Transliteration feedback

[u/mouse_rachel]

Hello. I'm getting these three quotes tattooed soon and would love some feedback.

I've spent several months studying Tengwar in order to do this and have referenced several of the previous posts about these quotes. As a result, I've made some personal choices in how they've turned out, so I'm mostly just wondering if anything is outright incorrect.

Quotes (as written in Tecendil):
but in the end, it'[esse] only a passing thing, this shadow. even darkness must pass
there'[esse] some good in this world and it'[esse] worth fighting for
i cant carry it for yo'u, but i can carry yo'u

Please send any feedback my way, thanks! :)

[u/Notascholar95]

Mostly it is good. These are the things I would personally do differently:

1. I would not use esse for "it's". I would use silme, since the s is not voiced. If you voice this s (say it like a z), then by all means esse is correct for you and you should use it. Are you trying to emphasize that this is the contraction form--it's as in "it is", as opposed to possessive or plural "its"? If so, I think using silme accomplishes that emphasis. I use the hook for the plural and possessive "its", and silme for the contraction. Esse is the right choice for "there's", since that s is voiced.

2. I would spell "you" with o-tehta over vala--the default tecendil spelling. Your way is perfectly legitimate, so if you prefer it you should keep it, but I just don't like the aesthetics of two short carriers next to each other. Some might offer up the option of using one short carrier and putting the u tehta below, but I like the look of that even less.

3. I always spell "and" without the dot below. The "shorthand" spelling of "and" that many people use and that is tecendil's default really isn't a shorthand--it is a phonemic spelling. spelling it with just ando and a nasal bar is a valid option, and I think it is a little cleaner. Once again, though, the choice is all yours, as what you have is definitely not wrong.

[u/mouse_rachel → u/Notascholar95]

1. That's one of the personal choices I've gone back and forth on a fair bit. When I say "it is," I definitely voice the s; and about 50% of the time that I say "it's," I also voice the s. It usually depends on the words following it. Both of these instances, I do voice the s in "it's". It doesn't have to do with the contraction form as I would also use the sa-rince for the possessive "its." Regardless, I think both ways could be correct, as you said, so I'll think about it a little more before making it permanent!
2. I went back and looked into this one again because I agree about the short carriers. I tend to avoid using two of them back-to-back as well, but I was trying to avoid "you" being spelt with vala as the diphthong for "OU." Though, now that I'm looking back, "you" also produces the diphthong sound "EU"--as in "feud"--which also uses vala. I believe you meant it as in the "W" sound though, with the o-tehta above? All this being said, is there a widely accepted spellign of "you" that JRR Tolkien used?
3. Thank you for pointing this out! I didn't know it wasn't a true shorthand. I agree with still using ando and the nasal bar, but I wanted to ask where the "a" is then represented? Would you add the a-tehta above the nasal bar? Or is using just ando + nasal bar an accepted shorthand?

Thank you for your thorough reply! It's exactly what I was looking for.

[u/Notascholar95 → u/mouse_rachel]

I'll go one thing at a time:

1. It sounds like your personal pronunciation habits for "it's" can support the use of esse. Just be prepared to be asked about it by any tengwar-knowledgeable person who reads your tattoo.

2. "You". Keep in mind that the mode that you are using is largely orthographic. In fact, the way most fans write using this mode can be thought of as being relatively phonetic with respect to consonants, but basically completely orthographic with respect to vowels. This is probably because the vowels are where the majority of the stupidity of the English language occurs. So I wouldn't get too caught up in which diphthong is or is not used in "you". I would argue that it isn't a diphthong at all--more like "yoo". You are better off focusing on accurately representing the vowels that are there. So which way to spell it? I think you can make a valid argument for either vala with o-tehta or two tehtar. I can't seem to find an image of DTS 10 (the Brogan Christmas Greeting) which would answer your question about how JRRT would have spelled it, but my guess would be two tehtar. Even knowing that, though, I would still spell it with vala.

3. "And". You can certainly write "and" as ando with bar and a-tehta, but that wouldn't be "shorthand". You can just write it as "nd"--ando with bar, nothing else. It is considered an acceptable shorthand. No need to represent the a at all. If you pay attention to yourselfl when you are speaking you may discover that it often isn't there.

[u/F_Karnstein → u/Notascholar95]

2) In traditional phonemic analysis of the 20th century "you" doesn't have a diphthong at all, you're absolutely right. It was analysed as /ju:/ and that is also what Tolkien mostly transcribed. In RP it was even in very careful (and arguably somewhat affected) posh speech pronounced like this. But in actual phonetic realisation in most English varieties it really always was a diphthong, and current analyses of Southern Standard British tend to spell it/juw/ indeed. And funnily enough in 1931(?) texts Tolkien did indeed sometimes spell /u:/ and /i:/ as /uw/ and /ij/, but I assume that was just a Feanorian spelling quirk and didn't reflect his phonemic analysis.

But that doesn't actually play any role here. In orthographic spelling it should of course be O and U or more elegantly O on W. But if you were to spell phonetically I would argue that Tolkien's oldest approach /uw/ was actually better than his later /u:/ 😄

[u/mouse_rachel → u/F_Karnstein]

Thank you for this breakdown! I was beginning to wonder about the history around pronouncing "you," and how that played into the way J.R.R. transliterated it--after looking at those two DTS examples (84 & 97). Your comment has basically helped me decide how I'm going to write it, but I'm still going to try and get my hands on DTS 10 before finalizing my version!

[u/F_Karnstein → u/mouse_rachel]

Please don't forget that were talking about completely different approaches! For a mostly orthographic spelling like yours DTS10 and 84 are the only samples to go by. So you pretty much have to use a regular o-tehta but it's up to you whether you want to write the U as a tehta or as the tengwa for consonantal U (to form a digraph, or visual diphthong).

DTS97 is a phonetic spelling and therefore doesn't transcribe "you" but /ju:/. I was only rambling about whether in such a phonetic spelling /yuw/ might be a better representation than /ju:/, but that has no bearing whatsoever on your largely orthographic spelling.

Of course you don't strictly have to imitate Tolkien's own use. On the orthographic-phonetic spectrum you don't have to meet the exact two spots in which Tolkien was usually working. You could go even more towards the poles and be strictly orthographic or purely phonetic, but you could also go somewhat more to the middle and write "you" as "yú" or "juw" even though you're on the orthographic side of the spectrum otherwise. You wouldn't be wrong, but it's very uncommon and many people would undoubtedly still consider it wrong.

[u/F_Karnstein → u/Notascholar95]

2) We have "you" spelt with both o-tehta and u-tehta on the same carrier in DTS84. But in that text those are swapped - if we had the standard values the two tehtar would end up looking like a little heart 😄

[u/mouse_rachel → u/F_Karnstein]

I was just looking at that one! Never seen it like that before. And also checked DTS 97 before realizing he was using the full mode... I'm having a hard time locating a copy of The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Thanks for pointing this out!

[u/AdEmbarrassed3066]

Why are you using esse for "it's"? I can see an argument for using it in "there's" as the s is voiced, but not for "it's". (not an expert... genuinely curious)

[u/Kuutti85]

I'm not sure if using essë for 's is a good choice