When I first obtained my DROP x Lord of the Rings keyboard, it was a type of packages that you just come residence to after a visit: a pleasant shock, and one I had been trying ahead to since I had first agreed to put in writing a evaluation of the brand new Lord of the Rings particular version. I debated between the Elvish and the Dwarvish, and at last determined that regardless of how a lot I beloved the illustration on the Dwarvish keyboard (a rendering of the door to Moria), I used to be actually an Elf Boy at coronary heart, and requested that model for evaluation.

I wasted no time setting it up. Sure, I had simply come off a global flight three hours beforehand, however I figured why not, let’s get crack-a-lackin. I instantly changed a number of the inexperienced keycaps with the extra orange caps (thanks, YouTube, for the useful tutorial which usually boiled right down to “the keycaps will pop off before you can break them, so grab a pry and just go for it”). I plugged the whole lot in, and instantly began typing away.

All was nicely. I summoned no evil shades from ages previous, the Valar remained within the Undying Lands, lifeless Númenórean kings remained undisturbed, really it appeared good. The tippy tappies had been tip-tapping, and for a full 12 hours I remained delighted, so happy with this neat little keyboard that was aesthetically pleasing, gave me a lot room and allowed me to put in writing rapidly and with the deep-seated satisfaction that comes from listening to keycaps go clicky-clicky.

The DROP x Lord of the Rings keyboard additionally has some cute little extras—an illustration of the dual timber of Valinor over the arrow keys, a damaged Narsil on the enter key, the One Ring on the command key, the attention of Sauron on the the escape key—charming additions that made my little nerd coronary heart go pitter-patter as I, splendidly besotted with the gorgeous mint inexperienced base, ivory keys, vibrant orange additions, noticed nothing amiss.

I used to be blinded by a mixture of nostalgia and feeling like knowledgeable author, with my huge keyboard that demanded consideration and focus to put in writing on. Every phrase, each letter, wanted to be pressed down, not simply tapped, and I reveled on this sense of energy and management, ignoring the darkness that grew in a land far to the east. I had forgotten how a lot I loved the best way that mechanical keyboards really feel. I’ve by no means owned a mechanical keyboard, no less than not since my household pc again within the early aughts, and whereas I used to be nonetheless in my post-travel section I didn’t discover what was proper in entrance of my eyes. Yet, within the darkness of my workplace, with the backlights off, the shadows waited.

In the chilly morning after receiving this pleasant little factor, this excellent piece of expertise, I observed one thing passing unusual. First, final evening, I had observed that the operate keys had been offered F#, utilizing the commonly-accepted Tengwar for F (formen) and the following Elvish numeral. This initially assured me that each one was nicely with my cute little keyboard. (A enjoyable reality! Elvish math is developed on a base-12 system, which is mirrored within the operate keys.) What I didn’t discover the evening earlier than was that the quantity keys straight under the operate row didn’t correspond to the Tengwar numerical system, and had been solely completely different symbols. I paused. I checked the F key.

The F key, which has each the latinate and the Tengwar legends printed on the cap, displayed the latin “f” alongside the Tengwar letter anca, which transliterates because the voiced valar fricative “ɣ” or “gh”—a digraph that doesn’t exist in Modern English, and is unquestionably not the letter formen that the keyboard used to precede the numbers on the operate key. For the massive language nerds, I wish to say that there’s one other Tengwar letter, unquë, the labiovalar nasal “gh,” which we do use in English (Hugh)—however regardless, that is not the Tengwa formen. I pulled up a Sindarin translator (a number of the keycaps had Sindarin phrases, so I assumed the keyboard would use the Sindarin-Tengwar transliteration) and to my rising dismay I noticed… none of those Tengwa legends matched the Latin keycaps.

