Pictographic zodiacal symbols

[Erik Carvalhal Miller]

Ophiuchus is Latin — or Latinized, anyway; the Greek word
(transliterated) ends in ‐os.  But youʼre right:  If youʼre going to
go with Latin, why not do so whole hog (or whole snake, as it were)?


On Tue, Aug 13, 2024 at 11:20 AM Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode
<unicode at corp.unicode.org> wrote:
>
> On 8/13/24 11:06, Erik Carvalhal Miller via Unicode wrote:
>
> But the Latin word Aquarius means “water carrier” — however in English
> usually explained as “Water Bearer” —
>
> I've always wondered, then, why the "thirteenth zodiac sign" is Ophiucus and not Serpentarius.  All the other zodiac signs are named in Latin, why this one in Greek?  I did once actually find, in a deck of cards showing the constellations, that constellation labeled "Ophiucus or Serpentarius", but really nowhere else.
>
> ~mark