Fw: Aw: Re: Pictographic zodiacal symbols

It really is a German folk etymology thing, that Aquarius is often depicted as a merman or trident in German-speaking publications, als both are translated as Wassermann. But the amphora is also often seen.

For Ophiuchus the Staff of Aesculapius can be sometimes seen and it is also accurate, because Aesculapius is the Greek equivalent of Ophiuchus.

Gesendet: Dienstag, 13. August 2024 um 23:31 Uhr

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

An: [email protected]

Cc: [email protected]

Betreff: 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.