Studying Japanese

A transcription of “Rohan’s Lament” into Tolkien’s Tengwar (English Common Mode). 

Where now the horse, the rider?

Where the horn that was blowing?

Where the helm and hauberk,

The bright hair flowing?

Where the hand on the harp-string,

The red fire glowing?

Where the spring and harvest,

The tall corn growing?

Passed like rain on the mountain,

Like wind in the meadow;

Days have gone down in the West

Behind the hills into shadow.

Who gathers the smoke

Of dead wood burning?

Or beholds flowing years

First, the version of ‘r’ that is used in ‘where’, ‘horse, ‘horn’, and ‘fire’.

Since, in all of these words (and others I may have missed?), the r is at the end of a syllable/before a consonant, óre should be used instead of rómen. Rómen is only used before vowels (NOT including a silent final e).

The second recurring thing is the writing of ‘nt’ and ‘nd’ with separate tengwar for ‘n’ and ‘t’/’d’ - in this case the ‘t’ or ‘d’ can be used by itself with a tilde (the wavy line) above it to indicate a nasal.

There are a couple other smaller mistakes where it looks like a tengwa was confused for a similar looking one, or where another tengwa could be used to more accurately represent the sound.

Anyway, here is what it would look like with corrections (sorry it’s so small!):