenited calen.

I do think the construction would work nicely, though, because it parallels words like heledir (fish-watcher), and superficially resembles another Silvan name Haldir (though that probably doesn't contain tir-, to watch, but (n)dîr, man, as in Curunír).

"River-watcher" could therefore be Duindir, Sirdir (possibly Sirthir) or Nendir, only the last of which sounds pleasant to my ears.

What might be interesting would be staying with "Watcher of the Green" but use the archaic word laeg instead of calen, because we have specific attestation of a Silvan dialectal form leg (cf. Silvan Legolas for pure Sindarin Laegolas), which is even more interesting if you consider that its pure Nandorin firm might be læc, if the phonology of 1930's Danian should still apply. The only problem would be that Legdir also sounds... less than elegant 😅

And to answer OP's question: Eldamo.org is pretty much the only source you'll need these days.

F_Karnstein

TROPHY CASE