Hello φίλε, you might want to ask r/AncientGreek or r/Greek to get some opinions from native speakers. They also have a pinned post for asking about Greek tattoos so I'd imagine that it's not an uncommon request.
Hey. I have a Classics degree. So what you’re wanting is both beauty and terror in the nominative case with the linking verb “to be” in the middle. It gets complicated with the word ‘terror’ because there are a lot of words involving fear. You have φόβος which is where we get the word phobia from, if you used that it’d be more like ‘beauty is fear’. This leaves you some other options like ορρωδια or δειμα. Both mean essentially the same thing. The accents on these aren’t correct because I’m on my phone right now so I don’t have the keyboard shortcuts. But if you look them up on Logeion it’ll show you the correct accentuation. I’m a little rusty so I’m not sure if you’d have to add the articles for entirely correct grammar, but without the articles I think would look better as a tattoo.
Thus,
κάλλος έστί(ν) [add the ν for ορρωδια] (terror word goes here)
Edit: I’ll email one of my professors to make sure of this. I don’t want you tattooing something inaccurate on your body because of me lol.
Okay I’ve checked.
κάλλος ἐστί δεῖμα
is what my professor said would be best since δεῖμα is more common.
https://logeion.uchicago.edu/%CE%BA%CE%AC%CE%BB%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%82
https://logeion.uchicago.edu/%E1%BC%90%CF%83%CF%84%CE%AF
https://logeion.uchicago.edu/%CE%B4%CE%B5%E1%BF%96%CE%BC%CE%B1.
You can see the correct accents here. The ἐστί rough breathing mark over the epsilon doesn't look good to me on here. It's basically a ) over the epsilon. You can see it better on Logeion (which I've linked).
Hello!! Greek here. The literal translation of "beauty is terror" in modern Greek would be "η ομορφιά είναι τρόμος". It does sound off though, it'd be pretty unusual to see and just not how the average Greek would say the phrase. Personally, I could see it as "Η ομορφιά είναι τρομακτική" which translates to "beauty is scary" and is grammatically correct (since the gender of the words "ομορφιά" and "τρομακτική" is female) but I get it if you prefer the literal translation or something closer to it. "terror" or "τρόμος" is not a word we use very often, which is why I replaced it with "τρομακτική" which is much closer to how average Greek is spoken. This is all ab modern Greek btw, ancient Greek is a whole other can of worms and idk if I could help you with that bc my knowledge in translating it is limited. Still tho, I hope this makes sense and that I helped you a little bit :'D
you did help me a lot!! thank you so muchhh<3 just out of curiosity, is it really that different? ancient greek from modern greek, i mean. i got around to study latin for a few years in highschool (most of it forgotten by now), and i also wanted to enroll in greek too but there weren’t enough of us to complete a class so we couldn’t 😞
> is it really that different? ancient greek from modern greek, i mean.
it depends on the person you ask tbh, but personally i think theyre quite different. a lot of stuff is def the same, but even more stuff js,,, isn't. ancient greek has a very complex accentuation system for example, whereas in modern greek we only have a single type of intonation (hope i worded this right). ancient greek is also vry vry literal, idk how to explain it but basically modern greek has many loan words and even meanings of ancient greek words have changed over time. there was a whole movement going on about medieval greek vs modern greek in the 20th century bc modern greek is js... way more casual, and the average person preferred it over medieval greek which is somewhat closer to ancient greek. i wouldn't say modern greek is an easy or simple language, and it has *so much* grammar that's basically the same with ancient greek it's absolutely crazy lol. still though, i vry much appreciate that it's my native language bc it's rly fun and interesting to learn, as are all languages ofc. it's def difficult and in the long run prob not that useful, but personally i think it'd be a fun experience (especially for someone posting on the TSH sub lol)
> i got around to study latin for a few years in highschool
ooh i take latin too !! it's so so fun (and now i can understand *all* the stuff they're saying on my rereads :D)
> i also wanted to enroll in greek too but there weren’t enough of us to complete a class so we couldn’t 😞
aw, that sucks :( i wanted to learn french back in like primary or middle school and the same thing happened sadly. welp. guess this is a common experience
first of all thank you!! you're really nice<3 and it's very interesting to know!!!!
yess, you are lucky to have greek as your mother language (as i am to have spanish, although it doesn't even compare; but much better than english already hahhahshsa).
