Talk:Astrological symbols

This page was split from the above article to facilitate increased focus on astrological symbols while the other page increases focus on astronomical symbols, which, while they often overlap, also have much that is incompatible for a single article. This article obviously needs some text at the top. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 19:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

...Should Pluto be an astrological planet still? Adam Cuerden ^talk 20:24, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Some astrologists even have "planets" like Chiron and Dark Moon Lilith… astrology has little in common with the real solar system. I doubt Pluto will be dropped as an astrological "planet" any time soon. -- Jordi·✆ 20:51, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Chiron is a physical object in the real solar system, and Lilith is the Moon's apogee - both of which have a whole lot to do with the real solar system. 67.158.77.171 23:13, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Astrological effects of Pluto in charts and in transit are so overhelming (as strong as those of Jupiter and Saturn) there is no chance that astrologers will ever drop it. GrzegorzWu 08:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I am quite certain astrology also uses a different symbol for Capricorn, resembling an ezh Ʒ with a circle below it: [1]. Can anyone check an astrology book and confirm? -- Jordi·✆ 21:10, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that astronomers do not really use the zodiac symbols much or even at all. However, I have seen different symbols for Capricorn and Pluto (not the PL one) in Astrology Books (and websites). I think alternate symbols are merely regional differences, for astrology software often advertises that one can pick which particular glyph you want for something. JamesFox 01:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes Capricorn has two glyphs/symbols. Cannot find the other one to insert here, though. I just found the others for both Pluto and Uranus, though. The differences between these Western glyphs/symbols are mostly European vs. American. --172.162.2.177 04:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, there are two Capricorn glyphs. One looks like a VS, and the other looks like a 76.

I always assumed that the VS was a stylised picture of the head and tail of a sea-goat. The V would be the goat's head (compare to the Aries glyph, which is a ram's head), and the loop would be its looped tail. (The sea-goat has a looped fish tail.) The 76 glyph simplifies the head, but keeps the looped tail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.226.53.163 (talk) 05:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Being as the others are clearly annotated it would be for the sake of completion that someone might draw the alternate Capricorn glyph to bestride the extant one. If just for keeping with the thoroughgoing totality which Wikipedia is known for on such issues. Especially such a culturally pervasively recognized instance as a zodiac symbol (or be it, its alternate form.) 67.171.248.22 (talk) 01:01, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, the alternate Capricorn glyph is now included.

Note that in the table in Astrological symbols#Unicode_encodings, I've assigned both variants of the Capricorn symbol to U+2651. This was intentional. The Unicode encodes characters, not glyphs (The Unicode Standard 5.2, pp. 11-12). While the example glyph in the Unicode standard looks like , some fonts, such as FreeSerif, use the glyph. It's possible that the Unicode Consortium might disunify the two glyphs in the future, as they did in Unicode 6.0 with the Uranus character by creating U+26E2 ASTRONOMICAL SYMBOL FOR URANUS. Until and unless that happens, I'm leaning toward associating both Capricorn glyphs with U+2651. 198.189.162.204 (talk) 01:03, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

A late comment, unlike Uranus, which are two unrelated symbols, Capricorn is merely graphic variation of the same symbol. You can see that in some manuscripts, which have a form intermediate between the two mentioned here. Other zodiac signs have similar variation (e.g. Virgo with a single hump and Scorpio with three, vs the two that are found in most typefaces today), but they haven't been semi-standardized in Europe vs America the way Capricorn seems to. — kwami (talk) 10:08, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

