Daeron

The first thing they build, or one of the-- well, one of the things they build is writing, the invention of writing.

There is an elf called Daeron, and he is Thingol's loremaster and minstrel, um, which means he has to wear the black first.

Uh, Sindarin suggested means shadow of trees, which it-- but it's not glossed, so we don't know for certain.

But Daeron is one of the most important people in the history of Middle-earth because he's credited with the fact that he invents runes, which is the, the ability to write.

And the Cirth, uh, which is Sindarin runes from "cirth," rune, related to the verb for carve, these are the angular carved letters that Daeron designs and they're made for scratching into wood and stone.

Appendix E of "The Lord of the Rings" says that the reorganizing and elaborating of the runes was attributed to Daeron, but later editions were probably the work of the Noldor of Eregion, uh, on the grounds that they're able to spell out sounds that Sindarin does not have.

So, Daeron systemized the runes rather than being their sole inventor, and they were then later developed on by someone else.

But the dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost fall in love with this system of writing of runes, and they adopt it wholesale and carry them east, which is why 7,000 years later, the runes on Balin's Tomb in Moria descend from Daeron, the minstrel, who was in the First Age.