Rómen and órë: the two r's

mia roela theo.
1SG scroll read.
(I read a scroll.)

roela opens on r, and that r is rómen. Spoken Phi lets its r trill or tap freely: a speaker's own habit, never a choice that changes meaning. Written Phi does not. A word-initial r is always rómen and a word-internal r is always órë, no matter how the speaker who wrote it happens to say the sound aloud. The written mode is stricter than speech needs it to be, on purpose: a reader should never have to guess which shape a writer meant.

mia keruko manuwe theomi.
1SG sturdy hand trust.
(I trust a sturdy hand.)

keruko never opens on r, so its r is always órë, the second syllable, not the first. Compare both rendered lines and the two shapes are visibly different tengwar, not one tengwa written two ways. That difference is the entire rule: ask only where the r sits in the word, never how it sounds. A trilled roela and a tapped roela are written exactly the same, because the position answered the question before the sound could.

This is the one place Phi's Tengwar mode asks more of the hand than Phi's own phonology strictly requires. Everywhere else, the mode only writes down what the language already distinguishes. It is worth the one exception. A reader gains a second, silent way to know where a word begins.