Sindarin is closely related to Quenya. The distinctions between the two have to do with specific aspects of the fictional histories Tolkien created. Quenya, which uses words that mostly end in vowels or r, l, or n, is based on Finnish, a language Tolkien particularly favored. Sindarin words almost always end in consonants, and consonant clusters are more common. Sindarin reminds many people of Celtic languages, and was based on Welsh.
Find an image of the Feanorian letters online. Note that different modes will affect the appearance of certain letters. Further, be aware that different renditions of Tolkien’s alphabets are extremely common. Different renditions may appear differently depending on the fictional historical time period, or specific Tolkien piece, from which they were derived.
For instance, to write the name “Dan,” first simply find the Tengwar equivalent of “D”, “a”, and “n. "
Continuing with the example of “Dan,” shift the marking for the letter “a” above the preceding marking for the letter “D”. Follow these stacked markings with the marking for the letter “n”, and you’ve written “Dan” in Elvish! For “y” and “e”, the markings to indicate these letters go below the preceding consonant instead of above. In Sindarin mode, diacritics that indicate a vowel appear above the following consonant.
Another example involves drawing a line above a consonant that follows a nasal “n” or “m” sound.
These appendices also contain a guide to pronunciation of Tolkien’s languages, as well as music to which Tolkien wrote Elvish lyrics.
The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship is another source of a wealth of material, some of which was created using some of Tolkien’s unpublished works. [11] X Research source
