The Earth, The Moon, The Sun...

[ElChristou]

Hello people, again a polishing issue...

I want to propose here a small modif concerning the name of our most important celestial objects the Sun, the Moon and our Earth (the Earth).

Actually Celestia treat those 3 bodies the same way as all the others; I was wondering if we could not make an exception because of the important place they take through all civilizations (cultures), through all ages till today.
Simply we are all talking about THE Sun, THE Earth, The Moon... Is there someone thinking in the Sun as Sol?

IMO, when selecting the Sun we should have "The Sun/Sol" displayed instead of "Sol/Sun" (Same remark for Earth and Moon)

This mean some small modifs in several files (starnames.dat, celestia.cfg and more I'm sure) but also this mean some more tricky aspect for internationalization.

The label display should be modified, also the state of observer ("follow the Sun" instead of "follow Sol" etc)...

I'm not sure of the impact in English, but in French and Spanish for example this modif make a real difference in the feeling of "our" bodies (our Sun, our Moon, our Earth); the Solar system become much more friendly, almost "warmer"; Celestia is expending it's limits with DSOs, we are tempted to go and visit more and more remote objects and once again IMO the come back "home" take more sense with this labeling...

Opinion? Feasibility?

[PlutonianEmpire]

I don't like the idea.

[ElChristou]

I don't like the idea.

Right. If you tell me why, better...

[PlutonianEmpire]

Well, to me anyway, it just doesn't seem.... right.

[ElChristou]

Well, to me anyway, it just doesn't seem.... right.

Right? why? In English you don't say "the Sun"? "the Moon"?

[PlutonianEmpire]

I'm fine with "the sun" and "the moon", i'm just uncomfortable with a "the" before Earth, when referring to it as a planet.

[tech2000]

I thought Tellus was the correct name for our planet - or am I totaly wrong here?

[Dollan]

Typically, in English anyway, "the" is used before a noun to proclaim something specific, though not neccessarily a proper word or name. So Elchristou's suggestion has a certain technical merit.

However, for myself anyway, I find its usage in this case both redundant and cumbersome, visually and literally. When in Celestia, we know that "Earth" is "the Earth". Why the extra effort? Plus it adds a little more text when none is really needed. In my opinion, as always.

As for Tellus, it is one alternate term for Earth. Another is Terra, and there is always Gaia. I'm not certain how often these are used in other languages.

Oddly, after all that being said, I prefer "Sol" to "Sun" when referring to our star. The same with "Luna" as it versus "Moon". I suppose that this is because there are other moons in our solar system, and other suns in the night sky. Other Earths, as of yet unfortunately, remain the purview of fiction and theorizing.

...John...

[cpotting]

Oddly, after all that being said, I prefer "Sol" to "Sun" when referring to our star. The same with "Luna" as it versus "Moon". I suppose that this is because there are other moons in our solar system, and other suns in the night sky. Other Earths, as of yet unfortunately, remain the purview of fiction and theorizing.

This is along the lines of my thoughts as well. In English, we commonly use "the Sun", "the Earth", and "the Moon". However, that is because we are, commonly, only dealing with one obvious star, one obvious planet, one obvious satellite.

In Celestia, there are many stars. In our solar system there are many moons, and likewise, many planets. We must be more specific than just "the Sun". "The Sun" could mean Gliese 777 or 70 Vir...

To me, it is similar to the difference between talking to your family, to whom you can say "I went swimming at the lake" and they all know what you mean. Or you can say "you can buy one of these at the electronics store in the mall" and your friends rush over and get one each.

But when you talk to other people, from other areas, cities, or countries, those "shortcut" expressions don't work anymore. Instead of "the lake" you must say "I went swimming at Lake Simcoe"; instead of "the mall", you must say "you can buy one of these at the electronics store in Toronto's Eaton Centre".

"The Sun", "The Moon" just don't cut it when there are many suns and moons.

As for the "The Earth", well I am happy with "Earth" or "Terra" (or I guess the current method for designating planets would have it as "Sol a"). But the "The Earth" just seems redundant - after all, we don't say "The Jupiter" or "The Mars".

