conuly | I have a question...

Current Mood: curious

Occasionally, in

latin, people show up asking for some translation for a tattoo. Why? Do you really want a cheesy sentiment (most of them are) forever on your body in a dead language you don't even speak? Do you honestly want to spend the rest of your life not only translating your tattoo to everyone but explaining that no, you don't actually speak Latin, some people in a Livejournal community translated it for you? Is it worth the risk that somebody will deliberately tell you something profane/funny just for the laugh (like the Japanese tattoo artist did with stupid white kids who wanted "something cool in Japanese" on their bodies...) I mean, what's the point? Why not just get it in English? That's the language you speak, after all.

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From:

maladaptive.livejournal.com

Well, sometimes they can be funny. A character in one of my books has "didite et vincite," and a friend of mine is really rarin' to get that tattooed somewhere on his body. Of course, he understands Latin better than I do.

Of course, now I think my translation of "dido" is off and I can't find where I originally wrote it.

Most people get Japanese because Kanji looks interesting. That drives me absolutely insane. They're words first of all-- and the meanings can be vague at best.

From:

conuly

And he has a reason for that... it's from a character he likes, and he knows what the Latin is. It's not the same as saying "I want "random quote" on me, but I don't want it in English!!!"

From:

maladaptive.livejournal.com

Basically, and he went into hysterics when he got what "divide and conquer" really meant.

Getting a tattoo in a language you can't read is so... asinine, just because you don't like it in english. Especially if it's already with our alphabet (I can understand Arabic and Japanese from the aesthetic standpoint, it looks more like art than words).

From:

literalgirl.livejournal.com

I think you guys are being a little harsh.

First of all, why wouldn't it be OK to get a common phrase from a language like Latin? Say, "Amor Vincit Omnia" or "Carpe Diem"? Or any common imported phrase ("a la mode", anyone? ;-) )

As a person with not 1 but 2 tattoos in "a language other than English", I can tell you I like it for a few reasons.

First, it's a cool conversation piece.

Second, it's obfuscated, which means *I* get to tell people, if I think they ought to know, what it says. It's *my* body art. Obviously, if I want to say something and get away with it, saying it English would be the stupid thing, not saying it a foreign tongue.

Third (similar but different): Again, it's *my* body art, and if I think a certain font or language is more visually pleasing than another, then why should I not use whatever I think looks best? I happen to love Elvish script, so maybe my next tat will be in Elvish, because I think it's visually attractive. What is wrong with that?

Heh - I already forgot my fourth reason, but I'll just leave you with the pictures of my tattoos. This user icon is the one in the small of my back. It is a stained-glass butterfly with 7-bit ASCII binary, says the name of my fiance. It has multiple layers of symbolism (and I don't EVEN want to hear about the whole "what about if you get divorced" thing - I'd KEEP it because if the symbolism).

The symbolism of this tat is that, as a result of meeting him, I was inspired to remake myself. Due to his love and support, I was able to garner the strength to make massive changes in my life three years ago, and I had this tattoo done to document and honour that *time* in my life.

The binary has special significance because we work with computers.

My other tattoo can be seen as the default icon of

literalgirlsmtb's journal. It's actually *his* tat, but I have the identical one, also on my right arm, so looking at his is no different than looking at mine.

That tattoo is unique - we had it drawn by a Japanese calligrapher and them made into tattoo patterns for our tat artist.

The characters are Kanji - the top one is the literal translation of my name (NOT the phoenetic translation - very important distinction), the bottom character is his name, and the gray one in the middle (not so gray in that pic because it's fresh ink there) is the character for "soul mates".

Obviously, done in English this would be less than aesthetically pleasing, plus the translations of our names are pretty cool, so we like that aspect as well.

So, I've rambled on enough, but I don't think I am either stupid or nutty (at least in this regard!). And I am very pleased with my tattoos. I hope this helps explain what might be motivating some people. :-)

From:

maladaptive.livejournal.com

That's very true. Basically my beef is, if you don't understand it, don't get it. Basically-- yes, it's your body and I'm not going to tell someone they're stupid.

But I've SEEN people get Ohms and then act surprised when I ask them about the "noise the universe makes." I guess it's a good conversation piece, but why give me the crazy look? You're the one with "the noise the universe makes" tattooed on your body!

Ahem, slight backlash there. Me, I'm just getting really big butterfly/fairy wings. Yours is very nifty :D

And I hate the "but what if you don't like it later!" excuse. I always want to say "what if you don't like your toes later? You're still stuck with them."

