Gil-Estel or Quenya equivalent — Tengwar rendering for a tattoo

[TheRat]

Hello! I'm hoping to get some expert help with a Tengwar rendering for a tattoo I'm designing.

What I want: The phrase "Gil-Estel" (Star of Hope) — the Elvish name given to Eärendil's star — rendered accurately in Tengwar for use in a permanent tattoo.

Context: The tattoo is an eight-pointed Polaris star on my forearm, and I'd like Gil-Estel worked subtly into the design — most likely running along one of the rays in very small script. The Tolkien layer is intentionally understated; it's a personal reference rather than a billboard.

My questions:
1. Is "Gil-Estel" the correct Sindarin form, or should it be rendered differently?
2. Which Tengwar mode is most appropriate — Beleriand mode since it's a Sindarin phrase, or would another mode be more linguistically accurate for this specific phrase?
3. Is there any meaningful difference between rendering this in the Noldorin versus later Sindarin tradition, given that Gil-Estel originates in the Silmarillion-era legendarium?
4. Is there a canonical Quenya equivalent of "Star of Hope" that Tolkien himself established, or is Sindarin the stronger choice precisely because Gil-Estel is an attested phrase? If a Quenya construction exists and is well-supported, I'd be interested to see it alongside the Sindarin rendering.
5. If you're able to provide a rendering or point me to the correct letterforms, I would be deeply grateful. I want to get this right before it goes on my skin permanently.

I'm marking a significant milestone — turning 60 — and the symbolism runs deep for me: Polaris as a fixed point, a true bearing, and Eärendil as the star that guides through darkness. Getting the rendering right matters. Thank you in advance.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I'll advise patience on this -- it may be a couple of days until one of our language experts drops in. Keep checking back.

 

[TheRat]

Here is what the machine said. First is Beleriand mode, the second is third age Tengwar.

 

[Amalcarin]

Here is what the machine said. First is Beleriand mode, the second is third age Tengwar.

The transcriptions given here are correct (the only part that may be a bit uncertain is the use of the hyphen-like symbol in the first inscription, but I can find at least one example of such a use: the inscription Ered-wethion in a description of the Fëanorian alphabet from the late 1930s (Parma Eldalamberon 22, p. 41). To answer your earlier questions: the name itself is perfectly valid and seems in fact to belong to the Sindarin stage of the language (as I understand from Christopher Tolkien’s comments in The War of the Jewels, pp. 245–6, it was added by Tolkien as a correction to to the typescript made at about 1958 as a copy of the original 1937 Quenta Silmarillion); but, as far as I know, there is no attested Quenya equivalent of this particular name meaning “Star of Hope”, and any reconstruction, although possible, is risky (especially because Tolkien changed his mind more than once on the etymology of the Sindarin word gil and, consequently, on the form of its Quenya cognate), so I would advice to stick to the attested Sindarin name. As for the preferred mode: both modes were used for Sindarin, but at different times and among different peoples. According to the description in Parma Eldalamberon 23 (pp. 16–8), the Beleriandic mode was the normal way of using the Fëanorian alphabet among the Ñoldor until the end of the Second Age, while the Númenian or Western mode was originally devised in the Second Age for the use of peoples to whom the Ñoldor taught the art of writing and earliest adopted by the Númenóreans (hence the name), but it was also widely used by the Elves themselves and in the Third Age replaced among them the earlier Beleriandic mode, becoming the normal way of using the Fëanorian alphabet among all peoples who used it at the time of the War of the Ring. Hopefully this is enough to help you make the choice.