<html><head></head><body><div style="font-family: Verdana;font-size: 12.0px;"><div>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:</div>
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<div><b>Gesendet:</b> Montag, 12. August 2024 um 12:23 Uhr<br/>
<b>Von:</b> "Marius Spix" <marius.spix@web.de><br/>
<b>An:</b> harjitmoe@outlook.com<br/>
<b>Cc:</b> unicode-bounces@corp.unicode.org<br/>
<b>Betreff:</b> Aw: Re: Re: Pictographic zodiacal symbols</div>
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<div>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).</div>
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<div>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)</div>
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<div style="margin: 0 0 10.0px 0;"><b>Gesendet:</b> Dienstag, 13. August 2024 um 17:06 Uhr<br/>
<b>Von:</b> "Erik Carvalhal Miller via Unicode" <unicode@corp.unicode.org><br/>
<b>An:</b> "Mark E. Shoulson" <mark@kli.org><br/>
<b>Cc:</b> unicode@corp.unicode.org<br/>
<b>Betreff:</b> Re: Pictographic zodiacal symbols</div>
<div>On Mon, Aug 12, 2024 at 10:54 PM Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode<br/>
<unicode@corp.unicode.org> wrote:<br/>
><br/>
> 🪣<br/>
><br/>
> (from what I can see in Hebrew poetry etc, aquarius is translated as<br/>
> דלי, "bucket.)<br/>
<br/>
Indeed, one of the pages Harriet Riddle linked to<br/>
(<a href="https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/tr51-3-archive.html#Faces_Hands_Zodiac" target="_blank">https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/tr51-3-archive.html#Faces_Hands_Zodiac</a>)<br/>
contains a listing for U+1F3FA ⟨🏺⟩ AMPHORA, explicitly described as a<br/>
representation of Aquarius; like a bucket, an amphora is a suitable<br/>
container for water. (The font Iʼm seeing shows the amphora bearing a<br/>
design that could be said to be a squarish depiction of waves of<br/>
water; to evoke the astrological connection, the glyph would have been<br/>
better served by replacing that design by something resembling U+2652<br/>
⟨♒⟩ AQUARIUS…alas.) Marius Spixʼs merman may seem linguistically<br/>
appropriate in German, where the word Wassermann (“water man”) can<br/>
mean both “merman” and “Aquarius”.<br/>
<br/>
But the Latin word Aquarius means “water carrier” — however in English<br/>
usually explained as “Water Bearer” — and the classical depiction is<br/>
much as in the image in Andreas Stötznerʼs message: a human figure<br/>
(generally male, in accordance with the Latin ‑us suffix and, I<br/>
presume, with the gender roles of antiquity — though depictions need<br/>
not be exclusively male) pouring water from a fair‐sized vessel, such<br/>
as an amphora or a sack, evidently onto the ground or into more water.<br/>
The constellation Aquarius is said to depict the water bearer pouring<br/>
the water into the river constellation Eridanus.<br/>
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I suppose that for some, the amphora emoji works as a representation<br/>
of Aquarius; but I feel that in excluding the human figure — the<br/>
aquarius himself — and the action of pouring, the emoji misses the<br/>
point. I suppose one could fake it with a sequence such as ⟨👨🏺🫗⟩;<br/>
but even as a fallback for a ZWJ sequence, that seems pathetic.<br/>
<br/>
Some of the other suggestions in Mariusʼ inspired list are also a mite<br/>
suspicious. As the Zodiacʼs Gemini are traditionally associated with<br/>
the brothers Castor and Pollux, ⟨👬⟩ would seem a better choice,<br/>
though I suppose ⟨👫⟩ and ⟨👭⟩ could be serviceable alternates. ⟨🏹⟩<br/>
is a pretty good attempt at Sagittarius (also on the aforementioned<br/>
page) — but itʼs missing the archer (the very meaning of the Latin<br/>
word sagittarius)! Traditionally that archer is a centaur; a ZWJ<br/>
sequence of centaur + bow & arrow could work, but I see that a centaur<br/>
emoji proposal was declined a couple of years ago. (Iʼm not aware<br/>
that thereʼs been a proposal for a centaur Archer specifically…) And<br/>
the WOMAN emoji, often manifested as a head shot, seems a little too<br/>
generic for the nubile and sometimes winged female figure usually<br/>
associated with Virgo. ⟨👩🪽⟩, perhaps? But Aquarius seems to fare<br/>
the worst when it comes to encoded pictographs.<br/>
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