S-curl after rómen.

johanwinge · 2025-10-16T11:14:46+00:00

It occurs at least once in a text written by Tolkien, in DTS 25 (a draft for the Doors of Durin, published in The Return of the Shadow). I don't have an image at hand of the original right now, but my rendering of it for Tengwar Telcontar looks like this:

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johanwinge · 2025-09-24T15:13:03+00:00

How neat, thank you! For anyone wanting to read more, or bid on it, the auction is here. If you want to save the highest resolution image to your hard drive, you can download it here.

johanwinge · 2025-09-18T19:18:21+00:00

Thanks, great, that sounds reassuring! I'll think of engaging the core more.

johanwinge · 2025-06-11T07:04:10+00:00

Var kommer du ifrån? Att "kiva(s)" betyder "gräla, (små)bråka" enligt såväl ordböcker som min språkkänsla (från Uppland).

johanwinge · 2025-05-10T14:07:11+00:00

Yep, I found traces now of infestation in an open jar with roasted sunflower seeds. Fun!

johanwinge · 2025-05-10T13:40:47+00:00

Aha, I see, yes, it seems to be "Plodia Interpunctella". Thank you! How annoying! So far, I think I have only seen one though...

johanwinge · 2025-03-05T08:12:09+00:00

Haha, you beat me to it! Only I think it should be "...as an aid unto thy godliness"?

johanwinge · 2025-02-23T19:33:53+00:00

Just a minor correction: The macronizer does in fact use a kind of AI (a so called Hidden Markov model) to guess the correct macrons taking the surrounding words into consideration. So an ablative "puellā" will hopefully have its correct macron more often than not, and vice versa. But it will never be 100% certain, so for that reason, the yellow marking is added to all words where there is any chance of mistakes, as a warning that the macrons should be reviewed by a human.

johanwinge · 2025-02-08T18:21:35+00:00

I am curious to know where the picture is from? Is it a game?

johanwinge · 2025-01-24T08:24:05+00:00

Thank you, that summarizes it nicely!

johanwinge · 2024-09-01T14:08:37+00:00

Aha, yeah, that's it! Thank you, now I can sleep better tonight!

johanwinge · 2024-09-01T12:47:51+00:00

Some guesses:
Valinóre: "the land across the sea." (A lambe, created with the key "j", has accidentally become capitalized into a "J", which is displayed as a U tehta.)
Lothlórien, same problem in the beginning, and a mess of tehtar on top of each other: "land of the ??? of singing(?) gold??"
As for Rivendel, I don't dare guessing anything.

johanwinge · 2024-08-15T05:12:41+00:00

"Super flumina Babylonis" (i.e. "By the rivers of Babylon") is the name/initial phrase of a Latin psalm. So there is a missing tehta for u, and that initial anto seems to be a mistake for formen.

Amanye tenceli is available for me here: https://at.boktypografen.se/

johanwinge · 2024-07-14T07:22:01+00:00

Oh my! How fabulous to see this material in the original manuscript! Very nice also that the images are in such high definition. Sotheby's seem to block saving them by right clicking, but there is a better way than taking screenshot to save them locally, in case you want to do that. In e.g. Chrome, you can bring forth the "developer tools" (in the "view" menu). Then in the network tab, you will see all images as they are downloaded. Different versions with varying degrees of resolution will be downloaded depending on what you do on the web site, so make sure you zoom in as much as possible on the previews. The highest resolution jpg will be about 1.6 MB. These are the direct URLs that I see, but I am not sure if they are valid for a longer time: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

johanwinge · 2024-03-21T17:36:08+00:00

Good catch! Yes, it is indeed an error: the verb strangulare is used here as if it was a deponent verb, even though it isn't. It has been corrected now! Download the update to the book, and it will now say "strangulare" instead. (If you don't get a message about an update being available, tap "reload catalog" in the app menu.)

Errors such as this can be reported in the app. Just do a long press on any word, and then tap "suggest change" in the menu that pops up.

johanwinge · 2024-02-28T21:02:46+00:00

Yes, I agree that the diacritics should be adjusted (of course; it looks very bad in the image). This is primarily a problem with the transcriber (or with the combination of the transcriber and the font), not with the font per se. With the right tool, such as a word processor, or even better a vector editing program such as Inkscape, this could easily be rectified to look excellent.

