I need some Tolkien nerd help (can YOU write elvish?)

[krunchyfrogg]

This kinda relates to a thread I stared a couple days ago. A good friend of mine wants a Tolkien tattoo. Wants the first two lines from The Riddle of Strider tattooed on his forearm.

I’ve been trying to help him, but it seems like there are different fonts and probably some bad images all over the internet.

I think the tattoo is a neat idea.

He wants

All that is gold does not glitter
Not all those who wander are lost

Written in elvish, in a circle, around the JRRT Tolkien monogram.

Kinda like this:



Around this:



Except, not the “one ring to rule them all” in Black Speech, as is written in the second pic.

[Berserk Mecha]

Heh, from the thread title and the way you phrased your question, it sounds like you're asking for someone on the forum to personally tattoo your friend. Actually, what are you asking? For official tengwar fonts? There's a few examples on this page on the LOTR wiki. A google image search brings up a few more. I don't know if there are any examples of the letters handwritten by Tolkien himself but if there are, I'd go with those.

[JoshL]

Wait, so your first image is the text and style you want, just without the JRRT? That should be good enough for most tattoo artists. Bring both, maybe one of just the logo, explain that to them, and they should be able to take it from there. If they can't, find yourself a better shop!

A good tattoo artist is just that: an artist. They know what theyre doing, and having that much visual reference is more than enough.

Now i want to get more tattoos!

[WalkingTarget]

A couple things, does he want it “in Elvish” or just in the Elvish alphabet (this one is called Tengwar)? The first image is a fine example of the latter still in English (with a few caveats; notably that it sometimes uses the ‘z’ character phonetically like in “those” and “is” but not in “does”). If he wants it in an Elvish language (there are two, Sindarin and Quenya) you’ll need to find somebody to translate as well (which I’m not qualified for). Would he want the text to be a continuous circle around the central image as the One Ring text is or in two arcs reading left-to-right as the first image?

[krunchyfrogg]

Heh, from the thread title and the way you phrased your question, it sounds like you're asking for someone on the forum to personally tattoo your friend. Actually, what are you asking? For official tengwar fonts? There's a few examples on this page on the LOTR wiki. A google image search brings up a few more. I don't know if there are any examples of the letters handwritten by Tolkien himself but if there are, I'd go with those.

I’m asking so that my friend doesn’t go into the tattoo shop asking for gibberish to be permanently inscribed on his body.

Wait, so your first image is the text and style you want, just without the JRRT? That should be good enough for most tattoo artists. Bring both, maybe one of just the logo, explain that to them, and they should be able to take it from there. If they can't, find yourself a better shop!

A good tattoo artist is just that: an artist. They know what theyre doing, and having that much visual reference is more than enough.

Now i want to get more tattoos!

I’m just not convinced it’s the correct text. I don’t know anything about Tolkien’s elvish.

A couple things, does he want it “in Elvish” or just in the Elvish alphabet (this one is called Tengwar)? The first image is a fine example of the latter still in English (with a few caveats; notably that it sometimes uses the ‘z’ character phonetically like in “those” and “is” but not in “does”). If he wants it in an Elvish language (there are two, Sindarin and Quenya) you’ll need to find somebody to translate as well (which I’m not qualified for). Would he want the text to be a continuous circle around the central image as the One Ring text is or in two arcs reading left-to-right as the first image?

I don’t think he’s care if it were in English and then translated, or if it were in Sindarin or Quenya, as long as it was consistent the whole way. Same with a continuous ring or two lines, both from left to right, as is the case in this image, as long as it was consistent.

Using z instead of s is concerning when it only happens some of the time.

While 99.9% of the people who see if won’t know what it says, I think he’s (legitimately) worried about putting something that is spelled wrong permanently on his skin.

[Iruka]

How about searching for a tattoo artist that specialises in fantasy stuff? She could probably give advice and also make sure everything is written correctly.

[Kato]

How about searching for a tattoo artist that specialises in fantasy stuff? She could probably give advice and also make sure everything is written correctly.

I think the people who would qualify for this are so rare it's highly impractical..

But while I'm sure there are are people here who could help if you want to be really certain I'd go to thetolkienforum.com
I'm certain you will find faster / more reliable advice there.

