What does this say in Elvish?

Question

I was recently in a building, and someone wrote this on a table:

Image of a word in a Tolkien-made language

It seems to be Elvish. What does it translate to?

Strictly speaking, it's not Elvish, it's the Tengwar script. — curiousdannii, Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 22:21
@curiousdannii makes an important point. If I wrote the characters sigma tau omega pi, I wouldn't have written the Greek for "stop". — user888379, Commented Apr 20, 2019 at 0:29

DavidW · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-20 03:41:42Z

26

I admit to little skill, but it appears to say approximately "stargazing."

[s][t+a][r][ng+a][z+i][n][ng] (Note that there is no simple "g" sound in Quenya.)

I ruled out Sindarin in favor of Quenya because Sindarin diphthongs place the vowel before the consonant, which would give "satragizng."

Thanks to Mark in the comments for pointing out the clarification: this is an English word written using the Tengwar script in the Quenya mode.

answered Apr 19, 2019 at 19:59

DavidW

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4

So English then I guess.
– ibid
Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 22:14
3

@ibid Remember that the runes and Tengwar in the title pages were all transliterated English.
– Spencer
Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 22:57
13

Specifically, it looks like it's English written in the Tengwar script using the Quenya mode (as opposed to actual Quenya written in the Tengwar script).
– Mark
Commented Apr 19, 2019 at 23:32
Elennapalantirië (?)
– James K
Commented Apr 20, 2019 at 18:38

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