On Tue, 09 Jan 2007 05:57:32 +0100, elmac526 <elmac526@...> wrote:

> Thanks for your input! I wrote "me" like that because I was trying to
> do it phonetically, and since it's Latin, the "me" wouldn't rhyme
> with a word like "bee" but would rhyme more with "hay." But do you
> think I should write it with the letter "e" even so?

Aha, so, you are trying to capture the English pronunciation of Latin
(long e realised as the diphthong in "hay", rather than a pure long e), by
using a phonetic mode, which in turn is based on the peculiarities of the
English orthography (representing the diphthong in "hay", that is /ei/, by
means of a "long a")? Now, this might be what you want, but frankly, I
think it makes little sense.

To clarify, the Latin "e" in the word "me", is, in restored classical
pronunciation, as well as in almost all national pronunciations except the
English, a long pure sound /e:/, that is, not a diphthong, but one sound
drawn out in time. This sound is generally difficult to produce for people
who have grown up with English, so the diphthong in "hay", "they", is
generally used instead, as an _approximation_ of the pure vowel. (This is
very different from what the English would call a "long e", that is the
sound in "bee", which the Romans would call a long "i".) If you do a
search for "great vowel shift" on Google, you will get more information
about the reason for the peculiarities of the English orthography when it
comes to writing vowels.

What I would propose instead is that you use a tengwar mode specifically
adapted to the Latin language. There is no standard way of doing so, but
it seems to me that using the the Quenya mode as a starting point would be
a good idea; quesse would then be used to write "qu", for example. Some
adaptions must of course be undertaken, for example it seems reasonable to
use ando to write "d".

I agree with "Palatinus", that, (rather incidently), your transcription
seems to be an acceptable way of writing the Latin phrase, except for the
way you wrote "me"; to use the "e" tehta there would be the only
reasonable choice.

Some other details: the "u" in "nutrit" is long in classical latin, so you
can consider doubling the u-tehta, or use a long carrier. (I think you
should be consistent and either mark all long vowels, that is "nûtrit" and
"mê", so the alternative would be to get rid of the long carrier in "me".
I'd recommend indicating the vowel lengths; then again, I'm a classicist.)

If you want you can also consider using the Quenya order of writing the
tehtar. I don't know what would be prefered, but the order with the tehta
on top of the following tengwa is by no means the natural choice.

Finally, seriously consider if you want to use a computer font for your
tattoo. An artistical rendering by a skilled calligrapher (who is at least
familiar with Tengwar) probably would look much better, as well as be more
personal.

Best wishes,
Johan Winge

PS. Some of the possible ways to transcribe the phrase can be seen at
http://home.student.uu.se/jowi4905/mix/nutrit.png
I think I prefer the first line.