It's
Tengwar, one of the scripts invented by J.R.R. Tolkien. The values of these characters varied according to which language they represented. (There are various different adaptations of it to writing English, for instance.) The first character, for instance, can be read /ŋ/ (like the
ng in
sing), /ɲ/ (like the
ñ in a
ño), or /n/. The second is a nonstandard way of writing /eː/ (normally you wouldn't use the stem and the vowel point would be doubled and placed over the preceding consonant), which--if the language depicted is meant to be English--might be pronounced [iː]. And the third character is /l/.
Given that there is no word *ngél, *nél, or *ñél in the extant corpus for Quenya and Sindarin, my best guess is that this meant to be read */niːl/, which would be a phonetic rendering of the personal name
Neil/
Neal. That seems plausible for a tattoo (which this is) in any case.
ETA: Looks like Linguaphile and I were composing our posts at the same time and both independently arrived at the same conclusion!
Linguaphile wrote:So, it is not really an ancient language, but rather an artificial language designed to look like one. I'm not sure what it says (possibly it is the name Neal?).
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons