Arabic Genie » mistakes

Arabic Tattoos, Mistakes and Art

ArabicGenie — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 21:26:31 +0000

In one of my previous articles on this blog I discussed what I considered to be the most embarrassing Arabic tattoo mistakes – disconnected letters, written in the wrong direction and offensive tattoos. I thought it was pretty clear that most people would like to steer clear of these pitfalls. However, Kiba sent me the following comment about my article:

I think this is total B.S. a tattoo is personal and you can do what you want with it. I personally have the four letters of my name “disconnected” that an artist put together in an art piece for me. It means a lot to me and I’m not writing an arabic book on my body, it’s ART, so why feel like I have to put these constraints on myself? it’s your body…do what you want with it!

Here is what I replied:

Kiba, I completely disagree with you.

Of course, everyone is free to get the tattoos they want and it’s great that you like your tattoo. But remember, most people will be highly uncomfortable with a tattoo that is incorrect, nonseniscal or even worse doesn’t mean what they want it to.

Knowing Arabic and then deciding that you want to have disconnected letters for artistic reasons (fully aware of the fact that in 99% of all cases this is a bad decision) is different from getting a wrong tattoo due to not knowing the language.

Something being art presupposes that you are actually aware of the different nuances of the Arabic script and of its rules. Only then are you in a good position to judge whether you really want to break conventions for artistic reasons.

Having a tattoo read “I’m awsome [sic!]” or “Everyone Elese [sic!] Does” or “Only God will juge [sic!] me” is a mistake in the vast majority of cases and an embarrassment most people would like to avoid. And so is an Arabic tattoo that is not spelt correctly or obviously simply a mistake that is the result of a failed copy-pasting attempt.

Where do you stand on this issue? Does art permit everything? Even when the individual is not aware that what he is doing is contrary to convention (think “juge” instead of “judge”)? Am I too pedantic? I would love to hear your comments.

BBC Correspondent Learns Arabic In Damascus – And Fails!

ArabicGenie — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:54:48 +0000

There is an interesting article on the BBC News page detailing the experience of one of their correspondents in learning Arabic in Damascus. While I certainly applaud his efforts, I nevertheless have to remark on some inconsistencies in his article.

In the article, the author writes:

But however modest our achievements, the presence of foreign students does seem to please the Damascenes. “Tadrusus el lawra Arabiya – hunna?” they ask delightedly – “You’re studying Arabic – here?”

Now, I very much doubt that an Arabic native speaker from Damascus would have asked “Tadrusus el lawra Arabiya – hunna”. First of all, if the comment was supposed to be in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) / فسحى (fusHa), then the question should have been “(hal) tadrus(u) al-lugha al-3arabiyya hunna?”. Secondly, more probable, someone from Damascus would have asked in Damascene dialect “btedrus 3arabi hoon?”.

This faux-pas puts doubt on the author’s claim that he had “studied hard” during his stay in Damascus. Despite this, I recommend this article to those thinking about studying Arabic in Damascus. It is a beautiful city with mostly welcoming people and a far cry from the fanatical stereotypes perpetuated by the media.

The article can be found here.

Arabic Tattoos – The Three Most Embarrassing Errors

ArabicGenie — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:54:13 +0000

While Arabic tattoos can be aesthetically pleasing if the right calligraphy is used, there are a huge number of cases where neither the person getting the tattoo done nor the tattooist have the slightest idea of Arabic. The result is often disastrous: incorrect or ugly Arabic writing.

I’ll show you some bad examples and help you avoid some of the common mistakes. The same considerations apply equally to Persian, Urdu or Pashto tattoos, because these languages too use some form of Arabic script.

1 Disconnected letters

I guess the main culprits for this are people’s word processors that are not equipped to deal with the Arabic script. They don’t know how to interpret the letters and just represent them each individually. Arabic is a cursive script: the majority of letters are connected, like in handwriting. For example, below you can see the Arabic for “television” as it should be written:

The word "television" written in Arabic in the correct way

And here the same word, but written incorrectly, with the letters disconnected:

The Arabic for "television" written incorrectly with disjointed letters

Let’s see an example of this “in the wild”:

Disconnected letters

To be honest, I can’t even have a guess at what the word is supposed to mean.

2 Disconnected AND written from left to right instead of from right to left

Well, most people know that Arabic – unlike European languages – is written from right to left. However, some people don’t take notice of that and try to write Arabic from left to write.

Like this person here:

3 Offensive tattoos

This is probably the worst kind of mistake. While the other errors can make you look foolish or silly in the eyes of Arabic native speakers, having offensive words tattooed on your body can get you in a whole lot of trouble. Many Arab societies are highly conservative and will frown upon those insulting the culture or religion. Here are two particularly bad examples of this:

Kafir, or "unbeliever"

The Arabic reads كافر (kaafir) or “unbeliever” in English. This is an offensive term used derogatively for followers of religions other than Islam or atheists. Someone professing to be a kaafir himself would be seen as attempting to mock Islam and this is not taken lightly in most Arabic countries.

Can it get worse? Well, judge for yourself:

This lady seems to think it’s a good idea to have the Arabic word for “female dog” (bitch!) engraved on her body. Although the Arabic doesn’t quite have the same meaning as the English word “bitch”, nevertheless “dog” has a pretty negative connotation in the Arab world and is used to insult someone.

Avoid the mistakes

So, what should you do if you are thinking of getting an Arabic tattoo? Well, most importantly try to avoid the four mistakes I described. If you are really serious about getting an Arabic word tattooed on your skin, then you should consider learning the Arabic writing system. It’s much easier than it seems and it is well worth the time and effort spent on it to know with certainty that your beautiful Arabic tattoo is written correctly.

Apart from learning the Arabic script yourself, you should make sure the source for your Arabic tattoo is reliable and trustworthy. For example, you could get my Arabic Tattoos eBook or have me make a custom tattoo for you.