Write in Elvish!
November 3, 2002

Kate, over at the guestbook, posted this message. It looked interesting enough to post as news, so here it is! But remember, I (the webmaster) really don't know anything about it, so if you have questions, go to the guestbook and leave a message for Kate.

Kate writes:

Everyone, I found the most fantastical thing... have you ever wanted to write in Elvish? Well, I found a program called a 'tengscribe' that you type english in one side and comes out written in elvish the other side. Now listen carefully, it's not a TRANSLATOR, so it doesn't translate from English to Elvish, it writes the english words in the elvish letters. If you don't know how to write elvish this is a great way to get it done quickly and also if you have the sindarin fonts already you don't have to go searching about for the right key.

You must have the Sindarin or Quenya font written by Dan Smith to have this program work properly. The great thing is they come in packages, and you get at least three fonts in each package. You can download them here, just click on any of the fonts shown. I personally think the sindarin one looks the best, but choose your own!

http://www.gis.net/~dansmith/fonts/tengwar.htm

Once you have a font/s, scroll down the same page and look under utilities. It has two different programs there, one called ‘The Tengwar Scribe - Word processing program’ or as it says in the description ‘tengscribe’ the other ‘Y.A.T.T. (Yet Another Tengwar Tool) - Word processing program’ which is an updated version of tengscribe. There is also a ‘Windows Utilities for my Tengwar Fonts’ which is another program created by Dan Smith, but it’s still getting tested so it’s best to use the other ones. As far as I know, Tengscribe is free of charge, but Y.A.T.T. is not. Y.A.T.T. is more efficient… it has dictionaries for the languages so it is also a translator but you have to pay for it. I have heard that Tengscribe is not very compatible with windows 2000 and XP, that’s why Y.A.T.T. was made, but I don’t know if that’s true, you can try it. I think tengscribe is the best way to go (because it’s free!) but if you’re willing to pay for Y.A.T.T. follow the link and read up! When you click on the link for tengscribe, click on the ‘Download the Tengwar Scribe 1.1’… don’t click on the modes editor, you don’t need that (yet anyway).

Once you install tengscribe, open it. I figured out how to work it myself but there’s always the help section. When you go into tengscribe, you must change the text in the right hand window (the one that’s called target) to whatever elvish font you have. Set the font in the ‘source’ window to an English font (arial, times new roman etc.) Set the mode in the modes box at the top-right corner of the screen to either English or Sindarin… Quenya and the Black speech are something that is not compatible with English and has to be written differently… all I know is that I wrote English in on one side and when the quenya or black speech was the mode it came out wrong on the other side. I’ll get back to you when I figure out how to use those modes. Use Sindarin, which writes the English in the mode of beleriand, or the English mode, which writes it in the standard sindarin mode (I don’t know why, that’s just how it is!). To transcribe push the little button that has a feather writing a letter on it next to the modes box.

Now you can save the document, or put all that transcribed elvish on a website, or write it out etc.

Now you’re asking, why do I need this? Well, anyone who knows elvish here and uses elvish fonts would know the the elvish letters aren’t properly aligned with the english keys on a normal qwerty keyboard. Why? Simply because there are more letters in the elvish tengwar (what they call their alphabet) than in the english alphabet. As a result, it takes ages, almost 15 minutes to write a simple sentence in an elvish font without the tengscribe because you have to find out which key has the letter you want by pressing ALL of them. This is hell for people who want to write elvish on computers. With the tengscribe it takes 10 seconds, like a normal sentence should! Well, even if you don’t find it useful, I do!

Saying this, you can also write elvish out in english form and get it transcribed, much easier than picking your way through the letters.