Yes, the vowels in Sindarin are usually indicated by graphenes that regulate the pronunciation of the succeeding phoneme letter, however by and huge, you possibly can imitate a one to 1 transliteration, or, on the very least make an try. Also, if you happen to wished to put in writing within the Beleriand type of Sindarin (which is utterly ineffective, even moreso than writing in a fictional language is perhaps within the first place, contemplating Beleriand fell into the ocean on the finish of the First Age), you would use letters as vowels and ignore graphenes solely. But in addition to the truth that Beleriand-style Sindarin is once more, totally with no usecase, I really like little dots and swirlies and won’t give them up.

This keyboard, for all its pleasant presence, its charming mein, its fantastic sounds and well-translated Sindarin phrases, in the end fails in what ought to be the fundamental consideration of this keyboard: to match up related sounds inside phonetic alphabets. While the configuration of the keycaps appears, at first look, to be a completely random assortment of letters and sounds, I tried to make sense of it. It took some digging, however lastly, I noticed… this was a keyboard sorted in keeping with the sound sequence of every particular person letter, as outlined by J.R.R. Tolkien in his clarification of Quenyan syntax. If you weren’t off the deep finish of Tolkien’s assortment of Middle-earth language already, brace yourselves.

Above you possibly can see a chart of group the person letters of Tengwar in keeping with the glottal sounds they make, that are mirrored within the form of the letters themselves. The first sound-considerations are divided up in every column, which, when letters are written downwards, are known as témar. In quick:

• Tincotéma: dental sounds comparable to /t/, /d/, /n/
• Parmatéma: labial sounds comparable to /p/, /b/, /m/, /f/
• Calmatéma: velar sounds comparable to /okay/, /g/
• Quessetéma: labiovelar sounds comparable to /kw/, gw/, /ñw/
• Tyelpetéma: palatal sounds comparable to /sh/, /j/

Additionally, trying on the rows, you possibly can see the témar crossed towards the “manner of articulation,” known as tyeller.

• Series 1: unvoiced plosives comparable to /p/, /t/, /okay/
• Series 2: voiced plosives comparable to /b/, /d/, /g/
• Series 3: unvoiced fricatives comparable to /f/, /sh/
• Series 4: voiced fricatives /v/, /ð/, /ɣ/
• Series 5: nasals comparable to /n/, /m/
• Series 6: approximants

So, DROP’s keyboard it seems that the primary row (which might sometimes begin with a tilde or sprint) begins with the vowel management image (a straight line over which the vowel indicator may be drawn), after which proceeds down the tincotéma column for the primary six letters. The first row then continues in type of a random assortment of extra sounds–the seven corresponds to the romen, eight to the silme, and 9 to the hyarmen Tengwar. The second row of letters begins equally, taking place the parmatema column and together with, as soon as once more, a relatively random assortment of extra sounds, none of which correspond to any of the English legends. This happens once more for the third and fourth rows, that are each crammed up with the additional letters within the spare keys after the six Tengwa from every glottal sound.

So I discovered why the keyboard is organized this manner—principally—but it surely nonetheless doesn’t make sense. Why construction the letters to align with the constructed sorting of the phonetic breakdown of the Tengwar alphabet, a element possibly three folks will discover, and never align the Tengwar to the QWERTY keyboard? The QWERTY keyboard is, in any case, not an alphabetized keyboard; why then did these keycaps come, roughly, alphabetized in keeping with the Tengwar?

I consulted with my colleague Florence Ion over on the tech aspect of Gizmodo. She’s been doing keyboard opinions for years, and helped me determine precisely what to do for this one (inside my restricted information of such issues) and take a look at the whole lot out. What Ion additionally informed me was that mass-produced customized keyboards have led to a decline in high quality for fandom die-hards. When the passion was smaller and the barrier for entry greater, customized keycaps needed to be crowdfunded by way of a mass preorder/buy-in, however this imply that the keycaps produced had been of a a lot greater high quality. While these keycaps are clearly of a wonderfully high quality high quality, the thematic readability of them shouldn’t be expressed nicely. DROP hasn’t let their manufacturing slip, however the reality is that this keyboard is—no less than to me as a die-hard language lover—aesthetically incorrect.

