Tengwar is the invented writing system J.R.R. Tolkien used for many Elvish languages.
Tolkien created Tengwar, also called the Fëanorian characters, as a script whose letters could represent consonants and whose vowel marks were called tehtar. Its elegant appearance reflects Tolkien’s interest in real historical scripts and in designing writing systems with internal structure.
Tengwar is not itself an Elvish language. It is a writing system used to write languages including Quenya and Sindarin, and it can also represent other languages of Middle-earth. This distinction matters because Quenya and Sindarin are languages, while Tengwar is the script.
Tolkien’s calligraphy and manuscript illustrations helped preserve examples of Tengwar. The Ring-inscription shown in The Lord of the Rings is one of its most famous uses, written in the Black Speech of Mordor rather than an Elvish language.