Hello all.

I don't trust online translators and I want to have my wife's name tattoo'd on me. I figure this is a great place to go since I've double-checked the translation of her name (albeit not into elvish script) and it matches a bunch of other assertions of the translation.

My wife's name is Mary which translates to the Elvish "Saerwen". I would greatly appreciate (and happily pay) for someone to help me with what this would be in Elvish script. I believe the script I'm looking to have done is Tengwar for it's smoothness. I'm assuming that's the one in the image at http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/838/attheseagi4.jpg though it does seem to be in the font of the Black Script Of Mordor. Hopefully not an omen if I'm right there.

I couldn't find the script that would be used by the wood elves and of course my wife loved the princess. Here's an ignorant question ... are they the same? (insert eye rolling here)

Thanks for any help !!!

_________________
Dave
Nerd and marketer in one.

Hello Dave, yes you are looking for the Elvish letters [tengwar] rather than the Elvish runes [certar] and that's what you're illustrating in the linked picture. The font is rather up to you of course, although the style used on the One Ring is very popular [and nice looking, despite that the language on the One is that of Mordor].


As for the Wood-elves, in Unfinished Tales Tolkien noted that they had invented no forms of writing.



I didn't check *Saerwen as a translation of Mary, but Ales Bican seems to agree with the element 'bitter', as he writes [for his Quenya names]: 'MARY, MARIA - perhaps Heb. 'bitterness'; sára "bitter", so Sáre or Sárie; I was suggested that Marie may also mean "friend" (from Gaelic) which would be Nilde and Mellon in Sindarin.'

Again that being for a Quenya version [mostly], but just to check the meaning of Mary.

As for the mode, I would suggest the one used on the Doors of Durin ['full writing'], or Mode of Beleriand, but that's just my preference for this example. For this mode see...

http://at.mansbjorkman.net/teng_beleriand.htm


Wait... willing to pay? How much

If someone's willing to do up a nice version I can forward to the tattoo artist I'd say $25 is fair but I don't know how long it takes so I might be way off. Let me know.

_________________
Dave
Nerd and marketer in one.

Oh my apologies, as I was just joking about the money

Although I'm no expert, if I have time later I could help you write Saerwen in the Mode of Beleriand, if you like the full writing -- this way you get more full letters with respect to the vowels, although it might hurt more. It's only so many characters, and -ae- is already depicted in the section on diphthongs that I linked to above.

The characters for -rw- seem to be the tougher question, but I would go with the suggestion on the page I linked. See the picture under 'Labialized Consonants' for -rw-.

So already we have got _aerwe_ in this mode depicted in the link [as the character for e will be the same as found in -ae-]


So I can help by referring you to the numbered chart in the back of The Return of the King [although I think Dan Smith's chart on line is numbered too]. Or maybe I could describe which character I'm talking about from the page I linked [like I did so far]... or I could agree or disagree with something you or someone else writes and shows me here...

... in other words I write the Elvish characters with a pen... not with a computer [I don't know how and don't want to learn how]... so I don't know how to write it and simply show you the result here, or mail it to you.


And if you want a mode with 'tehtar' [the marks for the vowels] instead of full writing it will look different. So that's up to you of course.

Hello again.

I didn't think you were being cheeky re: payment. I charge for my time and I expect other to do the same.

_________________
Dave
Nerd and marketer in one.

Oh, thanks but I don't want any money anyway

So, if full mode is to your liking, just note the chart in the link for the Elvish characters to represent the sounds of s and n and you've got it.

The Elvish letter for n here kind of looks like a Roman n. And the one for s looks kind of like a fish hook.

Found Dan Smith's chart [see the new link below]. OK so I'll just give you the numbers in order, and then you'll have the characters in order. I'll add the names of the letters in brackets, like 'silme', but you don't really need to care about that.

for S: 29 [silme]
for A: the last character in 'additional letters', bottom right hand corner [sorry this one has no number]. Looks like a Roman C.
for E: 35 [yanta]
for R: 25 [romen] -> employ the mirrored 'tilde' above it for following w
for W: again put a mirrored 'tilde' over number 25 [but don't put two of them, I'm just repeating myself here]
for E: 35 [yanta]
for N: 21 [ore]

In this link you can see the 'over-bar/tilde' in the section on diphthongs, illustrating aw and ow. And basically we are writing out the diphthong -ae- in Elvish, but it's still a diphthong of course. In Sindarin -ae- can be pronounced like English 'eye' for example.

Again I'm not an expert, but that's the way I would write it in this mode. I checked on the web and found someone else writing Arwen in this mode, and he/she also employed 25 with the tilde above it for -rw-. Not that that makes it certain, but the author of Amanye Tenceli is more versed in this than I am in any case.

Here's the new link. Find the number and that's the Elvish character in its basic form [again you can play with many styles once you know how to write the name in general]:


http://www.acondia.com/fonts/tengwar/info/belerian.htm

By the way, I just noticed that for Arwen's sword in the films, the person who invented the Elvish for the blade does not use the mirrored tilde above 25 for -rw- in arwen [again in the Mode of Beleriand] -- for the sword and -rw- 'they' rather employ 25 [romen] then 24 [see the same chart I linked to already].

So far I can't find a Tolkien-written example of -rw- in this mode. I did find both -gw- and -dw- in one version of a text called the King's Letter [posthumously published in Sauron Defeated] where Tolkien wrote the words Gwirith edwen in, it seems, a full mode.

Tolkien employs the mirrored tilde here in any case, above the letter.

However, even though this appears to be a 'full mode' is it the mode of Beleriand? In Vinyar Tengwar 29 there is an analysis of this letter [by Arden Smith] that includes: 'This mode differs from the mode of Beleriand used in the Moria-gate inscriptions and the hymm to Elbereth primarily in its treatment of nasals and velars.'

So... ah... well I'm not expert enough to say which version is 'correct'. I do know that no version of the King's Letter was published by Tolkien himself in any case, as this letter went with the abandoned epilogue to The Lord of the Rings.

At first there was to be an epilogue to The Lord of the Rings, for any who might not know

OK - so let's see if this is right.

What I'm HOPING this says is:

Mary, you are my love


(click to enlarge)

Any feedback?

_________________
Dave
Nerd and marketer in one.