Pronunciation - Star Names, etc.
Charon
Really basic start. I am a keen skywatcher, but have only recently
begun to learn the names of stars in using the method of "star-
hopping" to get to different areas. If I talk about my hobby I'd like
to know that I'm pronouncing the names correctly. Are there any
website addresses for good (free) info on this?
canopus56
Earth & Sky has an online pronunication guide with audio files:
http://www.earthsky.org/article/star-pronunciation-guide
A number of the entries, for example the first one Achernar, seem to
have a broken link bugs. Hitting the play button seems to do nothing
on my machine. (The page is something like four years old by now.)
But most of the hard ones - like "Auriga", "Saiph" and "Algieba" -
play fine. It's still a useful resource.
Happy listening. Can you say "zubenelgenubi zubeneschamali" forwards
or backwards, really fast, five times in a row?
- Canopus56
canopus56
> On Jan 9, 2:15 am, Charon <hemij...@wirelessza.co.za> wrote:
Here's a few more links:
Merriam-Websters Online Dictionary with audio files
(Type in star or constellation name. The speaker icon launches the
audio file)
http://www.m-w.com/home.htm
Astronomical League hardcopy pronunciation guide
http://www.astroleague.org/al/astrnote/astnot07.html
http://www.astroleague.org/al/astrnote/astnot14.html
- Canopus56
tony_f...@yahoo.com
I wrote a pronunciation guide for the constellations for the Sky &
Telescope website. You can find it at http://www.skyandtelescope.com/howto/Constellation_Names.html
I keep planning to tackle star names, but that's a much tougher nut.
You should be aware of the following facts:
1. The only star names that are in really widespread use are the ones
for the first-magnitude stars plus a few special cases: Achernar,
Aldebaran, Altair, Antares, Arcturus, Betelgeuse, Canopus, Capella,
Castor, Deneb, Fomalhaut, Polaris, Pollux, Procyon, Regulus, Rigel,
Sirius, Spica, and Vega.
2. There's also a second tier of star names that are used moderately
frequently, such as: Albireo, Alcor, Alcyone, Algol, Almach, Alphard,
Alpheratz, Bellatrix, Denebola, Elnath, Enif, Izar, Kochab, Merope,
Mira, Mirach, Mirfak, Mizar, and Vindemiatrix.
3. The remaining several hundred star names that can be found in
comprehensive lists are used rarely or never. If you talk about
Eltanin (a.k.a Etamin, Etanin, Ettanin, Rastaban, and Rasaben) among a
bunch of stargazers, you're marking yourself out as a newbie. The name
that 99 out of 100 people would use -- and I'd argue, the star's
*real* name -- is Gamma Draconis.
4. Because most star names are never used in conversation, they don't
really have a correct pronunciation. Even star names that are in very
common use, such as Vega and Betelgeuse, are pronounced in several
different ways by people who are deeply steeped in astronomy.
Sam Wormley
Davoud
> I wrote a pronunciation guide for the constellations for the Sky &
> Telescope website. You can find it at
> http://www.skyandtelescope.com/howto/Constellation_Names.html
> I keep planning to tackle star names, but that's a much tougher nut.
> You should be aware of the following facts:
> 1. The only star names that are in really widespread use are the ones
> for the first-magnitude stars plus a few special cases: Achernar,
> Aldebaran, Altair, Antares, Arcturus, Betelgeuse, Canopus, Capella,
> Castor, Deneb, Fomalhaut, Polaris, Pollux, Procyon, Regulus, Rigel,
> Sirius, Spica, and Vega.
And then you have to decide if you want to learn Arabic and Greek to
try to approximate the native pronunciations, or stick with the
transliterated versions. ad-dabaran, at-ta-er, yed al-jawz, fimm
al-haut, rijl... I guess I don't see that happening; your average
stargazer isn't going to devote the 20 years or so of full-time study
that it takes to get pretty good at Arabic!
> 2. There's also a second tier of star names that are used moderately
> frequently, such as: Albireo, Alcor, Alcyone, Algol, Almach, Alphard,
> Alpheratz, Bellatrix, Denebola, Elnath, Enif, Izar, Kochab, Merope,
> Mira, Mirach, Mirfak, Mizar, and Vindemiatrix.
I'm guessing that stargazers who don't know Arabic still know that al,
el, ul, and il all mean "the." Thus, Algol: The Ghoul. Our word "ghoul"
comes from Arabic, with the "gh" representing a guttural sound that
does not exist in English.
