Punjabi
names 12objects 9ISO 639-3 pan
Spoken in Jhang District and Multan, western Punjab, Jhang District, western Punjab, Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan (Multani/Saraiki); Jhang District, Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan (Multani/Saraiki, western Punjab), Punjab, Punjab (contributed from Ambala by Chaina Mall), Punjab (contributed from Kasur by Ghulam Hussain Khan), Sialkot district, Punjab.
vernacular 2 · folk 6 · borrowed 4
See the Punjabi sky on the chart →
The sky in Punjabi
| Name | Object | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| puchhalwālā tārā / dumdār sitārā | Comets | 'the tailed star' (Indic and Perso-Arabic versions of the same phrase) Both layers side by side in one sentence, with an attached practice: on the appearance of a comet subscriptions were raised and Brahmans and mendicants fed, because a comet foretold epidemic or famine. | folk |
| traṅgar | Orion | 'the wide-meshed pack-net' The same net-word applied to a second star-group. Which part of Orion is meant is not specified beyond 'the upper part', so the identification is deliberately loose here. | folk |
| ਰੋਹਣੀ rohṉí | The Hyades | 'the red one' (Sanskrit rohiṇī) Attached to a Punjabi weather proverb, which is what makes it more than a transliteration: the brighter Rohṇī shows on the eleventh of the dark half of Sāwan, the better the harvest. | borrowed |
| Berā dā Ghās | The Milky Way | 'the boat's track/fodder' - glossed by the contributor as 'The Path of (Noah's) Boat' A Muslim-inflected version of the straw image: the Ark is dragged across the sky and leaves a wake. beṛā is the ordinary Punjabi word for a raft or boat; ghās, 'grass/fodder', keeps the Persian straw connection alive under a Qur'anic story. | folk |
| ਕਿਰ੍ਹਕਟੀ kirhkaṭí | The Pleiades | A strongly Punjabised reflex of Kṛttikā. The dictionary's second sense - a jewel in a nose-ring - repeats exactly the double life of Hindi jhumkā (ear-drop / star-cluster) and of bhalkā (morning star / gold star on a nose-ring): the same ornament vocabulary is used for both the sky and the face. | borrowed |
| ਮੱਘਾ magghá | The lunar mansions as a system | Punjabi phonology on the Sanskrit name, with the gemination characteristic of the language. Maya Singh's first sense - a small earthen water-and-buttermilk pot - is a homonym, and shows the star name sitting inside ordinary domestic vocabulary. | borrowed |
| ਨਛੱਤ੍ nachhattar | The lunar mansions as a system | Punjabi reflex of Sanskrit nakṣatra Maya Singh prints the complete list of the twenty-seven (twenty-eight with Abhijit) under this headword in their Sanskrit forms, and notes that the Punjabi month names Māgh, Phaggun, Chet, Vaisākh, Jeth, Hār, Sāwan, Bhādroṅ, Assū, Kattak, Magar and Poh are derived from them. This is the entry that licenses the statement that Punjabi simply takes over the Sanskrit twenty-seven. | borrowed |
| haftwarang | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | 'the seven ...' (Persian, from Avestan haptōiringa) The Iranian name of the Bear, reported in the Panjab beside the Arabic ones; Dames follows Max Müller in equating it etymologically with Sanskrit saptarṣi. | vernacular |
| palang-pāwe | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | 'the legs of the bedstead' The Punjabi version cuts the asterism in two and names the halves separately - the four bowl stars as the four legs of a charpoy, the three handle stars as a net. Dames notes the identical Balochi usage khaṭ-phāḍhagh, 'the legs of the bedstead'. | folk |
| traṅgar (traṅgaṛ) | Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) | 'a wide-meshed net for carrying straw or fodder on pack animals' A working object of the western Punjab plains - the loose net slung over a camel or donkey to carry straw - read into the sky. O'Brien makes it the whole Bear; Dames restricts it to the three handle stars and adds that the same word names the upper part of Orion, so it is a shape-word, not a fixed constellation name. | folk |
| wautián dá tára | Venus | 'the wives' star' A newly married bride does not travel between her father's house and her husband's while this star is set, or while it stands on her right hand; she prefers to go when it is up and on her left. To reach the other house when it is set or on her right she must start while it is up and on her left, and spend a night outside the village on the way. Rose gives the name as arising from that practice: it is called the wives' star because wives spend nights outside villages on its account. | vernacular |
| Tapt Tārā | Venus as morning star | glossed by the contributor as 'the Galloping Star' Named for motion: Venus visibly shifts against the stars faster than any other bright object, and the name records the observation. | folk |
Sources
- Chaina Mall, 'Panjab - Comets', Indian Notes and Queries, vol. IV (1886-87), note 424 link
- M. Longworth Dames, 'Names for the Great Bear', Panjab Notes and Queries, vol. II (Feb. 1885), note 522, p. 84 link
- Bhai Maya Singh, The Panjabi Dictionary (Lahore, 1895), s.v. rohṉí, p. 971 link
- A. Jukes, 'Name for the Milky Way', Panjab Notes and Queries, vol. II (Aug. 1885), note 1027, p. 194 link
- Bhai Maya Singh, The Panjabi Dictionary (Lahore, 1895), s.v. kirhkaṭí, p. 617 link
- Bhai Maya Singh, The Panjabi Dictionary (Lahore, 1895), s.v. magghá, p. 695 link
- Bhai Maya Singh, The Panjabi Dictionary (Lahore, 1895), s.v. nachhattar, p. 786 link
- E. O'Brien, Glossary of the Multani Language compared with Punjábi and Sindhi (Lahore, 1881), s.v. trangar, p. 62 link
- H.A. Rose, A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, vol. I (Lahore: Superintendent, Government Printing, 1919), p. 128 link
- Ghulam Hussain Khan, 'Panjab - Name for Venus - The Morning Star', Indian Notes and Queries, vol. IV (1886-87), note 363 link