Looking for help translating names for a tattoo

[Teddy]

Hi all!

Just registered to ask for help translating my family's names into Tengwar. My parents are wanting to get a tattoo of our names in Elvish (and I may be inclined to join them after my tattoo of Tolkien's symbol - an exciting year!), so I want to make 1000% sure that they have the correct translations. I've used the following links to attempt my own translations for the names Seb ; Jane ; Dave ; Tara:

https://www.jenshansen.com/pages/online-english-to-elvish-engraving-translator (a ringmaker)

Tecendil

The most accurate and up to date Tengwar transcriber

www.tecendil.com

Write your name in Quenya Elvish (accurately)

A comprehensive and highly accurate guide to writing, not just your name, but any word, in Quenya Tengwar.

herebythemaverick.wordpress.com

I'd also like some clarification on something since while I'm not new to the Tolkien community, I am new to the linguistic side. Are the languages/dialects of Elvish Quenya and Sindarin, and they're written in Tengwar? So then there's Quenya Tengwar and Sindarin Tengwar? I ask this because the "herebythemaverick" blog focuses on Quenya Tengwar, and I'm unsure what the other two links use. What I've done to cross-reference is take one of the names translated in the blog article (specifically "Rachel") and then entered them into the two translators. The problem is that the translators have a slightly different translation to the blog post, however this may be due to the whole Quenya vs Sindarin thing. Thanks for any help you guys can give!

 

[Elaran]

We should start by clarifying the terminology.

• Tengwar: This is an Elvish writing system by Tolkien, or an "alphabet" for simplicity's sake, and one cannot translate into an alphabet, one can transcribe or transliterate into it.
• Quenya & Sindarin: These are the two most prominent Elvish languages by Tolkien, and once cannot transcribe or transliterate into them, one can translate into them.

Note: Tengwar transcriptions do not change the language, English would still be English.

Technically, there are no "Quenya Tengwar" and "Sindarin Tengwar". But there are three main (and numerous other) modes of Tengwar:

• Classical Mode: Used with Quenya in the books. Cannot be used to write other languages (unless their phonologies are identical to Quenya).
• Beleriand Mode: Used with Sindarin in the books. Cannot be used to write other languages (unless their phonologies are identical to Sindarin).
• General Mode: Can be used with most languages (possibly with slight variations), including English. People of Gondor used this mode to write Sindarin.

Note: The modes determine the sounds which the letters represent, not the order of vowel placement.

Now, I will address that "herebythemaverick" blog by Lorien MacEnulty. She is attempting to use the Classical Mode with English, which is already a problem, but she does so with further mistakes. For example, she uses this letter for the /k/ sound, which is accurate for the Classical Mode, but that would require this letter to be used for the /x/ (or a strong "h") sound, but she uses it for the /ʧ/ sound (e.g. as in "child" or "Rachel"), which is a sound that the Classical Mode cannot really represent, especially not with that letter (even in the General Mode, that letter rather represents the /ʃ/ sound, as in "sharp"). So I recommend avoiding her services, especially if she is asking for payment in return.

I also saw that, in her reply to you, she said that the "Jenhansen" website uses "Black Speech Tengwar", which shows that she is not really familiar with Tengwar at all, to the point of mistaking fonts to be modes (the font is "Tengwar Annatar Italic", which was made to look like the writings on the One Ring, and there is nothing more to it than that), since in fact "Jenhansen" rather uses an orthographic usage of the General Mode. And so, the "Jenhansen" website is far more accurate than what she offers, although it still has problems of its own. For example, even orthographic usage should require using the letter for the sound /s/ in the word "once", but "Jenhansen" transcribes it basically as "onke", as it seems to have been designed to transcribe all instances of "c" (except "ch") with the letter for the sound /k/, which is wrong.

That brings us to Tecendil. It appropriately has multiple mode options (though their names are simplified for other users' sake, e.g. the Classical Mode is called "Quenya" and so on). The most appropriate way to use Tengwar with English is to use the phonemic mode on this website, although the phonetic information that it uses for transcription can sometimes at odds with other source (e.g. the UK pronunciations of "weird" are given in Wiktionary as "/ˈwɪəd/, /ˈwiːəd/" and the US forms are "/ˈwiɚd/, /ˈwɪɚd/", yet Tecendil uses "/wˈɪrd/" which to me is inaccurate). So, it is far better than the other options, but it is not infallible.

At the end of the day, no auto-transcriber (let alone auto-translators, which never work) can yet best an (actual) expert. But in this case, the phonemic usage of the General Mode for English (i.e. "English Phonemic") on Tecendil should be fine for the names which you want to transcribe, depending on how you pronounce "Tara" (if it is like "teh-ruh" then it works, but if more like "tah-rah" then you could switch to the default "English" option for it). You could share the results here for confirmation, just to be safe.

 

[Teddy]

We pronounce "Tara" as "tah-rah", so would I then use English Phonemic for the other names and only switch for my name? I hadn't noticed that option on the side, so the transcription I have is probably incorrect. I seem to have originally used just the default English option for all 4 names, but since you've suggested I use two modes would it not then be strange for the tehtar (is that the right term for the dotjies on the symbols?) to differ from the first 3 names versus my name? Or would that not matter? I've attached screenshots from the Tecendil site, with the first 3 names being transcribed using the General Mode for English and then my name being transcribed using the default English option.

I wasn't able to find the phonemic mode on this site you referenced, but since I'm new to the forum I may not have been looking in the right spot.

Apologies if these seem like silly/basic questions. I'm a bit nervous since these are going to be tattoos after all and I'd hate to find out a few years down the line that we'd used the incorrect transcriptions.

Thanks so much for all of your help, especially about the terminology! I'd gotten a bit of info off of the "herebythemaverick" blog, so I was confusing myself. Much obliged!

 

[Elaran]

The images that you have attached seem to follow my recommendations fully, so you can use them. Happy to help!

 

[Valarian]

Hi Elaran, i found your conversation about the Tengwar trascribing and would kindly like to ask you for your help. I am looking for transcription of my sons name which sounds like this in my language (https://www.howtopronounce.com/slovak/michael/8953510).
Could you please help me with that?
Thanks
M.