How do I make a tengwar tattoo, ring or anything?
Ok, you decided you want this thing... but it's something that needs some study and preparation since it is going to be embeded on something (your body, a ring, or another object) for ever, and you'd hate it to be wrong. Of course only few persons are going to understand what your inscription says, and more less will understand whether it's right or wrong, but you'd prefer this to be right!
First of all, there have been many requests by persons with quite limited linguistic knowledge, that make it obvious that some people have a very vague impression of what is a language or a script. Well, a script is something totally different than a language.
Many think that writing any word or phrase in Tengwar makes it Elvish. So they make the vague (and wrongly phrased) request 'I want this English phrase translated in tengwar'. But this is totally wrong: the words manga, alchemy, anthropology, coyote and sauna are Japanese, Arabian, Greek, American Indian and Finnish. The fact that they are written with Roman letters doesn't make them English (or Latin). They are just adapted to English, and transcribed with Roman letters.
Some people want 'translations in the script of the One Ring'.. first of all the script of the One Ring is exactly that: a script, not a language. The script is Tengwar and the language of the One Ring is Black Speech (the language of Mordor) but besides you wouldn't want the language of Orcs to write something nice, it's a language that Tolkien never bothered enough, and too few words are known to say anything with it.
Find a phrase you want it tattooed/embedded
The first phase, and mostly the simplest, since if you are interested in this document, you probably already have something in particular you want tattooed. Should you are in love with someone and want a love phrase, simply your name, or important words like love, wisdom, luck, happiness, or you are just an Orlando Bloom fan and want just the name Legolas written on your shoulder.
In the rare (and a bit strange) case you primarily want just anything as a Tengwar tattoo and you are secondly interested on what it says, well, think about it twice. Tattoos should be made for the sake of something you love and expresses you, and not for their own sake: you might find out in some years that it doesn't express you any more and it will be a bit late to change your mind.
In any case, if you are sure you want seriously a tattoo, well, just think of a phrase you like.
Decide in what language you want it translated
This must be somehow complicated, but it will enable you to know what Elven languages are. Since it is going to be something permanent, it would be unwise and a bit not-serious to want a thing in Elvish without knowing what Elvish is.
Concerning Elvish, the options are two: Quenya and Sindarin, two different Elvish languages.
Quenya is more lyrical and soft, and was spoken by the High Elves of Valinor who dwelt among the Valar, and they wrote many poems and lore with it. It was the ancient and High Elven tongue used for lore and ceremonies. Feanor and the Noldor who followed him (and Galadriel) spoke this language.
Sindarin is a 'celtic' language, spoken among the trees of Middle-earth by the Sindar and the Wood-elves. It was the living vernacular of the Elves in the time of Lord of the Rings, and it was spoken by Legolas and Aragorn, Elves of Lórien, Men of Gondor etc.
Here follows a fragment of the poem Namárie, first in Quenya as written by Tolkien, and then in its Sindarin translation (attempted by Ryszard Derdzinsky) so that you will see how these languages differ, look and sound.
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Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen, yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron! Yéni ve lintë yuldar avánier mi oromardi lissë-miruvóreva Andúnë pella, Vardo tellumar nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni ómaryo airetári-lírinen. |
Ae! vellin dannar lais na-húl, ínath arnediad sui revail gelaidh! Ínath 'wannanner sui yllath gelig e-miruvor velui vi bair erchail athan Annûn, di-rynd luin Elbereth ias elenath thiliar na-'lír lam dîn aer a brand. |
But you might not want it translated in Elvish. You might want it in English (or your mother language). Don't forget that Tolkien used Tengwar to write English and Old English. After Tolkien many fans adapted the Tengwar for other languages (French, Swedish, Polish, German etc). In that case you won't enter to the following translating process.
Translate that phrase into Elvish
Now you must translate that phrase in Quenya or Sindarin. This is a bit complicated too since we are talking about 'real' languages with their own vocabulary, syntax and grammar.
Some people think that only a dictionary is needed to make a translation. This is very wrong. The language is not defined only by its vocabulary, but by its syntax and grammar. If you ignore those elements, you will just translate word by word an English phrase and you will come up with results like 'me Tarzan you Jane'. Just imagine how some foreign people unaware of grammar, speak Enlish, and you will get an idea how it would sound in... Elvish ears. Quenya and Sindarin are not English disguised in Elvish words, they have their own grammar and syntax.