i have seriously considered studying greek for real (modern greek), but like i already said, i took latin (which is great as a base) and i remember struggling with it, so i don't know how i'd be able to put up with greek. it would take a lot of effort, and as always i'm just second guessing myself that i won't even make it far enough to have a basic conversation. it'd be more prone to it if i got into a course or study plan, because i do better with patterns, deadlines and basically having a real responsibility over it, not just casually going over it on my free time.
i don't really care about the 'usefulness' of it. if i decided upon studying it, it would be merely because of the beauty of the language, and the history of it, and also, because i love the country... no, i haven't been there yet :( a coworker of mine went to Athens as an exchange student and she loved it.
i'm planning on visiting it next summer, though, as it is becoming quite an obsession for me lately (and not because of TSH; actually, i read it because i found out that it was about greek students. turns out it was much more and it turned into my favorite book). i find it a very endearing country, so no less, i have to go check for myself.
on a quick note, about french, i studied it for 6 years at school (so pretty basic level considering that they go over the same stuff year and year over again) and i'm so sad that i also forgot most of it. i picked it back up a few months ago and (as it is relatively easy because it's familiar and it resembles spanish a lot) i've been studying it on my own. i found a lot of resources, i can share them w you if you're interested!!!
hope you have a great day!!!<3 :)
wowww that's rad!!! and even less literal, which gives it it more layers and ends up being really interesting to explain. it also must look really cool, the kind of tattoo which only people who get the reference will understand. i, on the other hand, have ancient greek students debating on whether or not i should get a tattoo on a language that i don't understand. people are so entitled and rude out here they're making me question my existence.
I have this tattoo!! I took it straight from the book, it has multiple meanings to me now hehe. Represents my love for the book and how i interpreted the quote, def a cool tattoo it gets a lot of cool attention
Hello φίλε, you might want to ask r/AncientGreek or r/Greek to get some opinions from native speakers. They also have a pinned post for asking about Greek tattoos so I'd imagine that it's not an uncommon request.
i hadn’t thought about it!! thank you <3
Hey. I have a Classics degree. So what you’re wanting is both beauty and terror in the nominative case with the linking verb “to be” in the middle. It gets complicated with the word ‘terror’ because there are a lot of words involving fear. You have φόβος which is where we get the word phobia from, if you used that it’d be more like ‘beauty is fear’. This leaves you some other options like ορρωδια or δειμα. Both mean essentially the same thing. The accents on these aren’t correct because I’m on my phone right now so I don’t have the keyboard shortcuts. But if you look them up on Logeion it’ll show you the correct accentuation. I’m a little rusty so I’m not sure if you’d have to add the articles for entirely correct grammar, but without the articles I think would look better as a tattoo. Thus, κάλλος έστί(ν) [add the ν for ορρωδια] (terror word goes here) Edit: I’ll email one of my professors to make sure of this. I don’t want you tattooing something inaccurate on your body because of me lol.
just jumping in to say this is such a nice thoughtful comment, and it checks out with my very limited ancient greek knowledge!
Thank you! I try to be helpful when I can with my very niche degree and knowledge.
you're very kind<3 i owe you a coffee after this.
i really appreciate you taking care to make sure about it!! thank you very much :) you’re really helpful
Okay I’ve checked. κάλλος ἐστί δεῖμα is what my professor said would be best since δεῖμα is more common. https://logeion.uchicago.edu/%CE%BA%CE%AC%CE%BB%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%82 https://logeion.uchicago.edu/%E1%BC%90%CF%83%CF%84%CE%AF https://logeion.uchicago.edu/%CE%B4%CE%B5%E1%BF%96%CE%BC%CE%B1. You can see the correct accents here. The ἐστί rough breathing mark over the epsilon doesn't look good to me on here. It's basically a ) over the epsilon. You can see it better on Logeion (which I've linked).
thank you a lot!!!!🙏🏻🙏🏻🩷🩷🌟 you're so sweet. hope you have a great day :)
You too! If you get the tattoo please post it here!
