Tolkien Gateway

Dan Smith

(Redirected from Daniel Steven Smith)


In 1997 he created Tengwar fonts, the first ones being titled "Tengwar Quenya" and "Tengwar Sindarin". Since then he created other variants (ornamental, capital or alternative tengwar shapes). He proceeded to creating Cirth fonts as well as historical Rune fonts as the ones seen in The Hobbit.

His website contained descriptions and guides about the best known Tengwar modes and had been a usual reference point. By September 2014, Tolkien-related information was removed at the request of the Tolkien Estate.


[edit] Creations

[edit] Tengwar


Note that the tengwar fonts differ only visually or stylistically (they all utilize the same keymapping) and are not language specific. The names "Quenya" and "Sindarin" are used only as their titles and have nothing to do with the languages themselves.

[edit] Cirth

  • Cirth Erebor (regular, barred and double-barred)

[edit] Runes (historical)

  • Germanic Rune fonts (reg, 1-bar, & 2-bars)
  • AngloSaxon Rune fonts (reg, 1-bar, & 2-bars)
  • Dwarvish Rune fonts (reg, 1-bar, & 2-bars)

[edit] Keymapping

Dan Smith had to devise a layout to fit the tengwar into the keyboard and it was subsequently adopted by other fontmakers ever since. Over the years, Smith's keymapping became an unofficial de facto "standard", ensuring compatibility among the most well-known fonts.

Dan Smith's idea was to divide the keys into rows and series as appear in the tengwar table of Appendix E. This way for example, the first 4 Tengwar that consist the Row I (Tinco, Parma, Calma, Quessë) are assigned to the leftmost keys of the keyboard (1, q, a, z). The next 4 keys (2, w, s, x) correspond to the Row II (Ando, Ambar, Anga, Ungwë) and so on.

The uppercase letters are used for the tehtar and alternative forms; for example the keys of the third row, when uppercase (#, E, D, C) display various positions of the a-tehta. Extended characters correspond to Tengwar numerals, punctuation marks and less common tehtar or letters.

Tengwar typefaces that use Dan Smith's encoding include Johan Winge's Tengwar Annatar, Måns Björkman's Tengwar Parmaite, Enrique Mombello's Tengwar Élfica, Tengwar Beleriand and Tengwar Gothica, Michal Nowakowski's Tengwar Formal, Cursive, Hereno and others; they are mutually compatible, excepting some minor differences.

There has been also some software that help transcribe a Roman text to tengwar fonts that follow this keymapping.

[edit] External links