The Return of the King - J. R. R. Tolkien [226]
In the following examples the stressed vowel is marked by a capital letter: isIldur, Orome, erEssëa, fËanor, ancAlima, elentÁri, dEnethor, periAnnath, ecthElion, pelArgir, silIvren. Words of the type elentÁri ‘star-queen’ seldom occur in Quenya where the vowel is é, á, ó, unless (as in this case) they are compounds; they are commoner with the vowels í, ú, as andÚne ‘sunset, west’. They do not occur in Sindarin except in compounds. Note that Sindarin dh, th, ch are single consonants and represent single letters in the original scripts.
NOTE
In names drawn from other languages than Eldarin the same values for the letters are intended, where not specially described above, except in the case of Dwarvish. In Dwarvish, which did not possess the sounds represented above by th and ch (kh), th and kh are aspirates, that is t or k followed by an h, more or less as in backhand, outhouse.
Where z occurs the sound intended is that of English z. gh in the Black Speech and Orkish represents a ‘back spirant’ (related to g as dh to d): as in ghâsh and agh.
The ‘outer’ or Mannish names of the Dwarves have been given Northern forms, but the letter-values are those described.
So also in the case of the personal and place-names of Rohan (where they have not been modernized), except that here éa and éo are diphthongs, which may be represented by the ea of English bear, and the eo of Theobald; y is the modified u. The modernized forms are easily recognized and are intended to be pronounced as in English. They are mostly place-names: as Dunharrow (for Dúnharg), except Shadowfax and Wormtongue.
II
WRITING
The scripts and letters used in the Third Age were all ultimately of Eldarin origin, and already at that time of great antiquity. They had reached the stage of full alphabetic development, but older modes in which only the consonants were denoted by full letters were still in use.
The alphabets were of two main, and in origin independent, kinds: the Tengwar or Tîw, here translated as ‘letters’; and the Certar or Cirth, translated as ‘runes’. The Tengwar were devised for writing with brush or pen, and the squared forms of inscriptions were in their case derivative from the written forms. The Certar were devised and mostly used only for scratched or incised inscriptions.
The Tengwar were the more ancient; for they had been developed by the Noldor, the kindred of the Eldar most skilled in such matters, long before their exile. The oldest Eldarin letters, the Tengwar of Rúmil, were not used in Middle-earth. The later letters, the Tengwar of Fëanor, were largely a new invention, though they owed something to the letters of Rúmil. They were brought to Middle-earth by the exiled Noldor, and so became known to the Edain and Númenóreans. In the Third Age their use had spread over much the same area as that in which the Common Speech was known.
The Cirth were devised first in Beleriand by the Sindar, and were long used only for inscribing names and brief memorials upon wood or stone. To that origin they owe their angular shapes, very similar to the runes of our times, though they differed from these in details and were wholly different in arrangement. The Cirth in their older and simpler form spread eastward in the Second Age, and became known to many peoples, to Men and Dwarves, and even to Orcs, all of whom altered them to suit their purposes and according to their skill or lack of it. One such simple form was still used by the Men of Dale, and a similar one by the Rohirrim.
But in Beleriand,