Dead Language Tattoos
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Dead languages have been around since the Tower of Babel, and they’ve had a certain intellectual cache for just as long. As everyone knows, however, the difference between an amateur and a professional is how much of their body they’ve inked in their dead language of choice. If you’re thinking about getting a dead language tattoo, then keep reading.
Maybe you want to seem smart by inking a little Hesiod via Aristotle—in the original Greek, natch—on yourself:
????? ??? ?????????? ?? ????? ????? ?????,
?????? ?? ?? ???????? ?? ?? ??????? ???????.
?? ?? ?? ???? ????? ???? ???? ????? ??????
?? ???? ????????, ? ?? ???? ??????? ????.
(Incidentally, if you ink this on yourself without knowing what it means, you’ll have not only a dead language tattoo but an ironic one as well. Temping, isn’t it? )
Maybe you wish the Catholic Church still read Mass in Latin, and figure your ink can stand as a gentle rebuke to them:
nihil sub sole novum nec valet quisquam dicere
ecce hoc recens est iam enim praecessit in saeculis quae fuerunt ante nos
Maybe you’re an English teacher who wants the first known words written in the English language—or at least its forefather—inked on her flesh:
Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum
Hell, maybe you just know and love a dead language—think its rules are more logical and its cadences more lyrical than English—and think everything looks better in it. Whatever your reasons, getting a dead language tattoo is a certain conversation starter, even if it’s just a “What is that?” from a skeptical party-goer. Speaking of which, if you don’t read the language you’re getting inked on your flesh, you’ll want to be 100 percent certain that a) it’s written down correctly, b) you can pronounce it credibly in its original language, and c) you have a translation committed to memory when you get asked what it means. In fact, these rules are iron-clad not only with dead languages, but with foreign languages as well. If, on the other hand, you can’t read a lick of the dead language you’re getting a tattoo of, then you need to make absolutely certain that the guy or gal who helped you out (you’re not planning on relying solely on the Internet, are you?) is trustworthy—and has no sense of humor.
