Tag Archives: tattoo

True Love? To Blave. – Another Unfortunate Tattoo

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If you’ve ever seen my news feed setup for anything Aramaic you’d think I was obsessed. Well, in a word: Yes. 🙂 I’m always constantly crawling the internet looking for new stuff posted about the language, and today I came across a very unfortunate tattoo on deviantArt whose owner I am trying very hard to contact.

Update (March 12, 2008): Since I’ve published this article, the author has contacted me and requested that I take the image down, so I have done so to respect his wishes. You can still view the image through his deviantArt Profile here.

The tattoo reads:

ܚܘܒܟܘܢ ܒܫܪܝܪܐ
khûvkûn b-shrîrâ’

The owner was told that it reads “True Love” which it is very close to but sloppy. There is a bit of grammar that doesn’t make too terribly much sense to me so allow me to break it down and go over it:

ܚܘܒܟܘܢ
khûvkûn

Comes from the root word khûbâ which means “love”
The suffix -kûn means “your” in the masculine plural. This is awkward.

ܒܫܪܝܪܐ
b-shrîrâ’

Comes from the root word shrîrâ’ which should mean “truth” but is generally found in the feminine form ܫܪܝܪܬܐ shrîrtâ’ otherwise it should be in the form ܫܪܪܐ shrârâ’. It’s possible that whoever translated this was trying to work from an adjectival form (ܫܪܝܪ shrîr) which would make it technically correct, but a bit awkward.
The prefix be- means “in,” “within” or “among” depending on context (here it’s certainly “in”).

Despite the misspellings this literally translates to:

“Your (masc. pl.) love in truth.”

Not really “True Love,” but not incomprehensible. Although the tattoo came out beautifully, the actual translation was very sloppy.

Please don’t let this happen to you! Trust a professional.

-Steve

More on Ricky Martin’s Aramaic Tattoo

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Well, I came across the following news story on Ricky Martin’s website dated August 10th (right around one of the many times I’ve tried to contact him):

“Our Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew – Even though the meaning of this tattoo has been questioned on the Internet, in 2006 the Puerto Rican star exhibited a series of symbols wrapped around his right arm that, in his own words, represent Our Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew.”

Not only was it questioned on the internet here at The Aramaic Blog, but Mr. Martin’s official website has made a crucial mistake. The text is certainly not in Hebrew: It is in Syriac Aramaic, written in the Estrangela alphabet, identically (albeit out of order) as the Lord’s Prayer is found in the Syriac Peshitta.

Estrangela is only used to write in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (and in some rare historical cases Arabic, this extension known as Garshuni). The website Omniglot (one of my favorites) has a great set of articles about Syriac and Hebrew writing systems:

As does Wikipedia:

Please take a close look and decide from yourself which language and writing systems are employed. 🙂

Peace,
–Steve

Two More Tattoos For the Road

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If you’ve been regularly reading this blog, you will know how much I emphasize proper research in obtaining a tattoo in a language of which you are not familiar. I always implore my readers to trust a professional translator or native speaker and then double-check the hell out of what they give you with other professionals or native speakers. With that said, this is once again what can happen if you do not.

The first example today is one that I’ve shown many examples of before. Native speakers of English (and other languages where aspects of grammatical gender have ceased to play a large part in the language) tend not to take the gender of a Hebrew or Aramaic phrase into account. Because of that we end up with problems such as this:

This image is being used under the doctrine of Fair Use.

It reads:

אני לדודי
ani ledodi
I am my beloved’s

ודודי לי
udodi li
And my beloved is mine.

This tattoo was found on the back of a man as a tribute to his wife. Unfortunately, the word דודי dodi (“my beloved”) is in the masculine form: “I am my beloved’s (masculine) and my beloved (masculine) is mine.”

This kind of mistake is one of the most pervasive one that I have seen because the translation is so readily available from any Hebrew edition of the Song of Songs and in English the word “beloved” has no gender.

Now this second one completely broke my heart. According to the owner, his grandfather knew Hebrew, so it was a large part of hearing him speak it during his childhood, so when his grandfather passed away, he wished to have the Hebrew word for “Grandad” tattooed across his back in big large letters. Take a look:

(© Dan O. This portion of the image utilized under Fair Use for criticism and educational purposes.)

