Re: Translation exercise: Li Bai's "Drinking alone under the moon"

Christian Thalmann wrote:
>Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 22:47:12 +0200
>
>--- In conlang@y..., Andreas Johansson <and_yo@H...> wrote:
> > Hm, no Tairezan name of the Milky Way as yet. A'course, to them the
>Galaxy
> > is in many ways much like the Earth is to us, and it would probably
>strike
> > them as odd to have a special name for the apparent band of light across
>the
> > sky.
>
>I don't quite understand what that second sentence is trying to say...
>Especially since we do have special names for the Earth (Earth, the
>World, Terra...) and it doesn't strike us as odd.  =P
In my experience, the designation "the Milky Way" is mainly used when
refering to the apparent band of light across the sky by our being situated
deep into the galaxy, whereas the term "the Galaxy" or "our galaxy" tends to
be employed when talking about the thing as an astropysical object. In
Swedish the convention is _vintergatan_ (with lower-case "v") when refering
to it as a feature of the apparent celestial sphere and _Vintergatan_ (with
capital "V") when refering to it as an astrophysical object. Just as we
don't generally use different terms for the Earth as a geophysical object
and as it happens to look from a certain spot on it, the Tairezans wouldn't
feel much need for the different designations for the Galaxy in different
contexts as per above. Undoubtedly, they do have at least one word for the
thing!

                                             Andreas

PS _Vintergatan_, regardless of the size of the first letter, means "the
winter street". Perhaps feed for some conlang's designation?

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