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Venus
Venus
names 23languages 19
The names
vernacular 12 · folk 1 · tribal 6 · borrowed 4
| Name | Language | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| শুকতারা śukatārā (Śuktārā) | Bengali Bengal | 'Śukra-star' — a worn-down compound of Śukra (Venus) + tārā (star) Biswas glosses it 'the vesper', i.e. the EVENING star, although in ordinary Bengali speech শুকতারা is most often the MORNING star and সন্ধ্যাতারা the evening one. Praharaj, listing Bengali equivalents for his Odia headwords, prints শুকতারা against BOTH ପାହାନ୍ତି ତାରା (morning) and ପହରିକିଆ ତାରା (evening). The divergence is real and old; the underlying object is the same planet. | vernacular |
| Balangaru-ayah | Central Nicobarese (Camorta) Camorta, Nancowry group, Central Nicobars | — | tribal |
| Chowkidar | Chhattisgarhi the Baiga chak and the surrounding country — Mandla, Baihar, Kawardha, Dindori and Rewa, in what was then the Central Provinces | 'the watchman' At midnight the night-watchman; at dawn the cock-crow watchman. | tribal |
| सूक / سوک sūk (also suk) | Hindi Hindustani generally; the proverb marked Hin. (Hindu usage) by Fallon | vernacular reflex of Sanskrit Śukra A tadbhava, not a tatsama: Prakrit sukko > Hindi sūk, which also names Friday. Fallon attaches a working rule to it - nothing auspicious is begun while Venus is set (i.e. during its heliocentric conjunction), a piece of practical astrology still observed at weddings. | borrowed |
| ಬೆಳ್ಳಿ beḷḷi | Kannada Karnataka (Mysore, Canara, Deccan) | silver The everyday Kannada name for Venus is simply the word for silver. | vernacular |
| ಚುಕ್ಕಿ cukki | Kannada Karnataka (Mysore, Canara, Deccan) | A trap for the unwary: Kittel has two homographic headwords ಚುಕ್ಕಿ. The one meaning 'star/dot' is Dravidian; this one, meaning the planet Venus, is a tadbhava of Sanskrit Śukra. | borrowed |
| ಬೊಳ್ಳಿಳಾಚೆ boḷḷiáche | Kodava Kodagu (Coorg) | 'Venus-day' (boḷḷi + ಆಚೆ áche 'a day') The Kodava weekday name, in a list where Sunday and Monday are likewise built on native words for sun and moon while Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday are Sanskrit planet-names. | vernacular |
| വെള്ളി veḷḷi | Malayalam Kerala (Malabar, Cochin, Travancore) | 'silver' Simultaneously 'silver', 'Venus' and 'Friday' — the planet names the weekday, as in വെള്ളിയാഴ്ച Friday, which Gundert notes is the day 'when women & cows must not journey'. | vernacular |
| വെണ്മീന് veṇmīn | Malayalam Kerala (Malabar, Cochin, Travancore) | 'white star' (വെണ് white + മീന് star) | vernacular |
| चटकचांदणें caṭakacāndaṇēṃ | Marathi Maharashtra | brilliant moonlight | vernacular |
| Sukura and Sukurani; lagan ipilkiŋ, logon ipilkiŋ | Mundari Chota Nagpur plateau, Ranchi district, Jharkhand | Sukra and Sukrani; the two stars that fix the marriage date In the Hasada country and the Karra police subdivision their close conjunction is read by animists as a very favourable omen for marriages contracted in that month or year — the stars are said to be loving and kissing each other. Elsewhere in Nagpur they are unknown, as is the logon-tol ceremony itself. | borrowed |
| Sukar, Sukkar, Shukrar Channi, Padari Channi, Payatani Channi, Hagarya Tara, Jagin Tara | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | 'Shukra's star'; 'the waking star' Recorded in all fourteen villages, as were the sun and moon. The paper tables it as both morning and evening star under one set of names. | tribal |
| wautián dá tára | Punjabi Sialkot district, Punjab | '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 |
| Shepfu (A); Wachi ketsuwa (B); Ngaratsü (C) | Rengma Naga the Rengma country, Naga Hills (now Nagaland), and the Mikir Hills | The same star both as morning and as evening star, and believed to influence the crops. | tribal |
| Siyepu | Sema (Sumi) Naga the Sema country, Naga Hills (now Nagaland) | 'the Sema Star' Its identity as morning star with its appearance as evening star seems to be realised. | tribal |
| شُڪْرُ shukru | Sindhi Sind (Bombay Presidency); Mewaram's dictionary is not dialect-marked | — | borrowed |
| زُهْرَهَ zuhrah | Sindhi Sind (Bombay Presidency); Mewaram's dictionary is not dialect-marked | — | vernacular |