I should take time to research "Kochab" (which means "star") because,
while the Arabic and Hebrew names of this star are cognates, "Kochab"
is a transliteration of the Hebrew name, and I can't think of any other
stars with Hebrew names offhand. The use of "ch" to represent that
particular guttural is problematic in the transliteration of many
languages because we naturally expect it to be pronounced like the ch
in "chew" or the sh in "shoe" or even like the k in "king," and none of
those are close to the real pronunciation. And that's a "v" sound on
the end (V and B being the same letter in Hebrew.) IMO this name would
be better transliterated from Hebrew as "Khohav. The Arabic would be
written something like Kaukab and pronounced something like "cow cub."
> 3. The remaining several hundred star names that can be found in
> comprehensive lists are used rarely or never. If you talk about
> Eltanin (a.k.a Etamin, Etanin, Ettanin, Rastaban, and Rasaben) among a
> bunch of stargazers, you're marking yourself out as a newbie. The name
> that 99 out of 100 people would use -- and I'd argue, the star's
> *real* name -- is Gamma Draconis.
I can't help but be amused when one arbitrary name is chosen over
another as the "real" one. Your example is great, because I heard a
public lecture in which an astrophysicist referred to this star as
"at-tanin," which I /think/ is pretty close to the Arabic. Then he
added that "astronomers generally call it Gamma Draconis according to
/their/ naming system, but I still call it 'at-tanin' and they seem to
understand me."
Davoud
--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com
Curtis Croulet
in Autostar -- don't they?
--
Curtis Croulet
Temecula, California
33°27'59"N, 117°05'53"W.
canopus56
> I wrote a pronunciation guide for the constellations for the Sky &
> Telescope website. You can find it athttp://www.skyandtelescope.com/howto/Constellation_Names.html
In the S&T article, Tony wrote: " not a single editor pronounces
Pisces as piss-ease,"
LOL. Great article, Tony. Just want to encourage you to add audio
file links to your table for the phoenetic-dictionary-entry challenged
amongst us. - Canopus56
canopus56
wrote:
> But I think some of these lesser-known star names show up as alignment stars
> in Autostar -- don't they?
Yep, you got it. That's exactly what forces me to learn the arcane
proper names. The Meade hand-controller alignment star list in
practice is pretty light weight, but when you get in the Celestron or
Skywatcher-Synta handcontroller, then you are looking at having to
know 30 or so out of 120 proper names in order to align your scope,
including Albireo, Alcor, Alcyone, Algol, Almach, Alphard, Alpheratz,
Bellatrix, Denebola, Elnath, Enif, Izar, Kochab, Merope, Mira, Mirach,
Mirfak, Mizar,, Vindemiatrix, Eltanin, Rastaban, and Rasaben.
Yikes! - Canopus56
tony_f...@yahoo.com
> And then you have to decide if you want to learn
> Arabic and Greek to try to approximate the native
> pronunciations, or stick with the
> transliterated versions.
Most of the star names are so far corrupted from the Arabic originals
that this is a pointless exercise. Yes, you could manage with
Aldebaran, but who would understand Betelgeuse?
> I should take time to research "Kochab" (which means "star")
You need "A Dictionary of Modern Star Names", by Paul Kunitzsch and
Tim Short. We (S&T) have reprinted it; see
http://shopatsky.com/prodinfo.asp?number=59449
If you're really enthusiastic, try to find a library that has
Kuntizsch's more comprehensive work "Arabasiche Sternnamen in
Europa" (not translated into English).
Here's what Kunitzsch says about Kochab:
Applied to Beta UMi in Renaissance times, and of uncertain derivation.
It is probably from one of the names Alrucaba, Rucaba, etc. that were
first applied to Theta UMa, then to Alpha UMi in medieval times.
However, the name may also be from the Arabic word kaukab or the
Hebrew word kokhabh, both of them meaning "star."
> I can't help but be amused when one arbitrary name is
> chosen over another as the "real" one.
All names -- in fact, all words -- are arbitrary. What makes them
useful is consensus. Call it real or not to your taste, but if one
name is universally recognized and used 90% of the time, while another
name is recognized only by a few and used less than 10% of the time,
there's a lot to be said for using the former.
Of course, names also have ideological connotations. (Consider, for
instance, the West Bank vs. Judaea and Samaria, or Myanmar vs. Burma.)
When a professional astronomer calls a star Ettannin rather than Gamma
Draconis, he's making a statement. That's fine by me -- as long as you
don't expect me to agree with that statement.
tony_f...@yahoo.com
Thanks, I had a lot of fun writing it.
> Just want to encourage you to add audio
> file links ...
Click on the transliterations; they're hyperlinked to .mp3 files.
- Tony