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The Cirth (; plural of certh , in Sindarin meaning runes) are a semi-artificial script, with letters shaped on those of actual runic alphabets, invented by J.R.R. Tolkien for the constructed languages he devised and used in his works. ''Cirth'' is written with a capital letter when referring to the writing system; the runes themselves can be called ''cirth''. In the fictional history of Middle-earth, the original ''Certhas Daeron'' was created by the elf Daeron, and was later expanded into what was known as the ''Angerthas Daeron''. Although the Cirth were later largely replaced by the Tengwar, they were adopted by Dwarves to write down their Khuzdul language (''Angerthas Moria'' and ''Angerthas Erebor'') because their straight lines were better suited to carving than the curved strokes of the Tengwar. Cirth was also adapted, in its oldest and simplest form, by various peoples as Men and even Orcs. ==Earliest Cirth== During the Chaining of Melkor, the Sindar of Beleriand began developing an alphabet for their language. Its letters were entirely made for carving on wood, stone or metal, hence their angular forms and straight lines. These letters were named ''cirth'' (sing. ''certh''). The corresponding Quenya words are ''certar'' () and ''certa'' (). The assignment of values was unsystematic. The form of a certh consisted of a stem and a branch. The attachment of the branch was, if on one side only, usually made on the right side. The reverse was not infrequent, but had no phonetic significance. Two basic principles were followed: * adding a stroke to a branch added voice; * placing the branch on both sides of the stem added voice and nasality. The original display of Cirth should have been this:〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「cirth」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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