Fw: Aw: Re: Pictographic zodiacal symbols

[Erik Carvalhal Miller]

On Tue, Aug 13, 2024 at 5:47 PM Marius Spix via Unicode
<unicode at corp.unicode.org> wrote:
> 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.

Interesting, thank you for the information.  I am an American and an
Aquarius, and I am not used to seeing a lone amphora or similar
container representing that sign; ordinarily I would expect either the
symbol ⟨♒⟩ or a pictograph as I described, with a human figure pouring
water from some container.  Since childhood I have often wondered at
the name Water Bearer, since the depictions show a person better at
spilling water than bearing it!  The French name Verseau makes much
more sense: etymologically verse‐eau, “pours water”…

For kicks, I just did Google Images searches for “Aquarius zodiac”,
“Wassermann Tierkreis”, and “Verseau zodiaque” and looked at several
screensʼ worth of results for each.  All affirmed ⟨♒⟩ as common.  All
three showed the Water Spiller (ahem) imagery, but it was much less
common in the German results and most common in the English results.
Predictably, merfolk often showed up in the German results and hardly
figured in the English and French results.  Amphorae and similar
vessels sans bearer were an unmistakably recurrent presence in the
results for all three languages, more so than I would have expected
before this discussion; however, in contrast with the ⟨🏺⟩ glyphs I
have come across, the bearer‐less images mimicked the bearer images in
almost uniformly depicting water pouring or overflowing from the
vessels.  Not many tridents were seen; most of the tridents that did
show up were in the German results, and I think all the tridents were
in images that contained at least one of the other elements heretofore
described.  Of course, all three searches also yielded pictures of the
constellation, sometimes in association with the other imagery.

On the basis of the search results, I would still suggest that Water
Bearer imagery is a significant omission from the emoji/pictograph
zodiac repertoire, though much more significant for English and French
contexts than for German ones.  The bearer‐less amphora with water
flowing out is also an issue; one approach is to update glyphs for
U+1F3FA, and another is to juxtapose U+1F3FA with U+1F4A6 ⟨💦⟩
SPLASHING SWEAT SYMBOL (which seems appropriate enough for water),
possibly in a ZWJ sequence.  Merfolk emoji are already available (as
already noted), as is U+1F531 ⟨🔱⟩ TRIDENT EMBLEM.

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After I wrote that Sagittarius is traditionally a centaur archer, I
took another look at the image Andreas Stötzner provided; and I
realized that its archer looks quite human — and not like any Unicode
emoji.  However, U+1F3F9 ⟨🏹⟩ BOW AND ARROW still seems a good
substitute, if not quite the same thing.  I, uh, did not repeat the
Google Images experiment; my eyeballs need some rest…