Talk:Tengwar

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"Quenya-mode tengwar" tattoos

It looks like the description of the fellowship's tattoos as Quenya-mode is from a tumblr post. I think the point the person is trying to make is that for the orthographic english mode the amaticse should be over the other nuumen. However using the nunticse to mark the e after the consonant is specific to the orthographic english mode. In addition, quenya mode is phonemic, so the dipthong in nine would not be marked with amaticse. Unfortunately most sources do not mention this subtlety (in fact referring to the tattoos the "Elvish word for nine", which is very wrong), I can't really figure out if this use of "Quenya-mode" is standard. I reworded to avoid mention of "Quenya-mode", which is potentially more detail than is necessary for this trivia anyway. GiovanniSidwell (talk) 17:06, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we do rather need a better-informed and more reliable source; "fixing" things from personal knowledge is always going to tread a fine line very close to OR, so while correcting errors is good, the approach is problematic. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:15, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

tegwar

I have always heard it in my head as /teŋwar/ but the pic in the infobox reads /teŋgwar/, with a stop /g/. (With no stop, the stem should be short.) Is there authoritative evidence between these? —Tamfang (talk) 04:37, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The pic shows the word "Tengwar" written in the Quenya mode. The result is different in the mode of Beleriand, for example. Elves from different parts spoke different dialects and had different accents. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:03, 31 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And if I feed that server the string "teñwar" instead, it gives the image that I expected. I'm not asking about modes, I'm asking whether Tolkien ever gave unambiguous evidence of whether the word contains /ŋgʷ/ as in ungwe or /ŋʷ/ as in ngwalme. A statement that /ŋʷ/ (or, as he'd put it, ñw) never occurs medially in Q would suffice. —Tamfang (talk) 20:41, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As for dialects, Exilic Quenya was highly conservative, being spoken only ceremonially except in Gondolin. —Tamfang (talk) 21:43, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In The Art of the Lord of the Rings #189 we see various transcriptions of “i tengwar feanórie” in tengwar. They show that the pronunciation is [ˈteŋɡwar] with a [ɡ] since they use ungwe. They are not written in the classical Quenya mode, but in the “general use” of the late Third Age. Three variants have ungwe with a bar above (for nasalization) and a wa-tehta above (for the following [w]), thus reading [ŋɡw], and another variant has nwalme followed by ungwe with a wa-tehta above, thus again reading [ŋɡw].

In Parma Eldalamberon 22 p. 14 we see four transcription of the related word “tengwesta” in different modes. They all attest a [ŋɡw] pronunciation. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 07:00, 14 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks. I've put what I hope is a correct [ŋɡw] IPAC pronunciation guide into the article. If it isn't [ŋɡw] enough, please correct it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:37, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So then, in the table depicting the three modes (Quenya, Sindarin, and general), why is ungwe described as having the value [ŋʷ] and not [ŋgʷ] which doesn't appear at all in the table. It clearly gives ungwe as [ŋʷ] for Quenya and unused in Sindarin. This would mean that tengwar has no [g] at all. – Dyolf87 (talk) 08:33, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

J. 'mach' wust --- does anything in the table need to be updated? Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:12, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it does, in the table anga [ŋ] >> [ŋg] and ungwe [ŋʷ] >> [ŋgʷ]. Consider this:

"The standard spelling of Quenya diverged from the applications of the letters above described [that was the General Mode]. Grade 2 was used for nd, mb, ng, ngw, all of which were frequent, since b, g, gw only appeared in these combinations..." (LotR, 50th Anniversary Edition, p.1121)

This clearly indicates that what is written as ngw does in fact contain the stop g, otherwise the second half of the last sentence doesn’t make any sense. Also according to the pronunciation guide any written g has the value of [g] unless when a word ends in -ng, which tengwa, ungwe, anga etc. all do not (and in fact no Quenya word does, that is a remark for Sindarin):

"G is only the sound of g in give, get [...]
NG represents ng in finger [/ˈfɪŋɡə(r)/], except finally where it was sounded as in English sing [/sɪŋ/]" (LotR, p. 1113)

Lammengollon (talk) 17:52, 18 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Strictly speaking, I also do not think that the use of ⟨ʷ⟩ is correct. In Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien describes the _quesse_ sound as a “combination” of “cw” (“c” having been described as [k]). So it is [kw], not [kʷ]. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 06:04, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to Etym tengwa is a derivative of TEK; so I looked for an analogous derivative of a root ending in P or T, and found just one:

YAT– join … yanwe bridge, joining, isthmus.

Not yandwe, so that's a hint of evidence against a stop. But the contrary evidence is decisive. Thanks to all for taking the question seriously. —Tamfang (talk) 06:45, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, in this respect the K-series behaves differently:

Since ñ did not occur as a suffixal consonant, and m was seldom used after labials (p, ph, b) we are concerned only with pn > bn > mn; tn > dn > nn; tm > dm > nm; kn > gn > ñn; km > gm > ñm. All these combinations are said still to appear in AQ [= Ancient Quenya], but in classical PQ [= Parmaquesta, Book speech]: nm > nw (a favoured group); and ñm > ñw > ñgw. Thus √TEK “write”: *tekmā “writing, grammar” > tegmā, teñma, teñgwa (OP1: PE19/43, my emphasis).

Notice how Tolkien here spells out the change ñw > ñgw explicitly for the vel ars (using ñ for ŋ as he usually did for Quenya). Lammengollon (talk) 07:18, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've made all three of those changes - g-additions, to coin a phrase - to the table. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:42, 19 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

The article remains an embarrassment, for want of a linguist to make sense of the many excellent but technical sources available. I'll note that [18], Martínez 2011, has quite a detailed analysis of the subject. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:19, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Parts of this article also need further explanation to give the reader context. Actual (not fictional) precursors might include documents like the Codex Regius, the excellent penmanship of which exhibits many Tengwar-like characters. As far as the tattoo trivia goes, I don't like it, but I suppose some do.Wastrel Way (talk)Eric