You can find info in grammar at www.ardalambion.com. Dictionaries in http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/wordlists.htm (Quenya) and http://www.oocities.org/almacq.geo/sindar/ (Sindarin).
note: there must be other useful and good dictionaries but the most you can find online are wrong and/or outdated. I don't recommend any other dictionary you might find. There are of course other serious works, but those I provided are either the easiest to get, and the most guaranteed. Just be very careful and don't trust any 'Elvish' RPG dictionary.
In case that phrase contains a name, the things are easy if you choose a Tolkienian nickname (eg. Melhael loves Celebwen). In case you want to translate your real name, you may consult the site http://www.elvish.org/elm/names.html. Avoid sites with Find your Elven name translators like the Barrow Downs!! All these sites do is provide you with random elvish-sounding syllables. As a ultimate solution, you can adapt it photetically (eg. transcribe John as Yon).
One problem you might encounter is that the known Elvish that has been published in the Tolkienian canon, have not all the words needed. We cannot translate Shakespeare's works into Quenya yet! Your phrase might have a word that doesn't exist in Quenya or Sindarin but stay cool.. try to rephrase those words or find synonyms!
CONSULT OTHERS AND CHECK!
Important!
You have problems finding a translation, or you have found it but you don't know if it's right. You are going to have a tattoo and you'd hate that permanent phrase to be wrong. You are encouraged to seek for advice among people who are more exprienced. You can find them in Elvish Mailing lists like Elfling.
note: the members of Elfling are there to discuss about Elvish and help you, not do all the job for you. Elfling is a mailing list, not a translation service. You are encouraged to seek for the solution yourself before asking for any help.
Decide which Mode
The Modes are Systems in which the Tengwar have been fit to the phonologies of each language. Originaly meant for Quenya, they have been adapted for Telerin, Sindarin, Westron etc. We can say that some 'modes' are used for our Roman script. There is a 'mode' for every European (and not only) language for use with the same Roman script. English, French, Italian, Spanish, and sometimes Japanese and Arabian can be written with the Roman script which has been adapted to them, and for each language it uses special functions. But except the languages of Middle-earth, Tolkien devised English Modes to write English with Tengwar, and after him many fans created French, Swedish and other Modes in order to write other real languages in Tengwar.
If your translation is Quenya, then the things are relatively simple, since only one Quenya Mode is known: Tengwar used for consonants and marks used for vowels that are placed above the preceding consonant.
In case it is Sindarin then you have to choose between 3 Modes that were used for Sindarin:
The Mode of Beleriand that was the most ancient for Sindarin and unlike the Quenya Mode above, used normal vowels, like English (and hence it's more easy for the beginners).
The Mode of Gondor used much laterby Men of Gondor followed the logic of the Quenya Mode explained above, but the marks used for vowels are placed above the following consonant. It is also quite famous and favoured among the fans.
The Mode of Arnor used by Men of Arnor was a slight modification of the Mode of Beleriand. This Mode is not well known and is seldom used by fans to write anything with it.
Here follows an example of the Sindarinpoem A Elbereth Gilthoniel, first in the Mode of Gondor, and then in the Mode of Beleriand. As you see the first uses signs for vowels instead of Tengwar, and it takes less space to write. It is more exotic and perhaps more beautiful. The other is alphabetic, uses Tengwar for both consonants and vowels isntead of signs, closer to our Roman alphabet.
If you then decided to have an untranslated English phrase, you should use one of the various English Modes that Tolkien used.
If your language is other than English, you should seek for guides for other Modes.
Begin the transcription
Now in short, you must learn and understand how Tengwar work. This will enable you to study a somehow alien writing system which uses its various functions and devices. For example the vowels are indicated with signs, the diphthongs are written according to some special rules, and some digraphs we use in Roman (like dh, qu, th, nd, mp etc) are here written with separate letters.
Except that, the Tengwar have their own spelling. Sometimes some words must written with some special way because of their etymology. You must be aware of that.
Explanation of the most common Elvish Modes are found in http://hem.passagen.se/mansb/at and good practical tutorials in http://www.forodrim.org/daeron/md_teng_primers.html.
Description of English Modes can be found in http://www.oocities.org/tengwar2001/index.html.
The easy way is to go through a Tengwar Transcriber, a program where you put a word or phrase in Roman letters, and (after you select font, mode, language etc) you have the result in Tengwar. One such good program is found on http://tengwar.art.pl/ott/english.php.
note: the program isn't supposed to know the nature of every Elvish word in order to have each spelling 100% right. Sometimes such programs fail when some special rule should be considered. Those programs are good for help or cross-reference but they are not to be relied 100% on them.
Download a Tengwar font.
