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#1 | ||||
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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What was the dominant writing system in Middle-earth?
We are told that there were two chief writing systems in Arda: the Cirth of Daeron, and the Tengwar of Feanor. But which was used in the late Third Age for writing Westron - if either?
It can't be the classical Tengwar, with the vowels as accents: Quote:
So perhaps Westron used the Mode of Beleriand, with vowels represented by full Tengwar? Except no, because at the Doors of Moria: Quote:
Logically, then, Frodo must use the Cirth/Angerthas. Except... no: Quote:
Confusingly, at the very beginning of the book we see both a different picture, and a different naming scheme: Quote:
The best explanation I can concoct is that Hobbits and other such folk use a derived form of the Tengwar, still called 'elf-letters' in the same way we say 'Latin alphabet'. This form is somewhat stubby, with thick lines that tend to curve or not differently to the original form. The 'ancient mode' of the Ring is in the shape of the letters, long and sweeping, very confusing to a hobbit. Based on the evidence of Moria, I figure Frodo is used to vowels-as-accents. Runes are seen as magical and slightly secretive. But I'm still not convinced that Frodo's words above match up with this idea. Would you look at a sign that you didn't understand and say "I thought I knew the Latin letters, but I cannot read these!"? hS |
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#2 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,316
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Add to this Gandalf's comment on the Book of Mazarbul, that the last hand (Ori's) used an Elvish script; and Tolkien's facsimile thereof shows that he plainly means Tengwar as opposed to the Certhas of the earlier entries.
But why call them "Elvish" if they were everybody's alphabet, and the language was CS? All I can say is that Tolkien slipped (the BofM facsimile after all should have been in Westron, not English!)
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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#3 | |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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It occurs to me that the one non-Dwarvish Westron Tengwa example we have is the 'G for grand' early on in FotR. And... it actually looks really weird. My redrawing:
![]() Look at that squat little thing! It's nothing like your classic 'ungwe', and doubly nothing like the delicately flowing Ring inscription. With the stem bent under like that, and the thick lines and rounded strokes, it looks almost like a Hobbit itself - short and portly, just wanting to sit down in the sun. Perhaps Frodo's 'um nope can't read it' response to the Ring is similar to how we might look at Cyrillic: a lot of the letters are similar, but some are pretty weird (you've got a B with a hook, a backwards N, an upside-down L...), and if you interpret them as your usual alphabet, you wind up with nonsense. "I cannot read the fiery letters" indeed. But, as Gandalf points out, they are Latin - sorry, Elvish - letters, though in an old hand. I think the Mazarbul passage agrees with this: the two alphabets in use in Middle-earth are Elvish and Dwarvish, sometimes referred to as 'letters' and 'runes'. This still doesn't explain how the Hobbits can tell an 'elf-rune' G from a 'dwarf-rune' G - they're the same letter, and you'd expect them to see far more dwarf-marks coming through the Shire. Perhaps the decorative dots around Gandalf's signature on the letter at the Pony are also on his fireworks, and mark it as 'elvish'? Dots all over the place characterise the now-extinct Gondolinic runes, and it's conceivable the design feature might have been retained. Quote:
hS |
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#4 | |
Loremaster of Annúminas
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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#5 |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
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#6 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
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And Tolkien ought to have known, since his day job was reading things where "the letters are Latin, of an ancient mode" -- and trying to teach students to comprehend same.
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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#7 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 1,033
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Generally speaking (Appendix E), the runes were "devised and mostly used only for scratched or incised inscriptions" while the Feanorean letters were used for writing with brush or pen. With respect to the Feanorean letters, full modes had been reached, but older modes in which only the consonants were written with full letters, were still in use.
Of Dwarves and Men tells us that the Common Speech "had from its beginning been expressed in the Feanorian Script," and that writing with the Cirth was dependent on the already established usages of the Tengwar (the same text adds that the Dwarves, who preferred the Cirth, used a spelling that was intentionally "a transcription of the current spelling of the Common Speech into Runic terms”, yet this transcription included many words spelt phonetically). I'd guess that the Hobbits were familiar with a full mode referred to as the "later or Westron convention, in its northern variety" (Pictures By JRRT) used by Ori the Dwarf in the Book of Mazarbul -- and (with slight differences), in the letter from King Elessar to Sam Gamgee (Sauron Defeated, Westron/English version). Arguably (at least), and with respect to the latter example, this was chosen by a Gondorian as the recipients were Hobbits. Last edited by Galin; 04-09-2019 at 02:30 PM. |
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#8 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 430
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Thanks for the OP, it's a great read, and reminds me of my first discovery of the Elvish in Middle Earth.
I imagine that Bilbo's language knowledge increased over the course of his life, and from contact with other peoples. So that by the time the Red Book of Westmarch was compiled, the latter authors' contributions seem to reflect learning, and where Frodo and Bilbo must, by then, have been familiar with Quenya. I don't know why Celebrimbor's speech is referred to as the Mode of Beleriand, in that I wondered how widespread it was. As Sindarin goes, I thought vowels were applied to it as Quenya applied, them, or that a change in Sindarin writing followed from the Noldorin presence. I saw a 'Latin' like comment above, and I tend to agree, and add that I imagine Celebrimbor wrote in Quenya, or with the o and u as his people did. The Ring Spell, with its perversion of Elvish included the 'mirror imaging' of vowels, which seems to give it the creepy sense of it, like playing a record backwards. It must have imprinted dread on Celebrimbor and the Elven Ring wielders to see that.
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A call to my lost pals. Dine, Orcy_The_Green_Wonder, Droga, Lady Rolindin. Gellion, Thasis, Tenzhi. I was Silmarien Aldalome. Candlekeep. WotC. Can anyone help? |
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#9 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
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I think that well before the end of the Elder Days, Quenya in Middle-earth had fallen out of everyday use, and Sindarin had become the lingua franca of all the Eldar. (Depending on which note you choose to believe, even the Silvan Nandor had adopted it).Celebrimbor itself is Sindarin, not Quenya.
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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#10 | |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
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Quote:
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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