= Tatuaje! Por supuesto…tattoo!
Recently, it had come to my attention a couple of famous people who has got Tengwar tattoos. Wow..pretty cool! Coincidentally both of them were former Atlético de Madrid players (soccer team from Spain). They are the
Sergio Agüero
Argentinian Sergio Agüero & Spanish Fernando Torres. Pretty curious,
huh? Are they really Tolkien fans like you and me or just got some exotic alphabet tattoo? Is there a Tolkien book club at Atlético de Madrid or what? So many questions…
Unfortunately…I can answer none! I know it’s disappointing, but I
Fernando Torres
just can’t. I’m very curious indeed to hear from them what is the story behind the tattoos, but although I have researched a bit, I could find nothing concrete.
Anyway…what I can answer and will here is: Are the tattoos correct?
First things first: They speak Spanish and I assumed what is written on their arms is Tengwar Spanish Mode. I’m not expert on Spanish Mode but after remembering it through research (si tu eres Español o Latino, puedes aprender el modo de escritura Tengwar para el castellano aquí) could find interesting details out.
Sergio Agüero
In his arm it’s written: Kun Agüero (his nickname) and it’s written correctly according to Spanish Mode. Very good indeed! Kudos for him!
Fernando Torres
In his arm is written: Fernando. Unfortunately…it seems like he mixed up Tengwar Modes! The tengwar themselves are in Spanish Mode, but I couldn’t find any Spanish mode (be it written with tehtar or vocales plenas, or even by ortografía tradicional o de acuerdo con la pronunciación) that used the tehtar the way he did here. They are above the next tengwa. Let me give you an example:
Fernando (according to Spanish Mode) /// Frennado (his tattoo)
See how weird? Ok, fine..it’s a minor detail, but it makes difference. I couldn’t understand why he did it. English Mode follow this kind of rules to tehtar (coming at the next tengwa) but there’s no reason for that in Spanish. Actually it’s written something like: Frennad (an the flying ‘o’ tehta almost without support at the end)
That was it! A quick and simple check on the tattoos of these players! But…can you help me out here answering the other questions: Why did he do it? Are they really core fans or what? Damn, I’m curious to hear from them!
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That mode on Fernando’s tattoo looks like an old way some people here in Brazil used to write with brazilian portuguese phonetics, until few years ago. Never liked it, and now there are people developing a new portuguese mode, that fits more to the quenya mode.
I made my tattoo, too, a couple of months ago, of course in quenya mode. I personally translated to quenya a sentence intimately linked to myself, and wrote it in tenwgar. But I permited mylself one little linguistic inaccuracy: as I don’t like the quenya name of Galadriel’s father, Arafinwë, I used the sindarin form Finarfin. And that’s no problem for me. Any elf who would read it, would understand it without problems…
And congrats for the blog. It’s amazing.
I don’t have enough knowledge to compare Spanish & Portuguese Mode, but as both come from Latin, I supposed they may seem like the same thing when converted to Tengwar writing.
Personally, to me, all other modes other than Quenya and Sindarin look like inaccurate. I don’t like them. They are not that bad, you know, but they look odd and misplaced sometimes. Inaccuracy is something I really hate and always aim for the 101% accurate stuff! That’s why I stuck with Quenya since I discovered it!
Thank you for the compliment and I hope you stay tuned here! Much Quenya & Tolkien lore to enjoy!
Well, in fact, the euphony was the real cause of the inaccuracy. Besides the fact I really prefer the sindarin form of his name, which is used the most throughout Tolkien’s work, the genitive case – which I had to use in the sentence – Arafinwëo is really strange when compared with Finarfino, at least for me and my linguistics preferences. So I used it, as it would be possible to write it with the quenya mode.
And yes, I know what you mean.. Quenya is pretty much beautiful than Sindarin.
Names in Quenya sound as normal as any Sindarin name would. It’s just a matter of getting used. For instance, Erunno sounded quite weird to me, but now, it IS my name! People call me that, people know me by that and it’s simply MY name! Check my card: http://quenya101.com/2012/03/02/bank-of-valinor/
Thanks for share this information to all the peolple. Especially when I’m looking for tatto my name -Fernando- as the correct form.
You’re welcome!
Careful with your tattoo!!!! ALWAYS!!!
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the exact opposite is what brought me here. i want to make sure something is right BEFORE i get the tattoo. I’m planning on getting a UV(blacklight) tattoo around my wrist of the famous “not all who wander are lost,” but i want to make sure i get it exactly right. i don’t want to figure out later that i used the wrong script/wording/font, etc. I thought i might find it just posted here somewhere, but I didn’t see it yet. help! please
I didn’t understand what you referred to when you said: ‘the exact opposite is what brought me here.’
Anyway….do you want that sentence you mentioned in which Tengwar Mode? If you want it translate it to Quenya and also written in Tengwar…there is already here a version of this poem. Check here: http://quenya101.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/special-poem-prose-edition/
If not, tell me specifically how you want it and I can arrange it for you!
Can we post here OUR tattoo photos???
Yes, you can. But are you sure?
Are you really sure of what’s written in it? I’ve met some people that after a thorough analysis of what really they had tattooed on their skin…got pretty disappointed.
It happens A LOT.
love it, next time someone who loves soccer, preferably real madrid, calls me a nerd with no life, well, you can guess what
Yeah…do it! That someone who calls you maybe envies your intellect and has nothing better to do with his diminished one!