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"Can you see anything?" "Nothing. There's nothing." The descriptive majority of this article's text is unsourced, and should be supported with references. |
| This article is about the the Dwarvish way of using Cirth. For the the Elvish way, see Angerthas Daeron. |
The Angerthas was a Runic writing system in Middle-earth, referred to familiarly simply as "Runes" or "Dwarf runes".
It was adopted by Dwarves in order to have a written form of their own tongue, Khuzdûl. The two forms of the script were Angerthas Moria and Angerthas Erebor.
History & description
Runes had been created by the Elf loremaster Daeron of Doriath, and were called Cirth or Certar Daeron. Daeron was inspired by the Tengwar script of Fëanor and wanted to create a new script for his Sindar kin. The dwarves learned these runes from the elves, and adapted them for their own language Khuzdûl, into the Angerthas.
Angerthas letters were thin and angular, designed for cutting or scratching on wood, stone, or metal. By the Third Age, only the dwarves made regular use of them. The Cirth alphabet originally had nineteen characters which was sufficient for the Sindarin language. More were later added by the Ñoldor of Eregion to make it easier to express certain subtle sounds in their language. This full expansion of the script is generally called Angerthas Daeron or Angerthas Eregion. After the destruction of Eregion the elves generally ceased to use Cirth at all. Dwarves made their own variations of the script called Angerthas Moria and Angerthas Erebor.
Some dwarves knew a secret way of writing runes called Moon-letters. These runes were written with a silver pen and could only be seen under the light of the moon. With the more advanced forms of Moon letters it had to be a moon of the same shape and season as the day when the runes were written.
The runes of the dwarves were adapted by Tolkien from the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian rune scripts.
Gallery
See also
Translations
| Foreign Language | Translated name |
| Bulgarian Cyrillic | Ангертас |