Writing Sindarin in the Elvish Scripts

Overview of the Writing Systems

The two major writing systems used for Sindarin were the tîw (better known by their Quenya name tengwar), and the cirth (pronounced keerth). The tengwar were a flowing script suitable for writing with a brush or pen, while the runic cirth were angular, designed for scratching or carving into stone or wood.

Tengwar

The tengwar were invented by Fëanor in Aman, and so were first used to write Quenya. But Fëanor, always ambitious, didn’t just devise an alphabet solely for his own language. He created a system so versatile that it could be adapted to any language. Thus when the exiled Noldor brought the tengwar to Middle-earth, the Sindar readily adopted the script. By the Third Age there were multiple styles or modes for writing Sindarin with tengwar, each with its own spelling conventions.

Even Sauron recognized the beauty of tengwar and used them to write the inscription (in the Black Speech) on the One Ring:

Cirth

The cirth, in contrast to the tengwar, were invented in Middle-earth, so in a sense they are the most natively Sindarin writing system. However, they did not reach their most mature form, the Angerthas Daeron, until after the exiled Noldor returned to Middle-earth. The Angerthas or long rune-rows were inspired by the organization of the tengwar, and like the tengwar could be applied to many different languages.

Resources for Learning the Writing Systems

• Appendix E to The Lord of the Rings – The authoritative source for much of our information about the tengwar and cirth. Unfortunately for beginners, it makes heavy use of linguistic terms, so it’s not the most accessible resource. It presents guidelines for writing Sindarin, Quenya, English, and the Black Speech, but Tolkien, presumably to save space, doesn’t give each language its own section—he presents them all together in a jumble. You basically have to comprehend the whole thing before you can write in any of the languages it discusses.
• Tîw i Lam Thindrim, by Per Lindberg – available as a PDF download. It’s a good summary of the major Sindarin tengwar modes. Oddly, the tables showing the pronunciation of each tengwa are at the end of the document. I’d advise printing out the last two pages and keeping them handy while you read the rest of it.
• A Gateway to Sindarin, by David Salo – Salo’s book describes how to use the tengwar and cirth to write Sindarin, and is the best secondary source that I know of for learning the cirth. However, it assumes some linguistic knowledge (such as a general familiarity with phonetic alphabets) as well as a basic understanding of the historical development of Sindarin. It’s also pretty pricey, and has received some critical feedback for its approach to the language. While the chapter on writing is good, I would not recommend buying it for that chapter alone.