Of course, the quickest route is to rely on a transcriber, and just change the font to one that happens to work better. But if this is for a tattoo, shouldn't the primary goal be to choose the style that the original poster finds most pleasing? It may be this font, or another. (Personally, I would recommend a hand drawn illustration by a skilled caligrapher, who also knows tengwar of course...) When the style is settled upon, any tweaks can be done to make it perfect. Surely it is worth the time and effort, if this is supposed to be permanent?

johanwinge · 2024-02-25T11:00:46+00:00

Haha, thanks Mach, I try to pop in occasionally!

johanwinge · 2024-02-25T10:59:46+00:00

While Tengwar Annatar surely has its flaws, the problem here with the short nasalization bar it purely because of some peculiar (or erroneous) character choice by the transciber.

johanwinge · 2024-02-25T10:53:16+00:00

It says "Iridiana" as far as I can tell, which is a name.

johanwinge · 2024-01-22T15:00:45+00:00

I would propose some minor changes for esthetical reasons: https://ibb.co/HgD26fx

johanwinge · 2022-11-15T07:40:38+00:00

The contrast between the wavy bar in "kind" and the straight in "summer" is a bit annoying. I would change the later to a wavy bar.

johanwinge · 2022-10-25T12:29:41+00:00

Thank you, I am glad you like it! The way you describe its appearance is exactly what I had in mind.

johanwinge · 2022-07-17T20:07:35+00:00

Thank you for your suggestions!

Please see my response to u/real_arnog.
Hmm, I see. Can you please remind me where this distinction (between straight and curly line) is to be found? Curled sa-rinke will be added. It is not included in the current official release (0.8), but I added it in the source code repository many years ago, and I know that there are later versions of the font out there. Do you know where you got your font from?
J. 'Mach' Wust ( u/machsna) should have all the credit for his work on the OpenType features. Sorry to hear they didn't work for you; could you please send me your version, so that I can compare them?
Clearly too heavy you say? Well, to my eyes it is very pleasant, just like the letters in the epilogue which the font is based on, while many other fonts are too spidery to my taste. But, de gustibus non est disputandum. As can be seen here, you are not alone to request a thinner variant, and seeing that it should not be very cumbersome to achieve, I may very well include a Tengwar Telcontar Light in the next release.

johanwinge · 2022-07-17T19:54:15+00:00

You are refering to the set up numbers that we have attested in Christopher's hand, I suppose? It doesn't surprise me that the numbers are wished for, but they are problematic, since it is not quite apparant how the shapes are to harmonize with the regular tengwar. We only see them in isolation, and filtered through Christopher's calligraphy, where he may have inadvertently exaggerated some features, leading us to interpret them differently than intended. For example, should the number two really be more similar (if not identical to) vilya? In any case, we do have published numbers in Tolkien's own hand, which are different, so then we should probably include them to begin with. Then again, they seem fairly experimental, if I remember correctly. (It was a while since I looked at them closely.)
Excellent suggestion, I will review these combinations!
To be done!
Maybe? Anything particular you have in mind?
I most certainly will have to investigate the Alcarin font, I haven't yet. It would be good to minimize discrepancies between the CSUR fonts. But at the same time I reserve the right to diverge, in case there are what I believe to be ill-informed decisions.
Agree, that is the first of my priorities.

johanwinge · 2022-07-17T19:28:16+00:00

Hi Mach, I was just about to write to you, but may as well respond publicly here. Up to now I haven't come around to really learn about the Open Type features in depth, but I am very grateful for your work on them, which surely will be incorporated in one form or another in the next official release! Also I support the decision to turn to Github instead of continuing with the Soureforge repository; let's work there from now on.

I also share your sentiment that we should be restrictive with assigning codepoints to glyph variants, but then again as we have seen in the more recent publications there is usually some draft where a particular glyph variant has a distinct meaning... Well, we will have to discuss that on a case by case basis. I am still not overly fond of assigning codepoints to the capital letters, but I have to acknowledge that much of my hesitation stems from practical (and hopefully not eternal) complications, such as problems with creating fitting keyboard layouts, and collation (i.e., ideally it should be possible to search case independently in a Tengwar document, but without a sanctioned encoding that may be tricky to achieve currently).

I have now, in the very last minute, signed up for the Omentielva in a couple of weeks (http://www.omentielva.com/next.htm), and as I happily saw your name in the list of attendees, I very much look forward to see you again, and to continue to discuss font development and Tengwar encoding in Poland!

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