Studies on the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien

Writing Finnish in Tengwar

This page is a summary of the Finnish document Suomen kirjoittaminen tengwarilla. It describes a suggested Tengwar mode for Finnish.

This is meant to be a simple, phonemic tehta mode. Each phoneme in Finnish has been assigned its own tengwa or tehta. For the sake of practicality, the foreign /b g f S/ have been regarded as phonemes, although they are not part of the "core" consonant system.

The following tables list for each phoneme the usual spelling in Finnish orthography, the pronunciation using IPA symbols, and the chosen Feanorian symbol. The pronunciation information is from the site Phonetics of Finnish.

Vowels
SpellingPronunciationSymbol
a[A]
ebetween [e] and [E]
i[i]
obetween [o] and [O]
u[u]
y[y]
ä[æ]
öbetween [ø] and [9]
Consonants
SpellingPronunciationSymbol
Stops
p[p] parma
t[t] tinco
k[k] calma
b[b] umbar
d[d] ando
g[g] anga
Fricatives
f[f] formen
s[s] silme
sh, s with caron[S] súle
Semivowels
h[h], [h\] hyarmen
v[v] vala
j[j] anna
Liquids
l[l] lambe
r[r] rómen
Nasals
m[m] malta
n[n] númen
ng[N] noldo

For other new Tengwar modes (including ones for Finnish), see the section Modern Tengwar Modes in the link page at Amanye Tenceli.

A sample text written in this mode can be found at Tengwar samples.


The mode is based on earlied modes by Juho Pahajoki and Harri Perälä. The final mode and this description by Harri Perälä, <harri.perala@iki.fi>.

(4 May 2002)