Parma Eldalamberon 20 出刊：早期昆雅字母

托爾金語言研究刊物 Parma Eldalamberon 第20期（簡稱 PE20）將於 8 月 3 日出刊，內容將與早期昆雅字母有關。



早期昆雅字母（Qenya Alphabet）約在 1931 年由托爾金（J.R.R. Tolkien）發明，是「費諾文字」（Fëanorian Tengwar）的前身，之後變成托老在魔戒等書裡使用的精靈文。在此次出刊的 PE20 裡，展示了 40 份的早期昆雅字母文件，包括依發音及字母轉寫至英文的方法。


PE20 也舉例了一些字母的形與所代表的音的歷史演變，同時還討論到此精靈文的正體與草寫體。對托爾今的精靈文有興趣的讀者，每期 PE 均為限量訂閱，千萬不可錯過！

原文網站：http://www.eldalamberon.com/parma20.html

原文如下：

"... The current issue presents previously unpublished writings by J. R. R. Tolkien concerning an early version of one of his invented scripts.  These have been edited and annotated by Arden R. Smith, under the guidance of Christopher Tolkien and with the permission of the Tolkien Estate.

The Qenya Alphabet is an edition of Tolkien's charts and notes from circa 1931 dealing with the earliest version of the script essentially of the conceptual type he would later call "Fëanorian Tengwar" and eventually include in The Lord of the Rings.  This issue of Parma Eldalamberon contains 40 documents in which Tolkien's examples of the scripts are reproduced in facsimile.
The documents include different versions of a detailed explanation of the use of the script for representing English, both phonetically (as it was designed to be used) and also according to English spelling.  These have charts of the theoretical values of the sounds represented by the letters, and various English words and texts written in the scripts.
There are also various specimen texts written by Tolkien in the Qenya Alphabet.  These exemplify some conceptual changes in the mode or assignment of phonetic values to particular letters.  There is also a great variety of different styles of writing, ranging from formal "book-hand" to rapidly written cursive.
Most of these examples are in English, but there are also texts in Latin, Old English and Old High German.  Transcriptions of the examples and editorial commentary on the dating and historical background are provided."

 （資料/圖片來源：Eldalamberon）