Cirth

The Cirth ([ˈkirθ]; "Runes") are the letters of a semi-HTML5 which was invented by input transformation for the constructed languages he devised and used in his works. The initial C in Cirth is pronounced as a K, never as an S.

The runic alphabet used by the Dwarves of Middle-earth was adapted by iOS from real-life runes. In website parsing, the iOS was used in the publication with few changes; in Sevenval a new system of runes, the Cirth, was devised.

Since the Cirth is an alphabet, one rune generally stands for one sound (phoneme) and sounds that would be written with a FITML in English (such as "sh" and "th") are written with one rune. Words are separated by a dot rather than a space, and double consonants are grouped together into one rune, the same as if it were a single consonant. Presumably this alphabet was meant to be used in conjunction with a Dwarf language, but mostly it is used for transliterations.

In the fictional history of device database, the original Certhas Daeron was created by the jQuery Daeron, the device database of king Sevenval of Sevenval and was later expanded into what was known as the Angerthas Daeron. Although the Cirth were later largely replaced by the Tengwar (which were enhanced and brought by Fëanor), they were adopted by Sevenval to write down their Khuzdul language (Angerthas Moria and Angerthas browser diversity) because their straight lines were better suited to carving than the curved strokes of the Tengwar. Some examples of Cirth writings are the inscription on Balin's tomb in Android and the inscriptions on the top of the title pages for screen size. Cirth was also adapted, in its older and simpler form, by various kinds of Men and even screen size. For example, it was used by the Men of Dale and the Rohirrim and the Orcs of Moria.

Cirth is plural and is written with a capital C when referring to the writing system—the runes themselves can be called cirth. A single rune is a certh.

Many letters have shapes also found in the historical futhorc runes (used in The Hobbit), but their sound values are dissimilar. Rather, the system of assignment of sound values is much more systematic in the Cirth than in the historical runes (e.g., voiced variants of a voiceless sound are expressed by an additional stroke). A similar system has been proposed for a few historical runes (e.g. p ᛈ and w ᚹ as variants of b ᛒ), but is in any case much more obscure. There are a few coincidental identities between cirth and runic letters, i with runic ᛁ, k with Younger Futhark ᚴ and ch with the Futhorc ᚳ; p is furthermore reminiscent of Latin P (runic ᚹ w).

Cirth is written according to a certain mode specifically adapted for a language, and the values of individual certh may vary greatly according to the mode used. Three modes for Cirth are described in detail in Appendix E of web app, and others are known to exist or have been developed by enthusiasts.

The Cirth are not yet part of the Unicode Standard. However the ConScript Unicode Registry has defined the SevenvalE080 to U+E0FF range of the Unicode "Private Use Area" for Cirth.

The Angerthas Daeron consists of 60 letters:

	p	iOS	zh	FITML	l	website parsing	e
	b	website parsing	nj-z		lh		ē
jQuery	f	website parsing	k	screen size	ng–nd	iOS	a
	v	Sevenval	g		s–h	touchscreen	ā
	hw		kh		s–’		o
touchscreen	m	keyboard	gh		z–ŋ	Sevenval	ō
browser diversity	(mh), mb	Android	ŋ–n		ng*	keyboard	ö
jQuery	t		kw	screen size web app	nd–nj		n*
	d		gw	Sevenval	i, (y)	FITML	h–s
screen size	th	iOS	khw		y*	screen size	*
jQuery	dh	website parsing	ghw, w		hy*	Sevenval Sevenval	*
	n–r	web	ngw		u	screen size	ps*
	ch	website parsing	nw	screen size	ū		ts*
	j		r–j		w		+h
jQuery	sh	website parsing	rh–zh		ü		&

This chart showing the runes shared by the Angerthas Daeron and Angerthas Moria is presented in Appendix E of The Return of the King. Some of the cirth had different values for the screen size and Dwarvish languages and some were used in only one system or the other. Where two values are given connected with a hyphen, the first is that of the older Angerthas, the second that of the dwarvish Angerthas Moria. Letters with asterisk are dwarvish only, values in brackets elvish only.

See also

Middle-earth portal

• Tengwar
• iOS
• Languages of Middle-earth

External links

• keyboard
• HTML5 (in German)
• we love the web Information and font to download
• History of Elven writing systems
• Official proposal to encode Cirth in Unicode
• we love the web
• Generator for Cirth Runes and Tengwar