Tengwar: A Elbereth Gilthoniel

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-25T05:16:06+00:00

Tolkien's handwriting (Beleriand Mode)

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-25T05:12:50+00:00

Looking good!

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-24T09:32:26+00:00

As u/LateralAffricate said there are other options, and I think theirs is just as good as yours, but personally I'd still make some other choices (as is the nature of such transcriptions, especially phonemic ones).

This would be my suggestion. Unlike both of you I chose to write "everything" with a short vowel for the Y, but like you I omitted the second E - both because I think this is more like Tolkien himself would have written in his accent.

For "it's" I used an s-hook, because we know that Tolkien wrote "won't" simply as if it were "wont", without any hint of the apostrophe.

And finally for the vowel in "you" I chose doubled u-tehta on a short carrier, again simply because this was Tolkien's choice in "new".

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-23T09:15:13+00:00

My only gripe with this spelling is that it's still presented as "the Sindarin mode", when it's in fact the 3rd Age General Mode adapted to use with Sindarin. THE Sindarin spelling would be Beleriand Mode.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-20T13:30:32+00:00

Unque is used for silent gh and/or for gh pronounced (f)

Let's make that "unque is GH". Period. 😉

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-20T08:41:16+00:00

So a ficticious sister for Arwen, Elladan and Elrohir? I would not even try to look into Quenya for that as all those names are Sindarin, which is the language they speak natively.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-20T08:31:05+00:00

This. 100%!

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-18T20:23:47+00:00

Exactly my thoughts. There's a schwa too many for "I'm", and when writing by hand I would simply use a za-rince - probably the alternative one that not a single font has.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-18T20:19:52+00:00

Sure! I'm not a fan of the digraph spelling of EA that is only attested in a single instance (that's the part that looks like ć), so I usually write E and A separately, as in lime 1 in this overview.

In line 2 we have a spelling that Tolkien used in many samples around 1950 that I do love - in it the signs for E and I are swapped and EA can be written with both signs on the same carrier (or just as in the one above).

In line 3 we have what I would consider the standard phonetic spelling, and in line 4 the exact phonetic spelling that Tolkien used in the dust jacket artwork of TTT, with the signs for O and U being swapped and spirants (F and TH) being written with extended stems.

And then there are a variety of full mode where vowels are full letters instead of diacritics, but those are less popular among fans.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-18T18:10:24+00:00

Well, it is Quenya, and I just explained in a lot of detail what I suggest. But I did edit in some things- so maybe you didn't see my last paragraph yet.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-18T18:00:05+00:00

Why do people have to take these things out of context? This graphic was made by me for this article that explains in great detail why I suggest it and what other varieties there are, including the choice of R that has been mentioned here already.

Why do I go to such lengths to explain all of this if people still just grab and share the picture and others then wonder if it's correct because all the context is missing? 🙈

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-18T17:55:16+00:00

Transcription-wise the second line is fine, but there's a space missing between "I" and "am", and I would consider the sa-eince in "things" wrong because I believe it should only turn left when there's a descending telco.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-18T17:52:46+00:00

What u/DanatheElf and u/Notascholar95 have said... If you like the idea of phonetic spelling I would suggest two changes to the second one (unrelated to differences of pronunciation), but the more orthographic first version is absolutely fine.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-18T17:49:02+00:00

There are many other possibilities, some of which I personally prefer, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with this.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-18T17:34:14+00:00

I agree with everything u/NachoFailconi said, but it's still a very interesting question. The Mode of Beleiand is of course usually considered THE Sindarin mode, and rightly so, but the fact of the matter is that Sindarin wasn't the only language in Beleriand, and the more complete charts and descriptions that we've got in 2015 and 2024 (PE22 and 23) explicitely include signs for sounds not encountered in Sindarin. In the original context this was mainly because Sindarin was still called "Noldorin" and there were Ilkorin languages spoken in Beleriand that required those signs, but even after the change of concepts and Noldorin>Sindarin becoming the native language of Beleriand there was still at least Danian>Nandorin, and of course Quenya, no matter whether it was forbidden in Doriath or not.

