[tlhIngan Hol] moon ph(r)ases, new adverbial {loQHa'}
SuStel
sustel at trimboli.name
Sat May 28 18:58:34 PDT 2022
On 5/28/2022 9:25 PM, De'vID wrote:
> The lunar phases were not all named at once, but at different points
> in history.
The English terms /full moon/ and /new moon/ go way back, to Old English
and perhaps beyond. The others began to be used in English in about the
15th century.
> Then the "crescent moon" is named for its shape (but whether it's a
> "sickle" [Sichel in German] or an "eyebrow" [眉 in Chinese] or
> something else is arbitrary).
The word /crescent/ being used here isn't arbitrary. It comes from Latin
/luna crescens,/ where it meant "waxing moon." The Latin word that
became /crescent/ originally meant to get bigger (compare /crescendo/),
to wax. Linking the word /crescent/ to a shape came later because it was
being used of the moon. So the term /crescent moon/ doesn't come from
its shape; the name of the shape comes from the waxing moon.
All of these terms have histories and reasons for being the way they
are. Having diverse sources isn't arbitrariness.
--
SuStel
http://trimboli.name
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.kli.org/pipermail/tlhingan-hol-kli.org/attachments/20220528/43e2b960/attachment-0015.htm>
More information about the tlhIngan-Hol
mailing list