PinoyTattoos.com - Filipino Tattoo Source » Errors

Baybayin company logo as a tattoo?

Christian — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:53:45 +0000

Here’s what probably happened….he was surfing the internet looking for cool Filipino tattoo designs. He came across Malaya Designs and found this great company logo. Besides being unoriginal, the additional Baybayin on the top and bottom uses computer fonts. Also, the top one thats supposed to say Mabuhay actually says MA-BU-HA-A.

Malaya – The word “Malaya” (free) in baybayin, enclosed in a box with the words “Mabuhay” and “Pilipino” on the top and the bottom.

Props

Games?

Christian — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 07:00:57 +0000

Came across this photo while surfing Multiply. The Baybayin characters inked are GA-A-MA-E-SA. Notice the use of the cancellation kudlit for the GA-MA-SA characters. That would translate the tattoo as G-A-M-E-S. If he wanted GAMES literally, I would’ve translated it as GA-ME-S. It’s unnecessary to use the cancellation kudlit for GA and MA since the following characters are vowels. Anyway, only the one inked knows what they mean.

Kali = Kana? Kala?

Christian — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 05:52:01 +0000

Found this photo on Flickr that’s supposed to say KA-LI (Filipino martial art) but it actually says KA-NA because instead of the the “L” character, it’s an “N”. Notice the difference between the two.

Let’s say it’s artistic license and the “L” and “N” characters just look alike, there’s still the issue of the missing kudlit above the “LA” glyph. Kali done correctly would look like this:

Here’s another one of his tattoos

Check out his Flickr profile

Sister in Baybayin = SI-TI?

Christian — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 04:33:42 +0000

I came across this “Alibata” tattoo of “Sister” in the BMEInk gallery. The person probably went to an online Baybayin / Alibata any typed in “Sister” choosing original Baybayin. The result would be SI-TE as you see in the photo below. They might have thought that it was also a language translation as well.

A couple problems with this 1) There’s a Tagalog translation of sister (Kapatid or Ate), why not use that? 2) Sister could also be phonetically translated but would need to use modern Baybayin.

Below is a Kapatid (KA-PA-TI) and Ate (A-TE) in Baybayin.

Here’s sister (SI-S-TE-R) phonetically:

This is a classic example getting a Baybayin tattoo without the proper research or consultation. The fonts were obviously downloaded from the internet and translated using an online program. The end result is a tattoo that doesn’t make sense language wise or culturally. Unfortunately, I see issues like these rising due to the popularity of Baybayin tattoos.

Hanzi Smatter would be proud

Doh! Kalayaana!

Christian — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:44:45 +0000

Came across this video on Youtube and noticed that his tattoo is missing something. If you forward to 0:44 & 1:03, you will notice the “NA” glyph. I assume he wanted a full translation of KA-LA-YA-A-N rather than KA-LA-YA-A. The “NA” glyph is missing a cancellation kudlit (either a “+”,”X” or “,”) at the bottom. It now actually says Kalayaana instead of Kalayaan like he wanted. Upon further inspection, It looks like that he used used Paul Morrow’s fonts for the design. Strange thing is that on the image he posted on his blog, the “NA” glyph does have the cancellation kudlit. Maybe it was just forgotten? Easy fix though.

Again, computer fonts are cool for educational purposes but for art? Who wants the same Baybayin fonts as someone else? Wouldn’t you have your own unique

View a Baybayin video tutorial after the jump….