Comment on Bears or no bears?
bstix@feddit.dk 2 weeks agoSome constellations, including the Great Bear, were named long before our languages even existed.
Etymology wise we might say it comes from ancient Greek, but it’s also called Great Bear in languages that have no origin in Greek.
I’m going out on a limb here, but I believe the Great Bear is actually named after a great bear.
Not all cultures though. In Brazil, the Big Dipper is also known as “large anus of the snake”.
i don’t think names in other languages is great evidence, because they could just have adopted the same name regardless, since they presumably adopted the greek constellations as well.
Most cultures used to have their own almost entirely different constellations, the only stuff i think has some overlap is the really obvious simple ones like the southern cross.
The thing is that native American didn’t get the name from Greek, yet, it is still reference to a bear.
which cultures are we talking about here? i kinda don’t feel like going through every single set of native american constellations looking for ones that are bears…
trolololol@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Essa eu não sabia. Isso vem de alguma língua indígena?
bstix@feddit.dk 2 weeks ago
“not all cultures in the southern hemisphere named it because it is always either close to the horizon or invisible. For instance, the Brazilian Tucano people called it the Large Anus of the Snake and in Samoa it forms part of the Heirloom Warclub.”
trolololol@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucano_people
That explains why I’ve never heard of them as a Brazilian. That area is so far removed from most of Brazilian cities!