Ebook: Tengwar Textbook

2003. – 65 p.Decades ago, when J. R. R. Tolkien wrote his fantasy book series: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, he described a race of Elves possessing a rich history, language and culture. Not all Elves spoke the same language. The most important languages were: Quenya (the language of the High-Elves) and Sindarin (the language of the Grey-Elves). Early in their history they devised an alphabet for writing their languages. The oldest Elvish alphabet was the Tengwar of Rumil. Later Feanor of the Noldor, inspired by the alphabet of Rumil, created a revised writing system. The Feanorean alphabet was designed to be an orderly phonetic writing system for use with pen or brush.
Consonant sounds were represented by letters called: Tengwar. There are 24 primary Tengwar letters. The letters were organized into four series or Temar (shown as vertical columns). Each series was used to represent sounds created by different parts of the mouth. Series I and II were almost always used for Dental and Labial sounds. Series Ш was generally used for either Palatal or Velar sounds and series IV for either Velar or Labiovelar sounds, depending on the phonology of the language represented. These four series were further broken down into six grades or Tyeller (shown as horizontal rows on the next page). Each grade was used to represent sounds created by different ways that air flows through the mouth and nose. Grade 1 and 2 were used for voiceless and voiced Plosives. Grade 3 and 4 were used for voiceless and voiced Fricatives. Grade 5 was used for Nasals. Grade 6 was used for Semi-vowel consonants. Each Tengwar letter was assigned a phonetic value determined by its position in this grid. People speaking different languages would often re-define this grid, so only a few of the letters had a fixed phonetic value.