Consonant sounds were represented by letters called: "Tengwar" . There are 24 primary Tengwar letters. The letters were organized into four series or "Temar" Each series was used to represent sounds created by different parts of the mouth. Series I and II were almost always used for Dental and Labial sounds. Series III was generally used for either Palatal or Velar sounds and series IV for either Velar or Labiovelar sounds, depending on the phonology of the language represented. These four series were further broken down into six grades or "Tyeller". Each grade was used to represent sounds created by different ways that air flows through the mouth and nose. Grade 1 and 2 was used for voiceless and voiced Plosives. Grade 3 and 4 was used for voiceless and voiced Fricatives. Grade 5 was used for Nasals. Grade 6 was used for Semi-vowel consonants. Each Tengwar letter was assigned a phonetic value determined by its position in this grid. People speaking different languages would often re-define this grid, so only a few of the letters had a fixed phonetic value.

All of the primary letters were composed of (at least) two elements: a vertical stem or "Telco" (representing air) and a curved bow or "Luva" (representing voice). There were also numerous additional letters that supplemented the Tengwar primary letters. These additional letters did not necessarily follow any symbol conventions.

In the alphabet's earliest forms, vowel sounds were represented by symbols called: "Tehtar". The Tehtar symbols were placed above and below (and sometimes inside) the Tengwar letters. There were five standard Tehtar symbols, representing the five most commonly used vowel sounds (a, e, i, o & u). They were most frequently placed above the Tengwar letters. (Tolkien used this style when creating most of his Quenya, Sindarin, and English language Tengwar inscriptions.) But both the number of vowel symbols used, and where they were placed depended on largely on the preferences of the people using this alphabet.

Later forms of Tengwar used individual letters to represent unique vowel sounds. This "open" form was developed by the Grey Elves living in Beleriand, and was therefore referred to as the "Mode of Beleriand".

Tengwar became a very flexible writing system that was easily adapted by many different races to their languages. Unfortunately, since it was so flexible it was possible to have several different versions of it for each and every language. Also, over the centuries, a great deal of shorthand developed. Since Tengwar can be so easily modified, customized and mutated; most people in Middle-earth devised their own version.

Tengwar / Quenya Language

Tengwar Chart for consonants:
Primary Letters:

Additional Letters:

Notes:

1) Technically, anna does not have the value "y" when used in the Quenya mode; "y" is represented by anna + "following-y" tehta (or ). Anna is not used by itself in the published Quenya texts.

2) Although this letter is part of the standard set of additional letters, it is not used for writing Quenya language texts.

3) The long and short carriers are silent letters. They are used in conjunction with vowel symbols.

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Tehtar Chart for Quenya vowels:

Notes:

1) In Quenya, the a sound occurs so frequently, that it's symbol (three dots) is often simplified (to look like a circumflex) or if no confusion would occur, eliminated altogether.

2) All of the published Quenya Tengwar inscriptions by Tolkien have used the acute accent mark for the e sound and the single dot for the i sound, but Tolkien also stated that the reverse could be equally valid.

3) Long vowels have the same sound as short vowels, the only difference is the duration of the sound. For example: the short u is as the u in brute, while the long u is as the uu in cool (English pronunciation).

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Writing Quenya with Tengwar:
Writing Quenya with Tengwar is relativity easy, just remember that Tengwar is a phonetic alphabet. Words are written exactly as they are spoken. Typically the Tengwar (consonant letters) are written first, then the Tehtar (vowel symbols) are written above the appropriate consonant. In Quenya, and other languages that end most words with vowels, the Tehta is placed above the previous Tengwar letter. To read Quenya/Tengwar script you would read each Tengwar letter, then the Tehtar vowel symbol above it (in an upward motion), before going on to the next Tengwar/Tehtar letter combination. For example:

If a word starts with a vowel sound (and there is no previous consonant letter in the word) then a "Carrier" symbol can be used. Carrier symbols do not represent a sound, but rather provide a symbol for vowel marks to be placed upon. There are two different standard Carrier symbols; the "Short Carrier" and the "Long Carrier". The Short Carrier looks like the undotted letter "i". The Long Carrier looks like the undotted letter "j". The Long Carrier is used with "long" vowel sounds. If two or more vowel sounds appear consecutively in a word, the Carrier symbol should be used when there is no consonant in the appropriate location. For example:

Normally, "short" vowels are represented by a single Tehtar symbol above a Tengwar or Carrier symbol. But "long" vowels can be represented several different ways; long vowels can be written as two Tehtar above a single Tengwa, two Tehtar above a single Short Carrier symbol, two Tehtar above two Short Carrier symbols, or one Tehta above a single Long Carrier symbol (preferred); as shown below:

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There are no examples in the books: "The Hobbit" or the "Lord of the Rings" of Quenya written with Tengwar letters. But early in the book "The Fellowship of the Ring" Frodo uses a Quenya phrase to greet Gildor the elf:

This phrase could be transcribed as:

Notice that in the word "lúmenn'", the under-bar/tilde which is used for the long (or double) "n" consonant sound.

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Sources:
The Lord of the Rings, Return of the King, Appendix E

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