| வெள்ளி veḷḷi | Tamil Tamil Nadu | the white one, the silver one (from veṇ-mai 'whiteness') THE central Caṅkam sky-word. Venus quitting its proper station and moving to the southern quarter is the standard Tamil omen of drought and failed kingship; Puṟanāṉūṟu 35 makes the good king's land yield even so. | vernacular |
| வெண்மீன் veṇ-mīṉ | Tamil Tamil Nadu | white star The opening words of Paṭṭiṉappālai, and the same drought-omen as veḷḷi: 'even if the blameless-famed shining white star should turn from its quarter and go south'. | vernacular |
| చుక్కవాలు cukka-vālu | Telugu Telugu country (Madras Presidency: Coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema, Telangana) | Travel omen: a journey begun with this star facing you will go badly. | folk |
| Pili | Toda Nilgiri hills, Tamil Nadu | — | tribal |
| ಬೊಳ್ಳಿ boḷḷi | Tulu South Canara (Tulu Nadu) | 'silver' — from the Dravidian root *veḷ 'white' The ordinary Tulu word for a star; also 'silver', 'three annas' and 'a gray ox'. | vernacular |
| زهره zǒhra | Urdu Urdu, from Persian/Arabic | 'the shining one' The standard Urdu name of the planet, from the same root as the compliment zǒhra-rū, 'Venus-faced'. Its Persian doublet is nāhīd (Platts p. 1120, from Avestan Anāhitā), and the Persian poets' irreverent name for it, lūlī-i-falak, 'heaven's dancing-girl', is also in Platts (p. 970). | vernacular |
Sources
- Sailendra Biswas, Samsad Bengali-English Dictionary, 3rd ed., Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, 2000 (DSAL digital ed.), s.v. শুকতারা śukatārā, p. 950 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare, S.A. Awaradi and Kishore Menon, 'In situ studies of astronomy of the Nicobarese tribe of Nicobar Islands', Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology, 6, 1014-1039 (2018), Table 3, pp. 1026-1027 link
- Verrier Elwin, The Baiga (London: John Murray, 1939), p. 334 link
- S. W. Fallon, A New Hindustani-English Dictionary (Banaras/London, 1879), s.v. sūk, p. 794 link
- Kittel, F., A Kannaḍa-English Dictionary (orig. Mangalore: Basel Mission, 1894); cited from the revised and enlarged edition, [Madras] University of Madras, 1968-71, as keyed for DSAL, s.v. ಬೆಳ್ಳಿ beḷḷi, p. 1217 link
- Kittel, F., A Kannaḍa-English Dictionary (orig. Mangalore: Basel Mission, 1894); cited from the revised and enlarged edition, [Madras] University of Madras, 1968-71, as keyed for DSAL, s.v. ಚುಕ್ಕಿ cukki 2, p. 653 link
- Cole, An Elementary Grammar of the Coorg Language (Bangalore, 1867), 'Days', p. 136 link
- Gundert, A Malayalam and English Dictionary (1872), s.v. വെള്ളി veḷḷi, p. 987 link
- Gundert, A Malayalam and English Dictionary (1872), s.v. വെണ് veṇ, p. 981 link
- J. T. Molesworth, A Dictionary, Marathi and English, 2nd ed. rev. and enl. (Bombay: Bombay Education Society's Press, 1857), s.v. चटकचांदणें, p. 268 link
- Hoffmann, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, vol. VII, s.v. ipil, cols. 1919-1925 link
- Ganesh Halkare, Purushottam Dahedar, Wayne Orchiston and M.N. Vahia, 'Astronomy of the Pardhi tribe of central India', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 22(1), 179-194 (2019), Table 5, pp. 184-185 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
- J.P. Mills, The Rengma Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1937), p. 245 link
- J.H. Hutton, The Sema Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1921), p. 252 link
- Parmanand Mewaram, A Sindhi-English Dictionary (Hyderabad, Sind: The Sind Juvenile Co-operative Society, 1910), s.v. شُڪْرُ, p. 361 link
- Parmanand Mewaram, A Sindhi-English Dictionary (Hyderabad, Sind: The Sind Juvenile Co-operative Society, 1910), s.v. زُهْرَهَ, p. 301 link
- Puṟanāṉūṟu 35, ll. 6-7 (by Veḷḷaikkuṭi Nākaṉār, on Cōḻaṉ Kuḷamuṟṟattut Tuñciya Kiḷḷivaḷavaṉ); Project Madurai e-text PM 0057 link
- Paṭṭiṉappālai ll. 1-2 (by Kaṭiyalūr Uruttiraṅkaṇṇaṉār); Project Madurai e-text PM 0077 link
- Brown, C. P., A Telugu-English Dictionary, new ed., thoroughly revised and brought up to date (Madras: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1903), s.v. చుక్క ṭsukka, p. 449 link
- Rivers, The Todas (1906), p. 593 link
- Männer, Tuḷu–English Dictionary (Mangalore, Basel Mission Press, 1886), s.v. ಬೊಳ್ಳಿ boḷḷi, p. 502 link
- John T. Platts, A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English (London, 1884), s.v. zǒhra, p. 619 link