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Ring engraving - need some help verifying Quenya pronouns and grammar

AquaLunaris

New Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2026
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1
Hello everyone,

I'm getting married this September and having a ring made that pairs with my fiancé's wedding band, which is engraved with the original One Ring inscription (Black Speech, Tengwar script). I'd like my ring to echo that verse's structure, but to flip the meaning from darkness/domination to light/love. Basically create a "shadow and light" pair of rings.
Working off the fan translation of the ring-verse (via elvish.org/gwaith), which uses:

- Corma = "ring"
- hirë- = "to find"
- nutë- = "to bind"
- mordo / mornórë = "darkness" (so I'm using cala, "light," as the inverse)


I've managed to draft this:
"Minë Corma hirë tyë, ar calassë nutë më"
(intended: "One ring finds you, and in the light binds us")
A longer version I'm also considering for engraving:
"Minë Corma hirë tyë, Minë Corma nutë më, calassë oi"
(intended: "One ring finds you, one ring binds us, in the light, forever")

I'm not so confident about the pronoun endings (tyë for "you," më for "us"). I know Quenya pronominal suffixes are among the trickier, more debated areas of reconstruction.
And, well, since this is really important for both of us and will be permanently engraved inside a wedding ring, I'd really appreciate any corrections to grammar, word order, substitutions, or pronoun forms before I take it to the jeweler for the Tengwar transcription.

Thank you so much in advance.
 
I would use er “one, alone” instead of minë “one” (the latter – always attested as min in later sources, by the way – is used when counting in series such as “one, two, three, etc.”, the former when speaking of isolated or unique things such as the One Ring); vet instead of me (the latter is the 1st person plural exclusive pronoun meaning “we but not you”, the former is the 1st person dual inclusive pronoun meaning “we two, I and you”; also note that diaeresis is not used in monosyllabic words such as me or tye, although this has no bearing on the tengwar spelling anyway); and oialë or tennoio instead of oi (both of these are attested in later sources than oi, the former of them in LotR itself).
So, incorporating these changes (and some minor changes to punctuation), I would change the two phrases you suggested to 1) Er Corma hirë tye ar calassë nutë vet and 2) Er Corma hirë tye, Er Corma nutë vet, calassë, oialë (or tennoio).
 

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