Games?
February 5, 2008 by Christian
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.
Comments
One Response to “Games?”
Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
iPhone app now available!
Baybayin is a syllabic writing system and was never adapted to write English words. Nonetheless, if the motivation was to directly represent the word “GAMES” as closely as how it should be spoken in English (spell it the way it sounds), then the “Baybayin” translation in the tattoo may actually be practical. Crude but practical. To translate it as “GA-ME-S” is probably “accurate” to the purist but it doesn’t serve the purpose of the intent (when spoken as such in syllables). It would not make any sense at all. But, who knows, as you said essentially — it’s the inked that prinked.