What is the inscription on the One Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings written in?

The inscription on the One Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is written in the Black Speech of Mordor.

The fiery inscription appears when the Ring is heated, revealing lines from the Ring-poem: “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them.” The language was created for Sauron and is associated with Mordor, the realm from which he seeks to dominate the other peoples of Middle-earth.

The Ring’s script uses Tengwar, an Elvish writing system, but the language itself is not Elvish. This distinction causes frequent confusion: script and language are different things. Tolkien therefore combines an Elvish-looking writing system with words from Sauron’s Black Speech.

The inscription refers to the rings made for the great peoples of Middle-earth and to the One Ring’s purpose of controlling them. The full text is usually presented in two lines, and its meaning becomes central to the plot when the Ring is identified in Rivendell.