Re: irregularities

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christophe Grandsire" <christophe.grandsire@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 1:35 PM
Subject: Re: Irregularities

It's not the North and South skies I had the problem with - it was the division of
the Earth into clearly defined N and S halves with that division made
culturally through the medium of language. Although the original article talked
about the two skies (no problem!) there was a closing aside which queried one's
ability to see the Southern half of the Earth from any point other than the
equator. It was the thought behind that which struck me as strange.
 As an astronomer myself, I can appreciate the transition from day sky to night
sky in a physical sense, but 'culturally' they are different. Stars, and to
some extent the Moon, 'belong' to the night sky (even today, some people think
you can't see the Moon at daytime because it 'belongs' to the night. I know it
sounds mad, but believe me, I speak from experence!)


> 
> I don't see what's to understand about it! This culture sees the sky into two
> parts: a "North sky" and a "South sky". Why they do so may have nothing to do
> with what they see or not. It may have mythological reasons, or other reasons
> that we don't know. I don't understand how one could think of the "day sky" and
> the "night sky" as two different skies, since the passage from one to another
> is slow and can be seen  (stars appear in the sky well before the sky is really
> dark). Yet it's well accepted, through reconstruction evidence (and quite
> strong for those two words) and maybe other evidence, that the Proto-Indo-
> European people thought there was two skies turning around the planet, one for
> the day and one for the night. The fact that there is no actual frontier
> between the two doesn't change anything.
> 
> Christophe.
> 
> http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
> 
> Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role. 

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