Online J.R.R.Tolkien Translators and Font Converters

This is the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

If you know me well, you know I’ve been a devout fan of the work of J. R. R. Tolkien since I was eight, when my uncle Jim gave me the Lord of the Rings for Christmas. I devoured the book, along with the Hobbit and then the Silmarillion, reading each many times. I still enjoy revisiting Middle Earth, most recently in Children of Hurin, the revised dark epic released by Christopher Tolkien last year.

Jim’s son, Chris, however, is a genuine Tolkien scholar, particularly with regards to linguistics. When I recently shared a J.R.R.T. resource I’d found online with him and other family members, he replied with a number of other wonderful resources. Since he was kind enough to share his knowledge with me, I thought I’d pass it along to the rest of the world.

The Tengwar Scribe allows you to write text in Roman letters, select a Tengwar mode, and have the text transcribed to Tengwar. Tengwar, if you recall, is “a script that was invented by J.R.R. Tolkien. In his works, the tengwar script, invented by Fëanor, was used to write a number of the languages of Middle-earth, including Quenya and Sindarin. However, it can also be used to write other languages, such as English (most of Tolkien’s tengwar samples are actually in English). The word tengwar is Quenya for ‘letters’.” (Wikipedia)

The Tengwar Scribe is Windows-only, however, so you may want to look into Online Tengwar Transcriber, which works on any platform.

YaTT, or Yet another Tengwar Tool, allows users to transcribe both into and from Tengwar. YaTT incluldes an option to transcribe text in other applications, including special support for MS Word. YaTT was originally made for the PC but Chris assures me that there is a “Lite” version somewhere for the Mac.

Hiswelókë’s Sindarin dictionary includes a Sindarin lexicon in XML (TEI) format and two freeware applications. Dragon Flame for Microsoft Windows and Linux, embeds the Sindarin dictionary along with additional tools. Hesperides does the same for OS X. Sindarin, as you may recall, was “the Elvish language most commonly spoken in Middle-earth in the Third Age. It was the language of the Sindar, those Teleri which had been left behind on the Great Journey of the Elves.”(Wikipedia)

Finally, Ardalambion, according to Chris, is “a good resource for learning about the Elvish languages themselves; you can even find an extremely thorough, well-researched “Quenya Course” consisting of 20 lessons, plus appendices and exercises with keys.”

Thanks for resources, cuz! There are many other wonderful Tolkien resources online too, notably the Encyclopedia of Arda, an Elvish to English dictionary and an English to Elvish dictionary.

Ennyn Durin Aran Moria: pedo mellon a minno.

Note to people commenting here: I have shared links to Elvish translators here. There’s a great Tolkein translator online here. I am not offering translation services. Thank you! .