Astronomical terms

[Scott Berthiaume]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Rosemary G Beam de Azcona 
To: Scott Berthiaume 
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2002 8:39 PM
Subject: Re: Astronomical terms


In Coatlan-Loxicha Zapotec I have found the following (here I'm using 7 for glottal tone, ` for low tone, ^ for falling tone, ' for high tone, E for a lower-mid front vowel, zh for a voiced retroflex fricative, x for a voiceless retroflex fricative, ch for a voiceless retroflex affricate)

mbe7 'moon; month' (homophonous with 'butterfly')
wi`zh 'sun; day'
mbE^l 'star' (homophonous with 'fish')

The following are constellations or particular stars, which I don't always know the English gloss for, so here are the local Spanish glosses with the terms. SBL follows forms I collected in San Baltazar Loxicha, SMigC forms I collected from the San Miguel Coatlan dialect:

mbE^l flo'j 'lucero flojo; the morning star' (it's lazy since it comes out last) SBL
mbE^l zha7b 'estrella floja' SMigC zha7b means 'flojo'
mbE^l zi7l 'flojo; morning star' a SBL synonym for the above two terms. zi7l ta7 means 'early in the morning, madrugada'
mbE^l zi7l 'pescado grande' SMigC Although homophonous, this is actually a different constellation than the previous form. I think it's the big dipper from the way the conversation was going. Could have used some star maps obviously---next time. zi7l means 'big' 
mbE^l ga^t 'luciera siete' SMigC
mbE^l mbyE'zh 'lucero siete' SBL
mbE^l mzhi`n 'pescado cinco' SMigC (called 'pescado' as a joke in Spanish because of the homophony in Zapotec. This is a constellation with five stars, just as the previous one is a constellation with seven stars. m(b)zhi`n means 'deer'.)
mbE^l pe'rme'r ntyo7 'pescado que sale primero; Sirius' SMigC
mbE^l xo7p 'pescado seis; little dipper? (that's what I was describing at the time)' note 'six' has a tone difference: xo^p
mbE^l sche7 'soplador; (one of the dippers?)' SBL, my consultant noted "the old people talk of it" sche7 means 'dinner'

Rosemary




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/otomanguean-l/attachments/20021220/e9eed9e7/attachment.htm>