It is interesting that it is not long ago that the term “tattoo” became widely spread in European languages, while body decorating being a very old tradition. Japan, for example, had a name for this art in the Middle Ages.
The term “tattoo” was adopted from the Polynesian language: Thaiti dialect has a word “tatau” that means “a picture”. The word came to Europe thanks to English famous traveller James Cook. He used it in his report about the world tour published in 1773. Before that time tattoo was considered to be a means of body decoration and had no particular name. The words that described it were associated with the techniques used or were adopted from different argots. The most interesting names of tattoo were as follows:
“Signum” and “stigma” have been known since the Ancient Rome literature, “stygmat” was used in the Bible published by Luther in 1534, “grafism” can be read at J. Casanova’s books, and many other examples can be mentioned: “hieroglif”, “stamp”, “brand”, “sign”. Besides, French “gravure” and “piguage” were widely spread till XVIII in the Western Europe. Mostly often the words “dotted” or “pictured”, or “punctured” were used. Dutch named the process of tattooing as “prikschildern” or “stechmalen” – drawing by puncturing. Englishmen said “punctures” or “punctuation”, Spanish –
“pintados”.
The word “tattoo” was not immediately adopted after Cook used it. At first it meant only the pictures and procedures made on Thaiti.
Currently the term “tattoo” is gradually spreading in many European countries, becoming adopted in many languages. In 1856 it was the first time included into medicine vocabulary. |