[Vinyadan]

How about searching for a tattoo artist that specialises in fantasy stuff? She could probably give advice and also make sure everything is written correctly.

I love to think that such specialists end up marking people with "Hey Dol, Merry Dol, Teleporno".

[JoshL]

I’m just not convinced it’s the correct text. I don’t know anything about Tolkien’s elvish.

In that case, time to put my nerd pants on (+5 to research, 1 free re-roll to Knowledge (Useless) checks)

Here's a translation into Sindarin
http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/language.htm
And then transcribed in tengwar
http://tengwar-tutor.tumblr.com/post...d_post=1#notes

Also, here's a pretty good breakdown in Quenya
https://quenya101.com/2013/03/17/not...sis-in-quenya/

From that, and I'm seeing the text you posted a lot, i'd guess it's Tengwar English rather than proper Elvish

Again, talk to the tattoo artist your friend wants to use, and they'll probably be able to curve the first two lines around. And tip them well!

[WalkingTarget]

Well, then. Here's some suggestions. The typeface used in the first image you provided seems to be italic Tengwar Annatar (or one closely based on it) - it was designed to be similar to the image of the One Ring inscription in LotR itself, but due to the lack of a one-to-one correspondence between Tengwar and our modified Latin alphabet it doesn't try to map onto our standard QWERTY layout, rather it largely retains a relationship to the Tengwar table in the appendix to LotR.

As such, a modification to the text in your top image (I've left out the dots between the lines and have changed the 's' in "does" to the 'z' character and I swapped out the 'wh' character to the one appropriate for this mode of use) would be achieved by installing that computer font and using the following characters:

j°# 41E ,T xj^2 2`N,F 51Y xj1;T6R
51Y j°# 4,HO o`N y2P#6R 6EO jiH1

If you want 's' characters instead, it would be

j°# 41E iT xj^2 2`NiV 51Y xj1;T6R
51Y j°# 4iHO o`N y2P#6R 6EO jiH1

There's are a bunch of other options for how to go about this, though. One example is to use a "full mode" where vowels get their own characters as well. An example of this is the "King's Letter" that Tolkien wrote (and drew up in Tengwar in both English and Elvish) as part of an unused epilogue for LotR where Sam is reading from the Red Book and has a conversation with his daughter Elanor about an upcoming visit from the king. Using it as an example, you can come up with this as an option:

nm 4n1 `B8 xhj2 2hl8 5h1 xj`B1;O6
5h1 nm 4h8O oh .n2P(7 n6O jh81

The caveats here are that this type of mode is even less familiar to people than the earlier ones and breaks some "rules" that they might be used to (it uses a single character for a double 'l' as in "all", in most of these things there are two 'r' characters, for use if its followed by a vowel or not - this mode uses the one for "has a vowel after it" at the end of a word if the next word starts with a vowel as it does in "wander are") and that I'm not entirely sure if "does" should use a full letter for the 'e' (which I've done in this text) or if I should put a "silent e" dot under the 'o' - if you want the latter, swap out the "2hl8" in the top row for "2ho8"

Anyway, taking any of these and using the computer font I mentioned should let you play around with layout in various programs. I recommend getting second opinions on them to see if I've made any glaring errors or learning enough to step through them yourself to see if you agree with my choices. For comparison - here's how my computer renders the above text.

[Kato]

... Well, I guess I underestimated the playground

[WalkingTarget]

... Well, I guess I underestimated the playground

Heh.

While I'm not as active as I once was here, Tolkien-related stuff was kind of my jam. I'm much more active on reddit these days, including the r/tolkienfans, r/lotr, and (less often) r/tengwar subreddits. I also recommend the r/sindarin and r/quenya communities for help with the languages.

[krunchyfrogg]

Heh.

While I'm not as active as I once was here, Tolkien-related stuff was kind of my jam. I'm much more active on reddit these days, including the r/tolkienfans, r/lotr, and (less often) r/tengwar subreddits. I also recommend the r/sindarin and r/quenya communities for help with the languages.

Damn. This is where my age shows. I could never figure out reddit.

[Chewie107]

Hi, I also need some help. I am looking for a tattoo. I would love a clear image of elvish writing in a circle saying.

I carry your heart I carry it in my heart I am never without it

If anyone could help I would really appreciate it.

THANKS

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Gandalf does not approve of necromancy.