Editing Tengwar (section)

== Internal history and terminology ==

Within the context of [[Middle-earth|Tolkien's fictional world]], the Tengwar were invented by the [[Elf (Middle-earth)|Elf]] [[Fëanor]] in [[Valinor]], and used first to write the Elven tongues [[Quenya]] and [[Telerin]]. According to [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s ''[[The War of the Jewels]]'', at the time Fëanor created his script, he introduced a change in terminology. He called a letter, a written representation of a spoken phoneme (''tengwë''), a  ''tengwa''. Previously, any letter or symbol had been called a ''sarat'' (from ''*sar'' "incise"). The alphabet of Rúmil of Tirion, on which Fëanor supposedly based his own work, was known as [[Sarati]]. It later became known as "Tengwar of Rúmil".<ref>''[[The War of the Jewels]]'', Appendix D to ''Quendi and Eldar''</ref>

The plural of ''tengwa'' is ''Tengwar'', and this is the name by which Fëanor's writing system became known. Since, however, in commonly used modes, an individual ''tengwa'' was equivalent to a consonant, the term ''tengwa'' in the fiction became equivalent to "consonant sign", and the vowel signs were known as ''ómatehtar''. By loan-translation, the Tengwar became known as ''tîw'' (singular ''têw'') in Sindarin, when they were introduced to [[Beleriand]]. The letters of the earlier alphabet native to Sindarin were called ''[[cirth]]'' (singular ''certh'', probably from ''*kirte'' "cutting", and thus semantically analogous to [[Quenya]] ''sarat''). This term was loaned into exilic Quenya as ''certa'', plural ''certar''.