Cirth : The Elvish word for Runes,characters designed to be cut into a surface,rather than written with a brush or pen.
Ereborian Cirth : The system of runes used by the Dwarves of Erebor,the Lonely Mountain.It was based on the script used in Khazad-d�m,the Angerthas Moria,but incorporated a number of minor adaptations.
F�anorian : A name used of the Elvish script,as seen for example on the frontispiece of The Lord of the Rings, which was devised by F�anor himself.These characters are also and more usually,known as the Tengwar.
Moon-letters : A system of writing invented by Dwarves.Moon-letters were ordinary runes but written in such a way that they could only be read when the light of the moon shone behind the writing.Some moon-letters could be read by any moonlight but it was possible to make the writing even more secret.More sophisticated moon-letters could only be read by the same shape of moon or at the same time of year,as when they were written. Moon-letters were written with silver pens.The substance ithildin,made from mithril,reflected only starlight and moonlight and it seems likely that ithildin,or something very similar,was used by the Dwarves to write their moon-letters.
Runes : A system of writing based on angular shapes that could easily be carved into wood or stone.Originated by Daeron of Doriath to represent Sindarin words,runes came to be used widely by races other than the Elves and especially by the Dwarves.
Tehtar : A series of signs and symbols used when writing with the tengwar,consisting of a variety of dots,curls and other marks written above or below Elvish letters.Most commonly,they were used to represent vowel-sounds since F�anorian script as it was commonly used did not provide characters to represent vowels.
Telco : The straight 'stem' line that appears in written tengwar,which can extend above or below the writing line. Combined with the l�va ('bow') stroke,it forms the basis of all the standard F�anorian characters.
T�mar : The four 'series' of the tengwar,each of which contained six tyeller or grades giving different qualities to a basic sound.
Tengwar : The characters devised by F�anor,originally to represent the sounds of the Quenya language but later widely adopted for writing most of the languages of Middle-earth.
Tyeller : The six 'grades' used to indicate modifications to a basic sound in Tengwar.For example,where the first tyell� referred to the basic't' sound-the tengwa known as tinco-the other five tyeller would represent modifications of this basic sound.In this case - the sequence known as the tincot�ma - the next three tyeller would typically represent the sounds 'd','th','dh',while the meanings of the last two would vary according to the particular system in use.
Tyelp�tema : One of the five t�mar or sound-series of the tengwar as used to represent the sounds of the Quenya language.The tyelpet�ma appears to have been unique;while each of the other four series consisted of a set of six individual 'letters', the palatal sounds of the tyelpet�ma were formed by adding a mark of two dots beneath another character,as in the example above.This is the equivalent of adding a 'y' after the letter in English to form a single distinct consonant sound.To use Tolkien's own example from Appendix E to The Lord of the Rings,the sound 'ty' here has the same sound as the initial consonant in the(British pronunciation of)the English word 'tune'-something close to,but distinct from,'ch'.