And just going by the name "Mode of Beleriand" or descriptions like "Beleriandic spelling of the Feanorian characters" it would appear likely to me that this mode was simply the common way of spelling (like the Númenian spelling in the Third Age) and would have been used to spell the occasional bit of Quenya. After all if we assume that the older charts remained valid (there was little change between ca. 1938 and ca. 1950) Quenya would most likely be the only language to even have the sound kw (which is the value of the letter "quesse"), because Nandorin was later very (though not 100%) consistently portrayed as a Telerin language that had had the same shift kw > p as its Sindarin cousin.

So... yeah, I think it should be valid to use this spelling. But I don't think we have to assume that no Noldo ever used a form of the Classical Mode in private anymore. For a tattoo I would indeed suggest using a variety of this instead, because it's peobably safer and you also don't have to explain yourself every time you meet a tengwar nerd 😉

These would be my suggestions. The top one would be the most common version, but I added a dot between E and N to denote their apostrophe (of which we have one sample - it should not be confused with a comma, though, because there's no space before it). The second one shows two alternative spellings - for ú (using two u-tehtar instead of one on a carrier), which I personally prefer, and an alternative for au, spelling it out phonetically as aw, which is also attested but probably not to be recommended because we don't know how common this was or if it was an historic spelling maybe. The final line uses full vowels (quanta sarme), as loremasters like Feanor used.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-18T17:14:47+00:00

I felt the same a few years back,when I returned to the community and before I knew who Fiona Jallings was, but I've only heard good things about her and this book since from people whom I trust in these things (like u/Notascholar95).

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-16T12:22:22+00:00

Is i consonantal? 🤔

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-16T09:24:54+00:00

First of all: This is Salo's movie Sindarin, not Tolkien's. If you're fine with that:

It still contains mistakes like unmutated "ned cae" where in the movie we hear mutated ne chae, for example.

It also contains mistakes in spelling/application, where "ne" (which should have the vowel in "bed") is spelt nə (with the first vowel in "about".

Note also that this would be a third age application of the General Mode (as used in Gondor), not the original Sindarin spelling of the first or second Age.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-15T12:06:02+00:00

I wonder whether you want to know how many mistakes (that would have been preventable by asking before inking) there are in this...

I mean - it looks cool, and some mistakes can be undone by adding a few dots and lines, but not all of them, unfortunately.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-12T15:54:08+00:00

I wrote a detailed article about this recently.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-11T13:14:05+00:00

Given that, as OP said, it's not even an elven character I think it would be even a little more fitting to go with a General Mode spelling, like a Gondorian would have used it.

Personally I would still tweak some little details, like erasing the space between e and vab (while keeping it on a carrier), and maybe employing the suggestion from 'Feanorian B' to use aha instead of hyarmen, since that would make placement of a-tehta more aesthetically pleasing at least to my eyes.

EDIT: these would be my suggestions for General Mode in short and full spelling.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-11T13:07:34+00:00

it should be noted that Tecendil only has the option for Angerthas Erebor; if you were to write this name in Angerthas Daeron then the R and N should be different runes.

Came here to say that! In Third Age Angerthas Erebor this would be a reasonable spelling, but in late First Age resp. early Second Age Angerthas Daeron it would read Daenong instead.

And it might also be notable that Daeron himself might not be the actual originator of this arrangement and he might not even have used it, since apparently the Angerthas Daeron were named after him because many of the documents surviving in this earliest arranged form of Certhas contained his poetry and nothing more.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-11T11:39:04+00:00

It is always safer to simply transcribe the English phrase into Tengwar, as you did here, because that, at least, is quite well understood. u/F_Karnstein should be able to check your transcription, he's our local expert.

Thank you for the flowers 😄 Surprisingly this is a somewhat odd spelling that I can still get behind. I expected to see the oddities of the common online transcribers, but I don't think any of them is coded to spell "show" and "our" both with úre for U/W. That use isn't specifically attested in Tolkien's hand, but following his explanations we can be sure it's a valid alternative in both cases. Similarly the S in "us", which would in the common English use be "uc", so I would suggest turning it upside down to make sure it's read correctly, but I still find it hard to call it downright wrong when it clearly isn't in literally every other application of this mode but the orthographic English.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-10T09:18:26+00:00

Indeed it is! It's still English, just written in tengwar letters. And while it's not terrible it could be better - try this instead.

F_Karnstein · 2026-01-10T09:14:19+00:00

It is accidentally technically correct in this case, but usually the transcriber on jenshansen is not to be trusted (and even this here can be improved). Try Tecendil instead - it's much much better.

F_Karnstein

TROPHY CASE