to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 3:49 AM
subject: tatoo
Hello, Tian!
I like your site and my tatoo :))
But could you say me what it mean?
Thank you!
--
Julia P.
Hello Julia!
I don't know what your tattoo means.
You are welcome!
--
Tian
The only character that looks anything like Kanji is the one on the second line. The calligraphy is pretty bad, though (and it's missing the first stroke).
ReplyDelete麻, from memory, means something like "hemp" and is used in words like 薬薬 (drugs) in Japanese.
The rest of the tattoo is gibberish. Perhaps the artist implied you'd have to be on drugs in order to understand the meaning of the tattoo?
hahaha, nice response, tian.
ReplyDeleteSecond line is "hemp," I guess, though it's not written particularly well...the rest is not Chinese or Japanese. I don't think it's even the right part of the world. Mayan, maybe?
ReplyDeleteIf it is Mayan, it isn't very well done. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/mayan.htm
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling those symbols were made up on the spot. Either that or they are artistic renderings of some system out there, maybe some are distorted Hanzi-pictures.
I agree on most counts. The 麻 is poorly done almost to the point of being charming in its badness.
ReplyDeleteThe rest looks vaguely like, at best, an allusion to the petroglyphs that have been found in Anasazi cliff ruins and river walls in the American Southwest.
But all very heavily influenced by visits to the souvenir stands of the Hopi and other Southwest reservations and tourist towns, especially that Arizona-style cactus next to the adobe house (or maybe it's supposed to be an oven for making fry bread?) at the top left.
first and third lines do not matter. These are my pictures:)
ReplyDeleteCharacters on the second line I found in the book. It has been said, it means hemp:)
I hope this is true:)
If the character on the second line is supposed to be "hemp," this should be 麻. Notice the short vertical line at the top. This stroke is missing from the character in the tattoo. There are many other problems with the calligraphy, as others have pointed out, so it really looks terrible and is very nearly illegible.
ReplyDeleteand this is why you should never use google translate to do your tattoos...if you need something translated..go to a professionalist and have someone who knows the language tattoo it for you
ReplyDeleteLooks to me like...
ReplyDelete"Tent pitchfork firefly smiley face"
"One dude stands under a roof while the other stands outside"
"Running man target frog"
Or, I don't know, complete gibberish.
It clearly means: 'In the house under a cactus I saw Spider-Woman and got so happy eating hash brownies that I forgot how to write 麻, then I had a seizure and saw my soul fly out of my body in the form of a fat little burrowing owl'
ReplyDeleteI do have to say, at first glance, the character in the middle says weed/marijuana/hemp; it may be badly done and missing the dot, but I don't think I'd mistake it for anything else, especially with all those nonsensical figures surrounding it.
ReplyDeleteI like @mayatec's translation the best :)
ReplyDelete