What is the Name our Moon?

[JurijD]

Actually you´re overly english-centrical guys. Our moon is simply called "The Moon".

"Luna" is the slavic (slovenian, croatian, serbian, polish, chech, slovak, russian, bulgarian etc. etc) (probably originates from latin or greek) word for Moon. So even if you say our "Moon" is named "Luna" that can only make sense if you are an english speaking person.
We call for instance Deimos a "Luna" of Mars.
To us its the same if you call it "Moon" or Luna.

And callion our sun "Sol" would be equaly funny as your english word "Sun" is just a translation of the roman/latin word "Sol" (or "Sonce" in most slavic Languages)

[ January 27, 2004, 11:32: Message edited by: JurijD ]

[dogscoff]

That would be like naming your cat, CAT

Or your snarf, SNARF.

Whatever the official or scientific names, in sci-fi where our moon is colonised it is very often referred to as Luna, and the sun as Sol. When reality eventually catches up with sci-fi, I very strongly suspect that those names will become the official ones. The evolution of language before our very eyes...

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by JurijD:
Actually you´re overly english-centrical guys. Our moon is simply called "The Moon".

No, actually I am not being english-centrical. How can you say I am being english-centrical when what I am providing is not the english word? Although if I had been provding the english word for the name of the moon it would be understandable since my post was in english. It's not being "english-centric" of me to make Posts and not provide the translation for every possible language on earth. If the person reading my post cannot read english, they probably aren't reading this forum, or they have some tool available to them to do the translation. The fact that Luna and Sol are latin words is only because most scientific terms are latin words. The reason scientists use latin words for things is so they can talk to other scientists and be understood without being accused of using "english-centric" terminology.

As I said, "The Moon" is not the proper name for our moon, regardless of what language you are speaking. It is not technically incorrect, but it is not scientifically specific. Luna is the correct scientific nomenclature for our moon. It would be as similer to if people on the forum refered to you a "The Slovenian". It would not be technically incorrect, but it's not your name. And if there are others from Slovenia on the forum, we might not know who people are refering to. When you refer to the moon as "The Moon" everybody knows which moon you are talking to, because everyone hearing you is from earth. At least we think. But that doesn't make it it's name.

A roža is a rose, JurijD.

[ January 27, 2004, 12:53: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Rollo]

Originally posted by JurijD:
Actually you´re overly english-centrical guys. Our moon is simply called "The Moon"...

yep, you are right on this one.

Luna and Sol is simply the Latin names for Moon and Sun.

Perhaps we need another name for the moon: How about Bob?

[Rollo]

Good points, Geo, and I agree. Still it doesn't change the fact that Luna just means Moon in Latin. So, while calling it Luna is indeed scientificly correct, you are still calling it moon.

I vote for Bob.

[Rollo]

BTW, one thing I always found interesting is the fact that in latin Languages the Moon is female and the Sun is male. In germanic Languages it is the other way around.

What's your view on this? (and how about some more examples from other Languages and parts of the world)

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Rollo:
Good points, Geo, and I agree. Still it doesn't change the fact that Luna just means Moon in Latin. So, while calling it Luna is indeed scientificly correct, you are still calling it moon.

I vote for Bob.

Actually, in doing a little research I cannot find anywhere that gives an official scientific designation to our moon. Which seems kind of odd to me, since scientist guys are always going around naming stuff.

So perhaps I was mistaken and there is no officially accepted name. In that case Bob is as good as anything else.

Feel free to call me ignorant, just don't call me "english-centric".