What about the '♇' glyph for Pluto? It's in Unicode, and I have personally seen it in astrological literature. I can't say the same about the image currently used. Should both glyphs be represented?Ridan 06:45, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm at a loss as to where the other glyph came from, in fact. I've never seen it outside of Wikipedia; I assume it's of recent vintage. (My interests admittedly lie more with astronomy, but all the astrological texts I have seen that gave a symbol for Pluto used ♇.) Can someone cite a source for the other one?  –Aponar Kestrel (talk) 23:37, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The other glyph is as old as the most common one, and is very widely used. A simple websearch should reveal how widely used: I would say that it seems to be preferred to the fused PL symbol. I don't think I need to cite a source since it is everywhere. Just look! JamesFox 04:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've now seen the non-PL symbol. However, even if they are the same age, shouldn't both of the glyphs be represented? Both of them are used in astrology. I'd say that it could be similar to the Eris dual-glyph representation near the bottom of the page. Ridan 03:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I just found the other glyphs for both Pluto and Uranus. And YES Capricorn does have two Western glyphs/symbols as well (most often the difference between the Europeans and Americans). Cannot find the other Capricorn glyph, though. --172.162.2.177 04:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I've just done a pretty big reversion. Two things removed.
First the section on the Hindu Zodiac did not belong in the article because this article is about symbols first and foremeost, not the zodiac, there were no symbols in that section.Second, I see that as before, U+02A1 has been misidentified as the symbol for Ceres. It is actually LATIN LETTER GLOTTAL STOP WITH STROKE, the resemblance to the symbol for Ceres is a pure coincidence.
JamesFox 13:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Even if the symbol is the IPA Glottal Stop glyph, why shouldn't it be used for Ceres, when the symbols are identical, or nearly so? Ridan 02:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

You would never see a Ceres symbol with serifs, or a bulge at the tip of the hook, as you can see in the unicode code charts. A letter is a letter, and is used and often styled differently from symbols. Furthurmore, arguing that mere looks make them equivalent is like treating l and I as interchangable. JamesFox 04:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I removed them entirely (as I suggested when this article was originally split from the astronomical symbols article). There is no logical reason to include them, as this is an article on the symbols, not on how to represent the symbols in text documents. If desired, they can be added back as text alternates for if the images do not show up, but should not be displayed if the images are available. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 18:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The section of the Hindu zodiac with no symbols is back. I'm deleting it. Ridan 06:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to replace the lunar node symbols in this article with the better ones here, but I cannot figure out how. Yes I am Wiki-dumb. Can anyone help out? --172.162.2.177 04:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. Although the gray background of those symbols is somewhat annoying. Lexicon (talk) 16:00, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Is it appropriate to include the "Meaning of symbol" column in the first section's table? Those purported meanings are by no means consensus among astrologers, and there's no source given. The "symbol represents" column could use a source, too, but at least it does represent a consensus view, whereas the "meaning" column seems to be some random person's opinion. 67.158.77.171 23:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed; these meanings vary widely from astrologer to astrologer. I say that we should remove them too. --Wassermann 23:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Someone please do this. As someone unfamiliar with astrology by familiar with both astronomy and the classics, it's fairly obvious that the symbol came first, and the "meaning" was read into it later -- for example, the cadeceus being the symbol for mercury, or the mirror for Venus, etc.195.27.20.35 (talk) 09:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's anyone pushing for the circle-K symbol for Eris, so I removed it. Please revert me if I'm wrong.DenisMoskowitz 22:49, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

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I am somewhat questioning the recent removal of the "Planets in Indian Astrology" and "Chinese zodiac signs" sections. The cited reason was "no symbols". In the Indian astrology section, this was due to the images being marked and removed by FairuseBot (or something like that). Granted, they were not exactly symbols – more like detailed depictions – but still, they were images. As for the Chinese zodiac section, technically the Chinese characters are symbols.

Perhaps they don't belong on this page, though – maybe Klippa was right to remove them. But that's a lot to remove – wouldn't it be better to move the information into other relevant articles? Unless it's simply duplicate information, that's a lot of lost info. Any thoughts on this? —Celtic Minstrel (talk • contribs) 05:43, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I've had a look back at the history of the article and both sections have been removed before, on similar grounds, and someone else has quietly put both back again.

As the article is about symbols, neither section belongs here. Technically the Chinese characters may be symbols, but then so would be the written forms of the planet names in any language.

As far as I could see all the material in the sections I deleted is in other articles which were linked as Main Articles at the top of each section. (They are still listed in the See Also section.)

I haven't removed the section labelled "Classical elements", but it doesn't seem to have anything to say about symbols. It seems to be a depiction of conceptual relationships. Is this so? Or is it somehow about symbols? Klippa (talk) 08:16, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, okay. I guess that makes sense.

