Comments on: Write your name in Tengwar (Tolkien's Elvish)

Write your name in Tengwar (Tolkien's Elvish)

persona non grata — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 22:18:30 -0800

Write your name in Tengwar, the Elvish language/alphabet created by JRR Tolkien. You can work with Tengwar fonts based on Middle Earth languages and runes and see many examples of the script via a Google Image search. According to Tolkien, "there is quite a bit of linguistic wisdom in it." There are certainly websites devoted to his languages and thier history. And It took some thought and work to make the speech sound right in the movies.

By: taursir

taursir — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 22:28:39 -0800

Outside of the various elven languages Tolkien created, there definately is wisdom in Tengwar, and various natural class distinctions are visible in the way the characters are made. Rather, the way the characters are written relate to the actual physical matter of producing the sounds.

By: quite unimportant

quite unimportant — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 22:29:00 -0800

Elen sila lumenn omentilmo. And god DAMN am I embarrassed I know that, but at least it's not Klingon.

By: taursir

taursir — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 22:32:07 -0800

Here I always thought it was "Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo". ;) Maybe I should be more embarassed to be correcting.

By: jonson

jonson — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 22:55:22 -0800

Is there a word in Klingon for lonliness? Ah, yes: 'Garrrdock'

By: rob511

rob511 — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:30:35 -0800

How do you write "has left the building"?

By: Orange Goblin

Orange Goblin — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:32:58 -0800

Damn, I thought the "write your name" link would be some sort of magic web 2.0 thingy. Oh well.

By: emjaybee

emjaybee — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:46:09 -0800

How do you say "Oyven Glaven" in Elvish?

By: wfitzgerald

wfitzgerald — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 04:13:51 -0800

And don't forget: Write your name in Entish, definitely a magic Web 1.0 sort of thingy.

By: flameproof

flameproof — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 04:40:03 -0800

It's web 1.0ish, but there is a site that can translate roman characters to Tengwar (the Elvish script) - it was linked in one of persona's pages. online Tengwar Transcriber. Make sure you change the output type to PNG or else you'll need to have one of the fonts from above installed.

By: Zozo

Zozo — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 07:12:30 -0800

NERRRRRRRRRRRRDSSSSSSS.

By: Smart Dalek

Smart Dalek — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 07:13:58 -0800

Meh. Carny talk's waaay cooler.

By: illovich

illovich — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 07:37:52 -0800

I can't find the exact quote, but I once read that J.R.R. Tolkein wrote the Middle Earth books as a vehicle for all of the languages he invented, and the author made the point that it was equivalent to starting a platinum-record making rock band because you happened to have a large amount of empty jewel cases sitting around the house.

By: BlueMetal

BlueMetal — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 07:42:09 -0800

Ainuyaxë!

By: fixedgear

fixedgear — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:18:37 -0800

I though this was about TEGWAR, The Exciting Game Without Any Rules.

By: jiawen

jiawen — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:31:46 -0800

And god DAMN am I embarrassed I know that, but at least it's not Klingon. Even though the Sunday supplements would have us believe it, it's still manifestly not considered cool to be a geek. Which is too bad; I think it's basically anti-intellectualism. < /derail>

By: geekhorde

geekhorde — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:57:06 -0800

Quenya is NOT an empty jewel case. The analogy is flawed. Deeply.

By: geekhorde

geekhorde — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:57:58 -0800

Amen jiawen. Being 'cool' is for chumps anyway. It's far cooler not to care about being cool.

By: dnash

dnash — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 10:24:45 -0800

Quenya is NOT an empty jewel case. The analogy is flawed. Deeply. I agree. He made the stories up because he felt you can't have a real language without people to speak it. I think the analogy would be more correct if you said it's like starting a band because you have written a bunch of songs.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 11:22:43 -0800

How do you say "escapism" in elvish?

By: deborah

deborah — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 12:24:47 -0800

Y'all might find these links interesting: The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship quenya lapseparma Elven Language Page Common to Elven Now We Have All Got Elvish Names And, of course: The Elvish Name Generator I'm not really into Elvish as a language, although learning it would be ~~nerdy~~ cool, I use these links for character names in games (World of Warcraft at the moment). And, in general, I'm a name nerd. I have lots 'n' lots of name links.

By: jiawen

jiawen — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 15:00:12 -0800

deborah, have you seen my page of Chinese names for gamers? It might conceivably be of use to you, if you collect that kind of links.

By: keptwench

keptwench — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 16:28:00 -0800

This isn't exactly new, y'know, Some of us have been doing this since we owned Commodore Amigas.

By: diddlegnome

diddlegnome — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 19:20:58 -0800

I once saw a Tolkien documentary in which he discussed the languages he made up. The professor said something like, "I can't imagine anyone sitting around speaking Elvish." Then the film cut to a bunch of Renaissance Fair types doing exactly that. Pretty funny stuff. Khazad barak! Khazad ai menu!

By: diddlegnome

diddlegnome — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 19:23:45 -0800

Actually, what I think I meant was: Baruk Khazad! Khazad Ai-Menu! Obviously, I need to go back and reread the books.

By: illovich

illovich — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 06:32:17 -0800

Quenya is NOT an empty jewel case. The analogy is flawed. Deeply. I think the analogy (while it does have a certain flaw) meant more to communicate that he had vast stores of something no one would care about (invented languages) and because he wanted to share them, he invented something that ended up being a huge success, but that the successful venture was secondary to his love of the successful venture. Perhaps it would be a better analogy if it was changed to: J.R.R. Tolkein wrote the Middle Earth books as a vehicle for all of the languages he invented, and the author made the point that it was equivalent to starting a platinum-record making rock band because you had a deep passion for creating thousands of beautiful hand wrought cd cases, and you weren't sure what else to do with them.

By: deborah

deborah — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 11:40:08 -0800

Thanks, jiawen! I hadn't run across that site before.

By: team lowkey

team lowkey — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 17:12:07 -0800

I think this correction makes the best analogy: J.R.R. Tolkein wrote the Middle Earth books as a vehicle for all of the languages he invented, and the author made the point that it was equivalent to starting a platinum-record making rock band because you need a vehicle for all of the languages you invented.