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| Sarati | |
|---|---|
| Name | Sarati |
| Type | Alphabet |
| Time | Fictional Third Age / invented 1910s–1950s |
| Languages | Quenya, Sindarin, Adûnaic, Westron |
| Creator | J. R. R. Tolkien |
Sarati is a constructed alphabet devised by J. R. R. Tolkien for use in his legendarium, principally associated with the early writing of the Elves and the fictional histories surrounding Middle-earth, Valinor, and Númenor. It constitutes one of Tolkien's early scripts alongside the Tengwar and Cirth, reflecting his philological interests and narrative worldbuilding across works such as The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings, and lesser-published material compiled in The History of Middle-earth.
Sarati is presented as an Elvish script attributed within the legendarium to the Vala Aulë's teaching and to the Elven scribe Rúmil of Tirion, and it appears in Tolkien's internal mythic chronology prior to the invention of Tengwar by Fëanor. The script is primarily evidence of Tolkien's iterative design process visible in manuscripts and The History of Middle-earth volumes edited by Christopher Tolkien, and it is discussed in scholarly works concerning philology, constructed languages, and fantasy literature.
Tolkien began developing Sarati during his early academic years, contemporaneous with his creation of Quenya and Sindarin phonologies and proto-linguistic reconstructions that parallel methods used in Comparative philology and by scholars like J. R. Firth and Henry Bradley. The internal fictional origin—Rúmil's invention—links Sarati to the culture of the Teleri and the city of Tirion on Taniquetil, and Tolkien's external development spans manuscripts, letters, and marginalia found among Tolkien papers at institutions such as the Bodleian Library and in editions produced by Christopher Tolkien. The evolution from Sarati to later scripts mirrors shifts visible between early poems like The Lay of Leithian and later narratives including The Lord of the Rings, revealing revisions comparable to changes from early Anglo-Saxon orthographies to Middle English reforms seen in histories of Old English and Middle English manuscripts.
Sarati is an abugida-like alphabet in which characters often indicate consonants while vowel notation appears as diacritics or secondary marks, akin to the relationship between Devanagari and Tibetan scripts in comparative studies. The script uses directional principles—some texts show right-to-left orientation—paralleling historical scripts such as Hebrew script and Arabic script; other documents display boustrophedon or mixed directionality reminiscent of variations in Ancient Greek inscriptions. Glyph shapes in Sarati exhibit aesthetic affinities with the runic forms of Cirth and the later ornamental forms of Tengwar, while maintaining unique graphemic rules for representing sounds of Quenya, Sindarin, and later languages like Adûnaic and Westron. Manuscript pages show use of ligatures and punctuation comparable to medieval exemplars in collections like the Westminster Abbey manuscripts and are analyzed in critical studies alongside the paleography of scribes found in Cambridge and Oxford archives.
Within Tolkien's legendarium, Sarati is used for private inscriptions, songs, and genealogical records attributed to Rúmil and other early Elves; examples are scattered through the body of work assembled in The History of Middle-earth and referenced in appendices to The Lord of the Rings. Extant real-world specimens include facsimiles in Tolkien's notebooks, marginalia reproduced in Unfinished Tales-type publications, and plates in various collected editions assembled by Christopher Tolkien and commentators like Tom Shippey and Verlyn Flieger. Scholarly transcriptions and critical editions have placed Sarati beside Tengwar and Cirth corpora in comparative catalogs curated by institutions such as the Tolkien Society and university departments engaged with manuscript studies.
Sarati is canonically antecedent to Tengwar and chronologically contemporary with or prior to the development of Cirth; Tolkien treated these writing systems as part of a continuum reflecting linguistic change among Elven kindreds, much as historical scripts like Runes and Latin script relate in European manuscript traditions. Comparative analysis situates Sarati in a family of invented scripts by Tolkien that interact with in-world inventions attributed to figures such as Fëanor and Rúmil, analogous to real-world script innovation narratives like the attribution of the Cyrillic script to Saints Cyril and Methodius or the development of Hangul under Sejong the Great. Critical commentary by scholars including Tom Shippey often contrasts Sarati's orthographic philosophy with Tengwar's systematic phonemic design as reflected in Tolkien's later linguistic essays.
Sarati's influence extends into Tolkien studies, amateur calligraphy, and constructed-script communities where enthusiasts create fonts, instructional guides, and comparative charts linking Sarati, Tengwar, and Cirth. Its study informs broader conversations in philology, manuscript studies, and literary criticism of Tolkien's work, and it appears in exhibitions and catalogs organized by institutions such as the Bodleian Library and the British Library. The script has inspired contemporary conlangers, typographers, and artists who draw parallels between Tolkien's internal mythic history and real-world traditions of script invention, similar to cultural receptions of artifacts like the Rosetta Stone or reconstructions of Linear B.
Category:Constructed scripts Category:J. R. R. Tolkien