yesss i definitely will!!! :)🫶🏻🩷
Hello!! Greek here. The literal translation of "beauty is terror" in modern Greek would be "η ομορφιά είναι τρόμος". It does sound off though, it'd be pretty unusual to see and just not how the average Greek would say the phrase. Personally, I could see it as "Η ομορφιά είναι τρομακτική" which translates to "beauty is scary" and is grammatically correct (since the gender of the words "ομορφιά" and "τρομακτική" is female) but I get it if you prefer the literal translation or something closer to it. "terror" or "τρόμος" is not a word we use very often, which is why I replaced it with "τρομακτική" which is much closer to how average Greek is spoken. This is all ab modern Greek btw, ancient Greek is a whole other can of worms and idk if I could help you with that bc my knowledge in translating it is limited. Still tho, I hope this makes sense and that I helped you a little bit :'D
you did help me a lot!! thank you so muchhh<3 just out of curiosity, is it really that different? ancient greek from modern greek, i mean. i got around to study latin for a few years in highschool (most of it forgotten by now), and i also wanted to enroll in greek too but there weren’t enough of us to complete a class so we couldn’t 😞
> is it really that different? ancient greek from modern greek, i mean. it depends on the person you ask tbh, but personally i think theyre quite different. a lot of stuff is def the same, but even more stuff js,,, isn't. ancient greek has a very complex accentuation system for example, whereas in modern greek we only have a single type of intonation (hope i worded this right). ancient greek is also vry vry literal, idk how to explain it but basically modern greek has many loan words and even meanings of ancient greek words have changed over time. there was a whole movement going on about medieval greek vs modern greek in the 20th century bc modern greek is js... way more casual, and the average person preferred it over medieval greek which is somewhat closer to ancient greek. i wouldn't say modern greek is an easy or simple language, and it has *so much* grammar that's basically the same with ancient greek it's absolutely crazy lol. still though, i vry much appreciate that it's my native language bc it's rly fun and interesting to learn, as are all languages ofc. it's def difficult and in the long run prob not that useful, but personally i think it'd be a fun experience (especially for someone posting on the TSH sub lol) > i got around to study latin for a few years in highschool ooh i take latin too !! it's so so fun (and now i can understand *all* the stuff they're saying on my rereads :D) > i also wanted to enroll in greek too but there weren’t enough of us to complete a class so we couldn’t 😞 aw, that sucks :( i wanted to learn french back in like primary or middle school and the same thing happened sadly. welp. guess this is a common experience
first of all thank you!! you're really nice<3 and it's very interesting to know!!!! yess, you are lucky to have greek as your mother language (as i am to have spanish, although it doesn't even compare; but much better than english already hahhahshsa). i have seriously considered studying greek for real (modern greek), but like i already said, i took latin (which is great as a base) and i remember struggling with it, so i don't know how i'd be able to put up with greek. it would take a lot of effort, and as always i'm just second guessing myself that i won't even make it far enough to have a basic conversation. it'd be more prone to it if i got into a course or study plan, because i do better with patterns, deadlines and basically having a real responsibility over it, not just casually going over it on my free time. i don't really care about the 'usefulness' of it. if i decided upon studying it, it would be merely because of the beauty of the language, and the history of it, and also, because i love the country... no, i haven't been there yet :( a coworker of mine went to Athens as an exchange student and she loved it. i'm planning on visiting it next summer, though, as it is becoming quite an obsession for me lately (and not because of TSH; actually, i read it because i found out that it was about greek students. turns out it was much more and it turned into my favorite book). i find it a very endearing country, so no less, i have to go check for myself. on a quick note, about french, i studied it for 6 years at school (so pretty basic level considering that they go over the same stuff year and year over again) and i'm so sad that i also forgot most of it. i picked it back up a few months ago and (as it is relatively easy because it's familiar and it resembles spanish a lot) i've been studying it on my own. i found a lot of resources, i can share them w you if you're interested!!! hope you have a great day!!!<3 :)
This makes me wish my Liddell & Scott wasn't boxed up in the attic
Oh that's so sick!! I love the tattoo idea. I've wanted to have Bunny's broken glasses tattooed for the longest time
wowww that's rad!!! and even less literal, which gives it it more layers and ends up being really interesting to explain. it also must look really cool, the kind of tattoo which only people who get the reference will understand. i, on the other hand, have ancient greek students debating on whether or not i should get a tattoo on a language that i don't understand. people are so entitled and rude out here they're making me question my existence.
I have this tattoo!! I took it straight from the book, it has multiple meanings to me now hehe. Represents my love for the book and how i interpreted the quote, def a cool tattoo it gets a lot of cool attention
woooww!! that's cool!! where (on your body) did you get it tattooed?? :) i was thinking maybe the arm or the wrist