I got this website from another thread here at the forum: http://www.starchamber.com/paracelsus/elvish/elvish-in-ten-minutes.html, and I really like it. Though I have one question, when I want to write a word beginning with the combination "ha" (quenya stile) I have to put the "a" above the "h". Is there any way to compromise this to make it more... possible to write? Cause it is hard to make an "a" fit above a "h"... Any suggestions?

Thanks

EDIT: Oh! I just came up with another question, that I can might as well write here: Sometimes "ä" is in quenya (like in Eärendil). How does one write "ä" in tengwar (it isn't on the website as far as I can see)?

_________________
~ From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king. ~

You can use a form like a circumflex instead of the three dots, or even leave this vowel out altogether (according to description in the Appendices).

And there is no need to denote ä in the tengwar, as it sounds the same as a. It's not really needed in the Roman Alphabet as well, although obviously Tolkien employed it sometimes to help us mortals with proper pronunciation with respect to certain vowels that should not be read as diphthongs.

Ea for example, has two syllables and is not a diphthong. The sound is the same as Eä however.

Ok, thank you very much!

_________________
~ From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king. ~

I might add that if you're going to leave out the vowel a, for myself, I would do this consistently within a given document, whether short or long, or whatever you are writing (like something for a tattoo maybe).

Of course it might make things harder to read (as in understand) even if it might look better, in someone's opinion, than the three dots for instance, especially in connection with certain consonants. The example Tolkien gives is: calma could be written by representing clm (although imagined with the Elvish letters of course), and the reader must figure out where the vowel a 'must go' without it being represented...

... as only so many combinations are possible when one considers Quenya phonology and the vocabulary (at least what vocabulary is known). But the point is, if you're more concerned about the look of whatever you are writing, this is an option.

Ok, though I just though about this: How criminal is it to put the "a" on a bracket even though there is a consonant before that it should be above?

_________________
~ From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king. ~

Or maybe put the vowel a over a following consonant? What's the word (if I may ask)?

I know that Tolkien himself sometimes wrote in Sindarin, or at least wrote Sindarin names, putting the vowel above the preceding consonant, despite what is noted in the Appendices about this practice.

And the website Amanye Tenceli currently notes a mode (described by Tolkien) as General Use with the characteristics: 'Series IV represents velar sounds, vowels above preceding or following consonant tengwa' and lists Quenya as one of the languages represented in the General Use.

That said I can't recall seeing the examples mentioned in the list, although I have seen a copy of the letter in which Tolkien mentions this General Use, in which he writes, for example, Rivendell (not an Elvish word of course) both ways with respect to vowel placement.

Yeah it would work to put the vowel over the following consonant, but then I would have to do that all the time, cause otherwise it would be confusing to suddenly put the vowel above following instead of preceding consonant...?

_________________
~ From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king. ~

Yes I agree. I would do this consistently throughout the same document, or tattoo or whatever -- and if you are writing a long document, as a lot of Quenya words end in a vowel you might have a lot of final carriers. But of course the next time you write some different text you can switch back, or use the circumflex.

Tolkien did write hiruva and hísie in the tengwar for example (The Road Goes Ever On): for the first he uses a dot 'above' the preceding consonant, and since in the second example the first i is long, it appears on a long carrier after the consonant.

So if the word happens to be hárar (Cirion's oath) you are all set with a long carrier

The circumflex, a little one, could be similar to the dot; but again if you've got a longer text and like the look of the three dots better then you have to give up using the dots, for consistency within the same piece anyway.

By the way I just noticed that for Namárie in The Road Goes Ever On, Tolkien wrote Altariello Nainie Lóriendesse in smaller letters before writing the poem itself. Perhaps it was harder to make the dots with a nib pen for the smaller writing -- but in any case he used the circumflex for the vowel a there -- and then the three dots for the vowel a in the poem.

So here Tolkien did mix the circumflex with three dots 'in the same document', although it appears consistent enough because of the way it's presented, again using the circumflex consistently within the section of smaller writing.

(Oh, carrier was the word I was looking for when I wrote "bracket" some posts back... in case you didn't know what I meant cause I wrote the wrong word, sorry for that xP)

But ok, so an alternative is to use a circumflex, but if the vowel is long than it should be on a carrier even though there is a consonant preceding it?

_________________
~ From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king. ~

That's ok, I was pretty sure I knew what you meant by bracket.

Yes with respect to long vowels Appendix E notes the option of putting the vowel on a long carrier instead of above an available consonant, or doubling the mark above an available consonant -- although it's noted that doubling the mark (the tehta) was however only frequently done with the curls, and sometimes with the 'accent' (two dots was more often used as a sign for following y).

I added the detail about the long carrier with a little wink because I have no idea if the word you are actually writing just happens to have a long a following h as in hárar.

You probably know this anyway but in Roman writing long vowels in Quenya are properly marked with an acute accent, as in the example hárar from Cirion's oath, or in the word namárie, or long o in Lóriendesse for another example.

Well ok, good to know, cause even though I had a specific word in mind while creating the topic, I will have the same problem with any word involving "ha". But so, if it is a long vowel it goes on a carrier, and otherwise I can use a circumflex, as I understand it. Thanks again

_________________
~ From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king. ~