Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
WRITE IN ELVISH
(BASIC)
By Bailey Allen
That's it. (If you want details about where this all comes from, look at the bottom of this page.) You only need to know a
few more things and you're ready to go. The most important thing is that vowels go above (or below) the
consonants. That's what the gray arrows signify in the alphabet shown above. You can put the vowels above the
letter they follow (Quenya style) or above the letter they precede (Sindarin style). Take your pick. I do the Quenya style.
Look at this example.
1.
2.
3.
Substitute the letters using the alphabet
provided above. Notice there are two forms for the
letter R. One is for the R sound as in RED. The other is for
the R sound as in CAR.
The name ROBERT starts with the R-as-inRED sound and
near its end it has the R-as-inCAR sound.
4.
5.
All the examples on this page are use the
Quenya style, but here's the text notation for Sindarin (not
shown in calligraphy) so you can see how the vowel
positions shift to the right.
O E
_ R B R T _
Generally the vowels go above the consonants, but sometimes, in the case of Y and silent E, they go below. Here's
another example. This one includes a special symbol, a straight line underneath the consonant, that indicates a doubled
consonant. Use this "doubling symbol" with any consonant.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Substitute the letters using the alphabet
provided above. Use the bar underneath the N to signify it is
doubled.
5.
Here's the text notation. Most of the action
occurs below the baseline. I'm using square brackets to
indicate letter combinations that result in a single
letterform.
_ L [NN] _
Y E
The straight line underneath is just one way to make one character do the work of two. There are a number of Elvish
letters that stand for two letters of our alphabet. Think of this as a supplementary alphabet.
The line above a consonant means that a nasal N or M precedes the consonant in question.
In the next example, we use the nasal modifier and we see what to do with vowels when there's no consonant in the
right place to put it above.
1.
2.
Shift the vowels. The Y goes down and to the
left. Since the letter A has no consonant to slide above, it
goes on a carrier, which is just a straight line that fills in for
the job a consonant would normally do. Note that the carrier
is just a graphical convention and has no bearing on
pronunciation.
3.
4.
Substitute the letters. The vowel
placeholder is a short straight line. The nasal N preceding D
is denoted by a straight line above the D.
5.
1.
2.
3.
5.
I am often asked how to handle double vowel situations. Remember to use the carrier as shown above in the ANDY
example. Here are some examples that illustrate some of the situations that come up.
Name: ADRIAN
Text notation:
A
I A
_ : D R : N _
Name: EILEEN
Text notation:
E I [EE]
_ : : L N _
Name: DIETRICH
Text notation:
I E
I
_ D : T R [CH] _
Name: AMELIE
Text notation:
A E I
_ : M L _
E
That's all you need to get started. If you take a real interest in Elvish and want to learn more, there's a lot of good
information out there for you.
Please be aware that there are many ways to write English words in Elvish. This is just the one that
I use. I have tried to keep it very simple here. There are dozens of sites that can lead you through the nitty-gritty
details. The best one I have come across yet is Tolkien Script Publishing. You can learn about all details that I glossed
over here.
Good luck!