The Cirth on tomb inscription

[Taurendil]

I wonder how the Cirth letters, which were used on the grave of Balin, can be equated to English sounds. It gives an impression as if it was devised to represent English, but in runes. How could that be explained?

[Mithrandir]

I'm not sure what you mean. So what I will do is replicate what Balin's tomb inscription actually says and see if that helps you. I used Appendix E of The Lord of the Rings to help me.

[Taurendil]

Hmm, difficult to explain.. The tomb inscription wasn't in English, right? So how can another language be translated into English with representing the English sounds through runes? It must have another word order, other words, etc. The inscription wasn't interpreted to English, was it?

[Mithrandir]

The first three lines are Khuzdul, the last line is English. Just look at the image above.

There are lots of runes to represent all the different sounds in both English and Khuzdul. One of the useful things about both Tengwar and runes is that they are felxible when it comes to transcribing different languages.

[Taurendil]

I understand now. I just thought somehow that the inscription was completely in English.

[Taurendil]

To those who are interested, here follows a part of our conversation on the subject via MSN:

Taurendil says:
.....But there's som confusion again! How did that English line get in the Tomb inscription??

Mithrandir says:
Well obvioulsy Fili and Kili put it in.

Taurendil says:
Did they know English?

Mithrandir says:
They must do if they spoke to Bilbo

Taurendil says:
Bilbo spoke in Westron, moreover English isn't represented anywhere in written form. It's the translation of Westron

Mithrandir says:
Yes but I like to ignore that.
I think it's stupid.
It messes too many things up

Taurendil says:
It on no account spoils the creation. But I like order and everything explained as much as possible. Notable is that it's, as far as I know, the only English phrase used as English phrase itself
And what things does it mess?

Mithrandir says:
All the inscriptions in The Hobbit
The Appendices talk about English rather than Westron in places

Taurendil says:
Ahh, sad. But The Hobbit is, say, not very related to Tolkien's other works, since it was written in 1937 and wasn't intended at first to relate to ME at all.

Mithrandir says:
Yes but he re-wrote The Hobbit

Taurendil says:
Not the runes though

Mithrandir says:
Yes but why didn't he!

[Hyllyn]

 It is not simple that way Mith. Any code in itself is not "flexible", interpretations are.

 There are as you two are aware special characters used for Anglicized characters but I doubt these would have ever seen use in a "real context" of language usage by any M.E culture so you just have to speculate how it would be best to write something in a language for which these are not meant for.

 It certainly leads to confusion if you read the transcriptions or writings of fan-art as despite there being a few rules on how to write it, it still has plenty of gaps for you to write and leave plenty of trouble for those trying to read.

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