How may you repair it? There is a matter of house, the primary Tengwar alphabet contains twenty-four letters, plus a further eight symbols for extra nuanced diphthongs and distinctions that solely a person like Tolkien would really feel the necessity to establish inside an alphabet. As an instance, the distinction between the “n” in nigh and the “nj” in new is mirrored in Tengwar, with n as in nigh represented by the numen letter, and nj as ñoldo. However, it’s price noting that numen and the ñoldo are actually reversed characters, so feasibly these two may have been illustrated on a single keycap. There are loads of these which are identifiable if one had simply taken the time to undergo and line up a number of key similarities. If this was really meant to be a usable Tengwar keyboard, there are alternatives for space-saving inside the keyspace supplied, particularly contemplating that there are some punctuations that English makes use of which have by no means been recorded in Sindarin or Quenya.

So what I’ve is an outstanding little keyboard that’s pleasant to make use of and cute to have on my desk, but when I had been to aim to transliterate something from English into its phonetic match in Sindarin, I must undergo an entire tune and dance to aim to seek out the temar and teyeller, try to make use of a chart to seek out the proper glyph on my keyboard, after which determine no matter English letter in any given font corresponds to the Tengwar I’ve discovered on my chart, relatively than simply referencing my keyboard itself. I’d be higher served making a glyph map by myself that corresponds to this setup relatively than try to undergo three layers of translation.

I’m so sorry that I’m like this, I actually am. I simply wished a transliteral Elvish keyboard, and what I’ve is an expressed thesis of Tolkien’s constructed Elvish languages. I do know it’s merely the best answer carried out nicely, however there is part of me that continues to be aggravated. There is a model of this keyboard that may exist in one other timeline that’s revolutionary and intelligent, using each the Tengwar and Latin glyphs to create a usable Elvish keyboard that you would use to put in writing in Sindarin, ought to you may have the alt/command management to regulate the vowels or point out whether or not you wished the numen-n or the ñoldo-n. We may have had all of it.

I discussed that this keyboard is available in Dwarvish—or Khudzul, if you happen to’re being Tolkien about it—and I remorse to tell you at first look that it doesn’t seem as if the Cirth letters line up with any approximate latinate transliteration both. But Khudzul does have 50 Cirth, so the phonetics may need been just a little trickery. I gained’t get right into a breakdown of the Kudzul keyboard right here, as I’ve already gone wildly obsessive sufficient.

Essentially, this cute little clicky-clacky mechanical keyboard is nice for anybody who wishes the Elvish aesthetic, with no method to make use of the keyboard effectively to mimic Sindarin, both in translation or transliteration. The salt within the wound is the Sindarin printed on the translated keycaps like residence, finish, delete, and insert. I didn’t undergo all of them, however I picked out some that confirmed the breadth of their rightness and wrongness. The Sindarin phrase bâr for is used for residence, which is right. However, they printed the Sindarin phrase meth on the tip keycap, which is inaccurate as a result of meth is a noun and never a verb! The Sindarin verb for finish is a transitive prefix tel- or one thing like metta, which is translated nearer to ‘ending’. Another instance is the insert key which reads, in Sindarin ‘nest’ however whose Sindarin letters correlate to no Sindarin phrase, so far as I can inform. So it looks as if now we have some right phrases, some incorrect types, and a few keycaps that simply have a phonetic substitution.

It is, nevertheless, fairly nicely made (I did discover just a little little bit of separation between the metallic chassis and the quilt, but it surely’s minor), and has a bunch of cute additions in several colours and enjoyable designs. I obtained the usual model (with each the Latin and the Tengwar legends) however I’ve requested the hardcore model to see if I can program this keyboard to put in writing in a transliterative Sindarin–we’ll see when that will get right here. But in the end, this Elvish model of the Drop ENTR keyboard is good. I prefer it, I’m going to maintain utilizing it. It does what it’s imagined to do. It’s an excellent starter keyboard for a beginner like me, however I weep for the keyboard I may have had.

Various Lord of the Rings keyboards, together with Elvish, Dwarvish, and Black Tongue (Quenya however worse) can be found from DROP.

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