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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Star name change
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2005 Mar 30, 16:37 +1000
From: Peter Fogg
Date: 2005 Mar 30, 16:37 +1000
While the sources quoted seem to agree Benetnasch and Alkaid are both contractions of the same Arabic phrase, its not immediately obvious. I think the article (the) is 'al' in Arabic, so Alkaid is a contraction of 'al Ka'id' ('the mourner', or something similar) and Benetnasch seems to be a contraction of the extended phrase '(al Ka'id) Banat al Na'ash', and you can choose from a few, not so different, translations of that. > -----Original Message----- > From: Navigation Mailing List [mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM] > On Behalf Of Zvi Doron > Sent: Wednesday, 30 March 2005 3:44 PM > To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM > Subject: Star name change > > WWII texts refer to the trailing star of the big dipper as Benetnasch, > whilst present day texts call it Alkaid. As star names have been around > for > many hundreds of years, I wondered who changed the name of this star, when > and why?