Ogham trouble

aoife2k

hey all.....

It's my 22nd birthday next thursday and i'm considering another tattoo. Since in got the 'celtic tree of life' and a star on my right wrist i've been absolutely dying to get another one and thought my birthday wud be a good time.
I want an ogham tattoo either on my right calf or my left calf but the only problem is every site i've checked out wit the ogham alphabet seems to be different. for example the letter 'b' when inscribed is shown on one site as one line to the right of the main vertical line. Another site shows it to the left. I used 'b' as an example but ther's loads of letters that are different.

I'm getting really frustrated now because i've been thinking of an ogham for a long time now but it has to be perfect. I've seen ogham tattoos on some websites that are completely wrong!!! Ogham is read from bottom to top and most of the people had it 'written' from top to bottom.

Can anyone help???!!!

aoife2k

oops... it posted twice.....apologies!

forbairt

Hmm... possibley a good starting point if you haven't been there already would be ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogham

aoife2k

hmmm...that i'm afraid didn't help in the slightest!

The_Scary_Man

aoife2k wrote:

Can anyone help???!!!

I don't really understand what you're looking for. Are you looking for help standardizing ogham across all tattoo designs? :eek:

My advice would be to choose the style and orientation that suits you and go with that. It's more about what the tat symbolises for you rather than the actual meaning. Once you attach a meaning to any shape or mark then you create a symbol. The true essence and power of the symbol lies in your relationship to it, a mark on a page holds no inherent power or meaning until you assign it one.

Ogham is a dead language, I doubt anyone is going to be sniggering at you for a grammatical error in an ogham tattoo.

aoife2k

The_Scary_Man wrote:

Ogham is a dead language, I doubt anyone is going to be sniggering at you for a grammatical error in an ogham tattoo.

I'd hope not but if i know it's not 'right' it'll bug me for the rest of my days!

I havn't decided on what i want it to spell out just yet but i'm thinkin somethin along the lines of 'father' or 'dad' cuz i lost my dad when i was 15...2 weeks before my junior cert and a month exactly before my 16th birhtday... i want somethin thats guna be extra special

The_Scary_Man

aoife2k wrote:

I'd hope not but if i know it's not 'right' it'll bug me for the rest of my days!

I havn't decided on what i want it to spell out just yet but i'm thinkin somethin along the lines of 'father' or 'dad' cuz i lost my dad when i was 15...2 weeks before my junior cert and a month exactly before my 16th birhtday... i want somethin thats guna be extra special

If you don't mind me asking why are you set on Ogham? If there are various ways of reading it then no matter what version you get it will always be wrong to someone.

If you are set on ogham then maybe you could go with the version here. Myself I prefer a bit of intricacy and flow to a tat so I wouldn't go with ogham but it's purely a matter of taste.

A friend of mine recently got "My Father, My Friend" translated into Tibetan Uchen script and it looks fantastic. He got it done soon after he lost his own dad.

b00ms

i did a bit of research on an ogham tattoo for myself a year ago all the variations can be really frustrating but a lot depended on the dialects of where it was used if you can find anything about your area or even a local example of ogham i reckon it would be your best bet that might help getting it technically correct but scaryman was right about your personal connection with the piece being the factor in your tattoo

aoife2k

yeah, ther's a few standing stones with ogham in my local area so i'll check them out and see if the inscriptions are clear. I just like ogham because it's an ancient form of writing, celticy and druidy if you get me!!!

Im thinkin now of just scrappin the ogham idea because it has me driven mad!! back to the drawing board i suppose....

kahaya

Hi this link might help, just found it, http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ogham.htm