From:

conuly

And I hate the "but what if you don't like it later!" excuse. I always want to say "what if you don't like your toes later? You're still stuck with them."

Yeah, that's a stupid argument. I should hope people are actually putting thought into whatever goes on their bodies. If not, well, there's surgery for that. Expensive, painful surgery, but they certainly don't need to hear "I told you so". And if they never change their minds, isn't that a funny thing to put on your gravestone: I never regretted my tattoo, mom, so shut up!

From:

maladaptive.livejournal.com

No matter how much thought you put into something, you can still regret it later. Still, I can't stand seeing those tattoos that are obviously taken off the wall of a cheap parlor. A lot of girls in my school have those, so they get all big-eyed when I describe my tattoo ideas.

The surgery's no good. It leaves a scar. The best method is having the artist go back over the tattoo with a needle filled with saline. It HURTS (more than the surgery) but it's much more effective.

I would kill to see that on a grave stone.

From:

literalgirl.livejournal.com

LOL!!!!

I totally agree 100% that getting a tattoo that one doesn't understand the *meaning* of is pretty stupid. Although I guess one could still argue "but I just think it's pretty".

But I'd say that a person who makes a decision (as I did) to get something that is custom art (the calligrapher is an artist, and we have the original artwork of the tattoo to hang on the wall) as well as having some deeper meaning isn't necessarily "silly". There have been symbols throughout human history, and what they represent is the point, eh?

Ohm is a good example. Or the Eye of Osirus (which was also, if I am not mistaken, an egyptian "letter" in heiroglyphics).

I'd like to see the butterfly wings! You mean like, big ones on your shoulders? :-)

From:

maladaptive.livejournal.com

Well, they'd take up my entire back-- shoulders blades to the small of my back. If you've read the Merry Gentry books, think Nicca's tattoos.

That's going right to an amazing tattoo artist who lives about four hours from here, too. Not allowed to get it until I move out. ::crosses fingers.::

I actually don't know what the Eye or Osiris means, but I see it a lot (or is it the Eye or Ra? One of them). Yes it's pretty, I just can't imagine putting something on your body when you don't know what it means, or you don't agree with the sentiments!

From:

conuly

First of all, why wouldn't it be OK to get a common phrase from a language like Latin?

I wasn't talking about that at all. I was talking about making up some phrase like "support gay marriage" or taking a common english phrase such as "you can't have your cake and eat it too" and then trying to translate that into Latin. Not only doesn't that make sense, but it often doesn't work very well.

Obviously, if I want to say something and get away with it, saying it English would be the stupid thing, not saying it a foreign tongue.

You mean "say something I shouldn't be saying"? This also isn't what I'm talking about... that's a perfectly valid reason to get it in another language.

Again, it's *my* body art, and if I think a certain font or language is more visually pleasing than another, then why should I not use whatever I think looks best?

I'm not arguing with your right to do whatever you like to your body, that's not my business. I do, however, think that getting something done that you cannot read is silly. I think we're going to end up disagreeing on that, I certainly don't harass people in the street over this, I just giggle when they post in

latin. Also, it can be a bad idea if your translator has a grudge or a bad sense of humor... some people really do have tattoos saying "stupid white kid" and "chinese take-out here" in Japanese because the tattoo artist was pissed.

And it is a cool tattoo. I stand by my belief that if you think Japanese looks cool, you should try to learn it (I want to, but mostly to prove I can, it's a difficult language from english, I've been told).

From:

literalgirl.livejournal.com

Yeah. My ex was Japanese (from Japan, not born in the States), and it's a very difficult language. (And I am pretty darn good with languages.)

But on top of the grammatical differences, which are huge, there are other problems with Japanese, including the fact that there are two phonetic alphabets and a ... a... damn. I forgot the word for the picture-based alphabet. Sigh. Anyway, they took the picture-based alphabet from China originally, which is why they have different words/sounds/pronunciations for Kanji, but the pictograms are the same.

So, to be fluent in Japanese you have to not only memorize two phonetic alphabets (hirigana and katakana), but thousands of Kanji as well.

I worked at it during my marriage, but I never developed fluency. And the only alphabet I really learned solid was hiragana.

The only Kanji I know are my son's name, sushi, and mountain! ;-)

(BTW, I think your translator point is well taken. We did the binary ourselves, several times over, and validated the name translations with other sources.)

:-)

From:

conuly

Yeah, that's the big concern. You don't want to end up with people who KNOW the language laughing because you really said something you didn't mean, or just made a huge grammatical error.