Angerthas Moria

During the Second Age, or maybe its beginning, the Dwarves got accustomed with Angerthas of the Noldor and they modified it to suit Khuzdul, their language. This alphabet was spread further wherever the Dwarves went, hence the name Angerthas Moria, which is exemplified on the Balin's Tomb Inscription.

The Dwarves introduced various new cirth and some unsystematic minor changes to the values. The greatest was the switch of the cirth for s and h (f and .), and the abandonment of the cirth $, q for which they substituted R, T. Subsequently they used @ for r and subsequently u for n! For unknown reason they invented ,, another new certh for n which was confused with u. Following the relation of those two letters, they gave to w the value z to relate better with ., which as mentioned had now the value s.

Tolkien doesn’t mention any other cirth abandoned by the Dwarves but much must have been, as there are many that represent sounds not occuring in our Khuzdul corpus, like th, dh, hw etc. It is strange also to observe that some of the cirth they introduced represent sounds not occuring in their language, like nj, hy, ñ, y-, hy!

Table

1

p

8

t

#

ch

e

c

i

kw

R

j

f

h

2

b

9

d

r

g

o

gw

T

zh

3

f

0

th

%

sh

t

ch

p

chw

a

l

g

‘

4

v

!

dh

y

gh

Q

ghw/w

5

hw

@

r

w

z

u

n

W

ñgw

d

nd

h

ñ

J

nj

6

m

E

ñw

j

ng

7

mb

l

i

;

y-

S

u

z

e

c

a

b

o

,

n

/

(e)

V

+h

A

hy

D

ú

x

é

v

á

n

ó

..

s

Z

(u)

B

&

F

w

m

œ

G

y

Notes

g: This certh is said to represent the clear or glottal beginning of a word with an initial vowel.

/, Z: These cirth where a halved form of z, used for vowels like those in Enblish butter. When weak they were reduced to a stroke without a stem (>,?). / represented a schwa sound, an unstressed vowel, while Z a sound similar to the schwa, only in stressed syllables.

V: This sign is to denote aspirate kh, th etc which were frequent in Khuzdul. Khazâd is written eVcwv9

Examples

The only Angerthas Moria inscription by Tolkien is Balin’s Tomb.

2calu

3SdluSa

Sw2c9eVcwc99D6S

Balin Fundinul UzbadKhazadDûmu

Let’s see also the Dwarf battle-cry written.

}2c@SeeVcwv9IeVcwv9cl6x,S}

Baruk Khazâd. Khazâd ai-mênu!

and some other words:

uSaSeeVlw9lu Nulukkhizdin (caves of Nargothrond)

8Vc@eDu Tharkûn (Staff-man, a surname of ‘Gandalf’)

glral%6xe ‘iglishmêk (the gesture code of the Dwarves)

eVzaz9wv@c6 Kheled-zâram ('Mirrormere')