".This is a Tengwar mode I've created suitable for writing in Malay. Tengwar is a writing system devised by well-known author of the Lord of the Rings novel series, J.R.R. Tolkien, for use with his constructed Elvish languages in his novels. I got the idea to do this Malay mode after discovering that others have also created modes for other languages as well (such as French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Esperanto, and even Arabic).
The mode was developed through careful studying of other existing modes created for other languages out there. This is done to keep the system as consistent as possible with that of other modes, with a few different alterations to fit the Malay language. Suggestions for improvements over this mode (if any) are welcome. zanoma@tm.net.my
A word of warning: This mode was created from a Malay speaker's point of view. All Latin alpbabet equivalents of each tengwar shown here (except for the letter "e", which I'll be explaining below) are based from a form of Latin called Rumi, the official Romanized Malay script for everyday use here in Malaysia. The pronunciations are a bit different from other languages also using the Latin script:
"c" is pronounced "ch" as in "chair".
"g" is always hard.
"j" is pronounced "dʒ" as in "just".
"k" is a complex case, representing "k" before a vowel, "ʔ" at the end of words, and "q" for some loanwords.
"ny" is pronounced as in Spanish "ñ".
"q" is exclusive for Arabic loanwords, and is pronounced as in Arabic "ق".
"sy" is pronounced as in English "sh" and German "sch".
"v" and "w" have nearly identical pronunciations.
There's actually no "v" sound in Malay;
"v" is included solely for loanwords that use this character.
"y" is always a consonant, and is pronounced as in "young".
In addition, Malay speakers themselves recognize diphthongs in Malay as "ai", "au" and "oi".
Some international sources I've come across about the Malay language
(such as Wikipedia)
classified diphthongs in Malay as "ai", "au" and "ua".
This Tengwar Malay Mode's depiction of diphthongs
follows the convention set by the Malay speakers themselves
(which means just "ai", "au" and "oi").
"Ua" is merely represented in Malay as "".
Because Indonesian phonology is almost virtually identical to Malay, this mode may also be suitable for writing in Indonesian, too. Thus, it can also be called "Indonesian mode".
The font I have used for all examples shown is Dan Smith's "Tengwar Quenya". I've chosen it because it has that "Times New Roman" feel, blending in well with the rest of the text.
With those issues straightened out, here's my proposal for the Tengwar script suitable for writing the Malay language:
Vowels in parantheses are reserved just in case so that the Malay mode might also can be written in "full writing" style (like the "Mode of Beleriand"). However, use of tehta marks are much preferred:
Vowel tehtar in the Malay mode are read Quenya-style: The vowels are always read after the consonants.
Note that, in the above examples, a single tengwa (and a single tehta mark) represents both the schwa ("ə", known as "E pepet" in Malay) and the accented E ("é", known as "E taling" in Malay) vowels. That reflects our current Malay orthography, in which both vowels are represented by a single letter, "e". You can blame our government for deciding to remove the "ə" alphabet altogether in our current post-1972 spelling reform in the first place, which gives quite a headache for first-time learners of Malay, as the correct vowel to be used must be recited on a word-by-word basis. Anyway, my decision to not represent these two vowels separately in Tengwar, either, is to make it easier to transliterate vowels between Rumi and Tengwar with little effort. Thus, the Malay mode actually leans more towards orthographic rather than phonemic.
Diphthongs are represented in Malay as the following:
Special care must be taken, however, when deciding to use diphthongs in Tengwar.
In closed syllables, such as "daun" ("leaf"), "baik" ("good") and "air" ("water"),
these vowel combinations are pronounced together as two separate vowels,
and thus the given examples should be respectively represented as
"
",
"
" and
"
".
The decision to use "r", "s" and "z" tengwar follow the same rule as in Quenya:
,
and
are used when used without a proceeding vowel
(like at the end of sentences, for example),
while
,
and
are used when used together with a proceeding vowel.
Atas = 
Sana = 
Lafaz = 
Zakat = 
Luar = 
Ruang = 
There is another rule that needs to be remembered when it comes to writing Malay in Tengwar. Root words and the affixes that modify them should be represented together so that their spellings don't get mixed up, maintaining the spelling of the root word:
Ajar = 
Pelajaran = 
(Wrong)
Pelajaran = 
(Correct)
Root words that undergo mutation when used with affixes are similarly dealt with, with spelling of the root word doesn't get mixed up with its affix:
Satu = 
Penyatuan = 
On the other hand, infixes, special affixes in Malay that slit within the words they modify, can disregard the above rules altogether:
Tunjuk = 
Telunjuk = 
Similarly, stable compound words and reduplications should also be represented together
so that their spellings don't get mixed up,
maintaining the spelling of each of the separate words within a single compound word.
There are no hyphens in Tengwar,
therefore "orang-orang" ("scarecrow") is represented as "
".
That pretty much sums up my explanation for the Malay mode to be used with Tengwar. I would like to end this essay by providing the following. It is a well-known Malay pantun, written using the Tengwar script:
And in addition, here's the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Malay, again written using the Tengwar script:
