Aw: Re: Pictographic zodiacal symbols

Yes, I also noted the error with the merman instead of the amphora, but sent it to the bounces mailbox by mistake. Here is my original message:

Gesendet: Montag, 12. August 2024 um 12:23 Uhr

Von: "Marius Spix" <[email protected]>

An: [email protected]

Cc: [email protected]

Betreff: Aw: Re: Re: Pictographic zodiacal symbols

Thank you for this information. The character I provided for Aquarius was not correct, it should be 🏺 (U+1F3FA AMPHORA) instead of 🧜‍♂️ (U+01F9DC MERPERSON + U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER + U+2642 MALE SIGN + U+FE0F VARIATION SELECTOR-16).

I know that not all characters are accurate, but it should be sufficient to depict zodiac signs. Ophiuchus could be represented with ⚕ (U+2695 STAFF OF AESCULAPIUS)

Gesendet: Dienstag, 13. August 2024 um 17:06 Uhr

Von: "Erik Carvalhal Miller via Unicode" <[email protected]>

An: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>

Cc: [email protected]

Betreff: Re: Pictographic zodiacal symbols

On Mon, Aug 12, 2024 at 10:54 PM Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode

<[email protected]> wrote:

>

> 🪣

>

> (from what I can see in Hebrew poetry etc, aquarius is translated as

> דלי, "bucket.)

Indeed, one of the pages Harriet Riddle linked to

( https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/tr51-3-archive.html#Faces_Hands_Zodiac )

contains a listing for U+1F3FA ⟨🏺⟩ AMPHORA, explicitly described as a

representation of Aquarius; like a bucket, an amphora is a suitable

container for water. (The font Iʼm seeing shows the amphora bearing a

design that could be said to be a squarish depiction of waves of

water; to evoke the astrological connection, the glyph would have been

better served by replacing that design by something resembling U+2652

⟨♒⟩ AQUARIUS…alas.) Marius Spixʼs merman may seem linguistically

appropriate in German, where the word Wassermann (“water man”) can

mean both “merman” and “Aquarius”.

But the Latin word Aquarius means “water carrier” — however in English

usually explained as “Water Bearer” — and the classical depiction is

much as in the image in Andreas Stötznerʼs message: a human figure

(generally male, in accordance with the Latin ‑us suffix and, I

presume, with the gender roles of antiquity — though depictions need

not be exclusively male) pouring water from a fair‐sized vessel, such

as an amphora or a sack, evidently onto the ground or into more water.

The constellation Aquarius is said to depict the water bearer pouring

the water into the river constellation Eridanus.

I suppose that for some, the amphora emoji works as a representation

of Aquarius; but I feel that in excluding the human figure — the

aquarius himself — and the action of pouring, the emoji misses the

point. I suppose one could fake it with a sequence such as ⟨👨🏺🫗⟩;

but even as a fallback for a ZWJ sequence, that seems pathetic.

Some of the other suggestions in Mariusʼ inspired list are also a mite

suspicious. As the Zodiacʼs Gemini are traditionally associated with

the brothers Castor and Pollux, ⟨👬⟩ would seem a better choice,

though I suppose ⟨👫⟩ and ⟨👭⟩ could be serviceable alternates. ⟨🏹⟩

is a pretty good attempt at Sagittarius (also on the aforementioned

page) — but itʼs missing the archer (the very meaning of the Latin

word sagittarius)! Traditionally that archer is a centaur; a ZWJ

sequence of centaur + bow & arrow could work, but I see that a centaur

emoji proposal was declined a couple of years ago. (Iʼm not aware

that thereʼs been a proposal for a centaur Archer specifically…) And

the WOMAN emoji, often manifested as a head shot, seems a little too

generic for the nubile and sometimes winged female figure usually

associated with Virgo. ⟨👩🪽⟩, perhaps? But Aquarius seems to fare

the worst when it comes to encoded pictographs.