Parma Eldalamberon 20

From Tolkien Gateway
Parma Eldalamberon 20
The Qenya Alphabet
Parma Eldalamberon 20.jpg
AuthorJ.R.R. Tolkien
EditorArden R. Smith
PublisherElvish Linguistic Fellowship
Released3 August 2012
FormatPaperback journal
Pages160

Parma Eldalamberon 20: The Qenya Alphabet is the twentieth issue of Parma Eldalamberon, a journal of linguistic studies of the Elvish languages and names in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Front cover: manuscript facsimile "Qenya Alphabet"

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Contents[edit | edit source]

  • "The Qenya Alphabet" — J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Arden R. Smith
    • Introduction
    • Texts and Commentary
      (contains 40 specimens of tengwar-style Elvish script)
  • List of abbreviations

Description[edit | edit source]

"The Qenya Alphabet" is an edition of Tolkien's charts and notes from circa 1931 dealing with the earliest version of the script essentially of the conceptual type he would later call "Fëanorian Tengwar" and eventually include in The Lord of the Rings. This issue of Parma Eldalamberon contains 40 documents in which Tolkien's examples of the scripts are reproduced in facsimile.

The documents include different versions of a detailed explanation of the use of the script for representing English, both phonetically (as it was designed to be used) and also according to English spelling. These have charts of the theoretical values of the sounds represented by the letters, and various English words and texts written in the scripts.

There are also various specimen texts written by Tolkien in the "Qenya Alphabet". These exemplify some conceptual changes in the mode or assignment of phonetic values to particular letters. There is also a great variety of different styles of writing, ranging from formal "book-hand" to rapidly written cursive.

Most of these examples are in English, but there are also texts in Latin, Old English, and Old High German. Transcriptions of the examples and editorial commentary on the dating and historical background are provided.

External links[edit | edit source]


Parma Eldalamberon issues
Issue 1 · Issue 2 · Issue 3 · Issue 4 · Issue 5 · Issue 6 · Issue 7 · Issue 8 · Issue 9 · Issue 10 ·
Issue 11 · Issue 12 · Issue 13 · Issue 14 · Issue 15 · Issue 16 · Issue 17 · Issue 18 · Issue 19 · Issue 20 ·
Issue 21 · Issue 22