In Hebrew… it is jibberish. To someone who speaks English, but knows the Hebrew alphabet, it’s horrifying: It is the English word “Grandad” transliterated backwards in the Hebrew/Aramaic alphabet.

דאדנארג
d-(a)-d-n-(a)-r-g
(g-r-a-n-d-a-d)

Allow me to leave you with the following thoughts:
  1. Don’t trust what you happen to come across on the web. – A professional (preferably fluent with languages that are not dead or near-dead) translator with a good, strong record is the only way to go. That way, you can trust that you are getting something appropriate.
  2. Get an image of the text. – Don’t rely upon your computer to display a font properly. What had probably happened with the above examples is that their computer did not display Hebrew Unicode in the proper right-to-left format. Also, other problems with encoding can happen, such as mojibake.
  3. Always get a second opinion. – “Measure twice, cut once” the old proverb goes (and for a reason). Always take the time to double-check the text before getting things inked. With things such as dead or nearly-dead languages this can be difficult but not impossible. For Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic, check your local synagogue. For Syriac, track down a Syrian or Assyrian church. For Sanskrit, a Hindu temple or Buddhist monestary. If all else fails, go to your local College or University, and poke around the religion and linguistics departments. If you explain why you want your translation doublechecked, they will sympathize. 🙂 Lastly, AramaicDesigns will double-check Aramaic tattoo translations for you pro bono, so simply email them in.

Peace,
-Steve

Another Spectacular Tattoo Goof

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Why do these keep happening? It pains me every time that I see it and I feel that I have a moral obligation to hunt these people down and inform them of their tragic mistake. The following tattoo I found using the new PanImages service (which is really neat if you have some time to try it):

[source: BME Zine]
(For the purposes of this Blog, I am using this image under the doctrine of Fair Use.)

A gorgeous tattoo. Love the lilies. However from the original webpage, the anonymous owner of this tattoo believes that their text says “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.”

This kills me…

…In reality it is jibberish.

The “inscription” reads:
ܕ
d
(jibberish)
ܨ
ts
(jibberish)
ܐ
‘
(jibberish)
ܟܕ
kad
(= “when”)
ܕ
d
(jibberish)
ܙ
z
(jibberish)
ܥܐ
`a’
(jibberish)
ܟܐ
ka
(jibberish)
ܣܐ
sa
(jibberish)
ܓܣܕ
gasad
(jibberish)
ܓܣܕ
gasad
(jibberish)

You can see why I am distraught…

Please please please please please, before getting an Aramaic tattoo, send it into Information@AramaicDesigns.com so it can be double-checked for accuracy. It’s an anonymous public service that we offer completely pro-bono, and is also a personal legacy of mine to stop things like this from happening.

Peace,
-Steve

Lord’s Prayer Tattoo Stencil Released!

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Aramaic Designs is now all set with the new Lord’s Prayer Spiral Tattoo Kits! Based off of the tattoo that pop-star Ricky Martin has on his shoulder and arm, these kits have the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic radiating from a Syriac “Yah” (a symbol for God’s name) in the center, only in the correct form and order (Ricky Martin’s actual tattoo was unfortunately typeset in the wrong direction).

Aramaic Designs also now offers a pure silver pendant of the same Syriac “Yah” symbol available from the Aramaic Jewelry section of the website. It’s so satisfying to make one of these guys because in the end it really looks and feels like an ancient coin from antiquity. Did I mention that I love working with silver like this? 🙂

I’ve worked in a variety of mediums over the years, but I’ve always gravitated towards two things: 1) Sculpture, be it in clay, stone, or metal; and 2) Calligraphy. When I get to make tattoo stencils and silver jewelry I really feel that I’m working with both mediums together (more of a metaphor, of course, with tattoo art as it is 2-dimensional calligraphy in [excuse the pun] living 3d).

I’m also looking for new ideas for both stock tattoo art as well as silver jewelry, so if anyone has anything they wish to suggest, don’t hesitate to send it into Information@AramaicDesigns.com .

Peace,
-Steve