Cirth
The Cirth is a semi‑artificial script, based on real‑life runic alphabets, one of several scripts invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for the constructed languages he devised and used in his works. Cirth is written with a capital letter when referring to the writing system; the letters themselves can be called cirth.
In the fictional history of Middle-earth, the original Certhas was created by the Sindar for their language, Sindarin. Its extension and elaboration was known as the Angerthas Daeron, as it was attributed to the Sinda Daeron, despite the fact that it was most probably arranged by the Noldor in order to represent the sounds of other languages like Quenya and Telerin.
Although it was later largely replaced by the Tengwar, the Cirth was nonetheless adopted by the Dwarves to write down both their Khuzdul language and the languages of Men. The Cirth was also adapted, in its oldest and simplest form, by various races including Men and even Orcs.
External history
Concept and creation
Many letters have shapes also found in the historical runic alphabets, but their sound values are only similar in a few of the vowels. Rather, the system of assignment of sound values is much more systematic in the Cirth than in the historical runes.The division between the older Cirth of Daeron and their adaptation by Dwarves and Men has been interpreted as a parallel drawn by Tolkien to the development of the Futhorc to the Younger Futhark. The original Elvish Cirth "as supposed products of a superior culture" are focused on logical arrangement and a close connection between form and value whereas the adaptations by mortal races introduced irregularities. Similar to the Germanic tribes who had no written literature and used only simple runes before their conversion to Christianity, the Sindarin Elves of Beleriand with their Cirth were introduced to the more elaborate Tengwar of Fëanor when the Noldorin Elves returned to Middle-earth from the lands of the divine Valar.
Internal history and description
''Certhas''
In the Appendix E to The Return of the King, Tolkien writes that the Sindar of Beleriand first developed an alphabet for their language some time between the invention of the Tengwar by Fëanor and the introduction thereof to Middle-earth by the Exiled Noldor towards the end of the First Age.This alphabet was devised to represent only the sounds of their Sindarin language and its letters were mostly used for inscribing names or brief memorials on wood, stone or metal, hence their angular shapes and straight lines. In Sindarin these letters were named cirth, from the Elvish root *kir- meaning "to cleave, to cut". An abecedarium of cirth, consisting of the runes listed in due order, was commonly known as Certhas.
The oldest cirth were the following:
| Consonants | p | b | mh | m | |
| Consonants | t | d | n | ||
| Consonants | k | g | ng | ||
| Consonants | r | l | ~ h or s | s or h | ss |
| Vowels | i | u | e | o |
The form of these letters was somewhat unsystematic, unlike later rearrangements and extensions that made them more featural. The cirth and were used for and, but varied as to which was which. Many of the runes consisted of a single vertical line with an appendage attached to one or both sides. If the attachment was made on one side only, it was usually to the right, but "the reverse was not infrequent" and did not change the value of the letter..
''Angerthas Daeron''
In Beleriand, before the end of the First Age, the Certhas was rearranged and further developed, partly under the influence of the Tengwar introduced by the Noldor. This reorganisation of the Cirth was commonly attributed to the Elf Daeron, minstrel and loremaster of King Thingol of Doriath. Thus, the new system became known as the Angerthas Daeron.In this arrangement, the assignment of values to each certh is systematic. The runes consisting of a stem and a branch attached to the right are used for voiceless stops, while other sounds are allocated according to the following principles:
- adding a stroke to a branch adds voice ;
- moving the branch to the left indicates opening to a spirant ;
- placing the branch on both sides of the stem adds voice and nasality.
- labial consonants, based on ;
- dental consonants, based on ;
- front consonants, based on ;
- velar consonants, based on ;
- labialized velar consonants, based on.
'''Notes:'''
''Angerthas Moria''
According to Tolkien's legendarium, the Dwarves first came to know the runes of the Noldor at the beginning of the Second Age. The Dwarves "introduced a number of unsystematic changes in value, as well as certain new cirth". They modified the previous system to suit the specific needs of their language, Khuzdul. The Dwarves spread their revised alphabet to Moria, where it came to be known as Angerthas Moria, and developed both carved and pen-written forms of these runes.Many cirth here represent sounds not occurring in Khuzdul. Here they are marked with a black star.
Notes:
In Angerthas Moria the cirth and were dropped. Thus and were adopted for and, although they were used for and in Elvish languages. Subsequently, this script used the certh for, which had the sound in the Elvish systems. Therefore, the certh was adopted for the sound. A totally new introduction was the certh, used as an alternative, simplified and, maybe, weaker form of. Because of the visual relation of these two cirth, the certh was given the sound to relate better with that, in this script, had the sound.
''Angerthas Erebor''
At the beginning of the Third Age the Dwarves were driven out of Moria, and some migrated to Erebor. As the Dwarves of Erebor would trade with the Men of the nearby towns of Dale and Lake-town, they needed a script to write in Westron. The Angerthas Moria was adapted accordingly: some new cirth were added, while some were restored to their Elvish usage, thus creating the Angerthas Erebor.While the Angerthas Moria was still used to write down Khuzdul, this new script was primarily used for Mannish languages. It is also the script used in the first and third page of the Book of Mazarbul.
Angerthas Erebor also features combining diacritics:
- a circumflex used to denote long consonants;
- a macron below to indicate a long vowel sound;
- an underdot to mark cirth used as numerals. As a matter of fact, in the Book of Mazarbul some cirth are used as numerals: for 1, for 2, for 3, for 4, for 5.
The Angerthas Erebor is used twice in The Lord of the Rings to write in English:
- in the upper inscription of the title page, where it reads "ə·lord·ov·ə·riŋs·translatᵊd·from·ə·Red Book of Westmarch|red·bk' ..." ;
- in the bottom inscription of Balin's tomb—being the translation of the upper inscription, which is written in Khuzdul using Angerthas Moria.
| Certh | English spelling |
| , | |
| , | |
| , | |
| , |
'''Notes:'''
Other runic scripts by Tolkien
The Cirth is not the only runic writing system used by Tolkien in his legendarium. In fact, he devised a great number of runic alphabets, of which only a few others have been published. Some of these are included in the "Appendix on Runes" of The Treason of Isengard, edited by Christopher Tolkien.Runes from ''The Hobbit''
According to Tolkien himself, those found in The Hobbit are a form of "English runes" used in lieu of the Dwarvish runes proper. They can be interpreted as an attempt made by Tolkien to adapt the Fuþorc to the Modern English language.These runes are basically the same found in Fuþorc, but their sound may change according to their position, just like the letters of the Latin script: the writing mode used by Tolkien is, in this case, mainly orthographic. This means that the system has one rune for each Latin letter, regardless of pronunciation. For example, the rune can sound in, in, in, and even in the digraph .
A few sounds are instead written with the same rune, without considering the English spelling. For example, the sound is always written with the rune whether in English it is spelt as in, as in, or as in. The only two letters that are subject to this phonemic spelling are and.
Finally, some runes stand for particular English digraphs and diphthongs.
Here the runes used in The Hobbit are displayed along with their Fuþorc counterpart and corresponding English grapheme:
| Rune | Fuþorc | English grapheme | Rune | Fuþorc | English grapheme | |
| phonemic | ||||||
| phonemic | ||||||
| , | ||||||
| , | ||||||
| , | ||||||
| phonemic | ||||||
Notes:
| English grapheme | Sound value | Rune |
| every other sound | ||
| every sound | ||
| every other sound |