As for the classical elements section, that appears to be simply a link to two other sections, and a diagram. Does it really need to be here? —Celtic Minstrel (talk • contribs) 21:06, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's been a few weeks and noone has spoken. I've removed the Classical Elements section and left a link to the Classical Elements page in See Also. The diagram is there, with explanation and context. There was no explanation on this page what it was or what it has to do with astrological symbols, if anything. Klippa (talk) 05:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The retrograde symbol looks very much like the "recipe take" U+211E of Unicode. Anyone who knows the facts behind this? ... said: Rursus (bork²) 06:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I just added a very short paragraph on ℞; if anyone wants to expand it, here's what I can tell you. If you want an appearance of ℞ for retrograde that predates Lilly's Christian Astrology, see the figurae coeli (but not the ephemerides themselves) in Michael Maestlin's Ephemerides novae (1580); for example, the chart on this page [2] shows a retrograde Saturn in the ninth house.

On ℞ as a general Latin abbreviation, these dictionaries [3][4] give many additional attested meanings for ℞, but do not specifically cite a word for retrograde motion or to retrograde (for reference, several synonyms are given here [5]: for "retrograde motion", retrogradus, retrocessio, repedatio, regressus, regressio; and for "to retrograde", retrocedere).

The source I cited in the article says that ℞ was, among other things, used to mark responses in missals. The Unicode standard has the character U+211F RESPONSE in addition to U+211E PRESCRIPTION TAKE (the latter having aliases "recipe" and "cross ratio"). [6] The Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI) questions whether U+211E and U+211F should even be considered separate characters, and recommends that medieval scholars use U+211E (which MUFI calls "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R WITH TAIL STROKE"). [7] 198.189.162.233 (talk) 20:36, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Most of the planetary symbols are in the Unicode range 263C (sun: circle with rays) through 2647 (Pluto: PL monogram). Earth is represented there by U+2641, with the Unicode name EARTH. Unfortunately, many (most?) fonts have a circle with a cross on top at this code point, while some (a few?) have the glyph shown, a circle with an inscribed cross like a wheel with four spokes.

On the page, the Unicode chart gives U+1F728 for Earth. This is listed in Unicode 6.2 as ALCHEMICAL SYMBOL FOR VERDIGRIS and cross-referenced as

= early astronomical symbol for earth

→ 2295 ⊕ circled plus (I think the arrow there means "similar to" or "is sometimes exchanged with", but I can't find a key.)

U+2295 CIRCLED PLUS, in turn, is relevantly cross-referenced as

→ 2A01 ⨁  n-ary circled plus operator

→ 1F728 🜨  alchemical symbol for verdigris (the one used on the page)

⁓ 2295 FE00  with white rim

I don't know how U+1F728 ALCHEMICAL SYMBOL FOR VERDIGRIS is showing up for you, but I see only a box with the hex digits

01F728

while U+2295 CIRCLED PLUS is rendered as the symbol. This is not surprising, since the high-level charts are much newer in Unicode, not in such great demand, and not so widely implemented. So I am changing the page to use U+2295 instead of U+1F728.

It would probably be a good idea for someone to add the circle-with-a-cross-on-top symbol to the chart as an alternate if there's a way to do it without depending on a specific font, e.g., a Unicode point that specifies just that combination. --Thnidu (talk) 15:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

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Checked. 209.129.241.33 (talk) 00:27, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

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Checked. 209.129.241.33 (talk) 00:26, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

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Checked. 209.129.241.33 (talk) 00:21, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that you include Decimal as well as Hexidecimal values for the symbols. Currently only hexadecimal are given whereas W3Schools and Fileformatgive both. I tried using the hex values as an experiment and it didn't work whereas decimal values worked.49.206.8.160 (talk) 04:56, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Seltzer invented for Eris, which is now in Unicode. He also came up with for Makemake and for Haumea. (Solar Fire uses a derivative of his Makemake symbol.) Don't know that they're worth including, but thought I'd mention them here. — kwami (talk) 04:36, 17 July 2022 (UTC)