You might want to make your transcription onpaper, but you might also to do this on your PC. For this, you need to download and install some Tengwar fonts. The most famous are:
Tengwar Quenya: a simple, formal, technical and strict font
Tengwar Sindarin: a formal and more goodlooking font, intended to look like pen written.
Tengwar Parmaite: a font similar to the previous one, sometimes considered more beautiful.
Tengwar Cursive: the beautuiful cursive and calligraphic font, intended to look like the script of the One Ring.
Tengwar Elfica: a new and less famous font but equally usable and beautiful.
In http://www.tengwar.art.pl/fonty.php you can find a more complete list, along with their samples to see how they look. Of course after you type your phrase on your PC, you will still be able to change it's apperanace by switching the font it is written, but you don't have to worry about this for now.
For newbies: The fonts are isntalled easily on Windows. They come usually in .zip files (eg. elfica.zip). If you have Winzip, just 'unzip' the file, and you will find the font (it's a file ending in .ttf, eg. parmaite.ttf) and some documentation. The font is installed when you copy this .ttf file in the C:\Windows\fonts\ folder. Now you can write wih the font in Word or any other processor. Just select it in the combo box and now you can type.
Learn how to type with Tengwar fonts
Now, some think that teh Tengwar fonts are simple to write, like anything else. This is wrong: as we mentioned, the Tengwar are an alien writing system which doesn't fit perfectly with our Roman alphabet/keyboard. For this reason, Dan Smith on making his fonts, he decided to imagine the keyboard as a Tengwar table and arrange the Tengwar on it according to their alphabetic order.
So, to write Galadriel with a Tengwar font, you don't just switch to Tengwar Quenya in the Word processor and press the keys g, a, l, a, d, r, i, e, l. You will find out that the Tengwa for g is not on the Roman letter G on the keyboard. If things were so easy we wouldn't need to bother with Modes and spelling and generally learn Tengwar!
If you are going to write something with Tengwar fonts please cconsult http://www.sci.fi/~alboin/tengwartutorial.htm, an explanation of why Tengwar Fonts aren't easy to write on keyboard, and how to use them. And of course read each documention that comes with each font: they exist for some reason! The Tengwar transcribers like the one given before, are called to solve not only for those who find Tengwar difficult, but to solve the fonts complexities too.
The good news are that all the fonts use the same keymapping devised by Dan Smith, which places the Tengwar on the keyboard following their alphabetical arragement. All fonts thus are compatible and equally usable for all languages and Modes. You can freely write anything you want by just changing the font, in order to decide wchich look you like better without fear that the text will change. So don't let the misleading names Tengwar Quenya and Tengwar Sindarin trouble you. You can write any language you want with those two fonts!
Decide which look you prefer
Now you have just to download some fonts and find out which you prefer. Have in mind that the hand has no relation to the nature of the script or the language. For example our alphabet has many styles, New Roman, Arial, Lucida and many others. Similarly various Tengwar hands and fonts have been designed, for you to decide which looks better for you. Check again the section about choosing a font. Check again the site http://www.tengwar.art.pl/fonty.php with their samples to see how they look.
You might also learn to write Tengwar with your hand, and if you are a good calligrapher, take a pen and devise your own style and write your beloved phrase according to it.
Here you will find a guide for Tengwar calligraphers. http://hem.passagen.se/mansb/at/teng_calligraphy.htm.
CONSULT OTHERS AND CHECK AGAIN THE RESULT
Important!
Again, you must check if the transcription process was right. Maybe you made a mistake while transcribing in Tengwar or you didn't understand well how the fonts are supposed to be typed. You should consult again a Mailing List like Elfscript to see if your result stands right. So scan your Tengwar phrase if it's on paper, or take a screenshot of your Word processor and upload it to someone more experienced who will do the check.
Again, you'd hate to tattoo something wrong.
Give out the sample!
Now, just print out the phrase from your PC or re-write it with a beautiful calligraphic style. You might also decorate it with something Elvish. You might want to look at some Tolkien pictures to see how he decorated his texts and drawings with branches and leaves, or look at movie props like Legolas' belt or some decoration in Elrond's House.
Show the sample to the tattooer or the goldsmith, and it would be nice if you explained him which letter is which: in calligraphic writing the Tengwar are hard to understand indepedently.
Contact us :)
Ok, all is done nice and well.. you are kindly encouraged (or requested) to enter our Hall of Fame. Simply contact this site and send a mail about you with a pic!
Feel also free to ask for our advice if you happen to encounter obstacles during this translation or transcription business.