Just my 2.5 cents worth (I'm Canadian, so I have to adjust for the exchange rate).

[PlutonianEmpire]

I thought Tellus was the correct name for our planet - or am I totaly wrong here?

Me, after reading zecharias sitchin, I thought it was tiamat. lol.

[ElChristou]

...To me, it is similar to the difference between talking to your family, to whom you can say "I went swimming at the lake" and they all know what you mean. Or you can say "you can buy one of these at the electronics store in the mall" and your friends rush over and get one each.

But when you talk to other people, from other areas, cities, or countries, those "shortcut" expressions don't work anymore. Instead of "the lake" you must say "I went swimming at Lake Simcoe"; instead of "the mall", you must say "you can buy one of these at the electronics store in Toronto's Eaton Centre".

Well I must say we are completemy agree; you have illustrate to perfection the point... as I know, we are all living on the same planet, looking at night at the same moon and having sunbath from the same sun. Clearly for every human "the Moon" is the earth's one, it's why I was talking of making an exeption for those 3 bodies...

"The Sun", "The Moon" just don't cut it when there are many suns and moons.

Once again I'm talking of only 3 bodies, and it's a way to mark in Celestia our "home"; the rest of course stay unchanged...

...after all, we don't say "The Jupiter" or "The Mars".

Right, we don't say "The Jupiter", and I haven't mention it or any other bodies...

Guys, the point here is not really about English because if I'm not wrong, "The Earth" is not so used, we say "on Earth", not "on the Earth", "Earth is..", not "The Earth is..." etc, but as Celestia is becoming really universal (multiplatform, multilanguage), I'm thinking to this issue for my own language and by extension for Latin languages (Spanish, Italian...).

In those case, the difference in the feeling of what is from a cultural point of view an evidence for everybody has a non negligible impact...

Now it would be great to know the opinion of some others non English speakers (German, Russian, Japanese etc...) to see if their relation to those special bodies is marked the same way in their own languages...

One must remember my first line: a polishing issue...
For the majority this is really not an important point (and they are right), but a last example:

"The solar system"

Everybody reading this subconsciously know what's system is this... why? Because we have learned this very soon in our life and there is no way to forget the intrinsic meaning of those 3 words...
The same manner, The Sun, The Earth, The Moon are "our" and this make the difference with whatever star, whatever moon... (Earth till now is unique...).
Because this linguistic conceptual difference exist (and I'm sure nobody on Earth, even the most remote Indian in the Amazon won't say the contrary), I was wondering if this exception could not be shown in Celestia...

[Sui Ota]

Now it would be great to know the opinion of some others non English speakers (German, Russian, Japanese etc...) to see if their relation to those special bodies is marked the same way in their own languages...

As for Japanese, there are no corresponding words to "the", "a", "le", "das"..., so such a problem is not exist normally. And generally, word or phrase for "Earth" "Sun" "Moon" is one, respectively. But I think what is the best varies with language, or even with the indivisual, so more user customizability seems to be needed.

For Sol(the Sun), to edit nearstars.stc is one way.

Code: Select all

0 "the Sun:Sol"


So, it will be useful that bodies(planets, moons, asteroids, comets and spacecrafts) also can have multiple names, like stars and DSOs.
For example: Earth / the Earth / Tellus / Terra
(Order is customizable by users.)
This is also big advantage for internationalization. If this feature is here, we can translate a body's name keeping original English name(For example, Earth / Terre / Erde).

[ElChristou]

...For Sol(the Sun), to edit nearstars.stc is one way.

Code: Select all

0 "the Sun:Sol"


For sure, it's one way to do this, but beside this local modif, the proposal here is to do a modif at cvs level (for information, to achieve a complete translation for the Sun on osX, actually one must edit nearstars.stc, starnames.dat, celestia.cfg and the po.string file in the bundle!! 4 files to have a correct translation everywhere!!)

Again, within the framework of my above explanation of the importance of those 3 bodies for us, it would be cool to have:

term in supported language/term in Latin/other if exist.
Example for the Sun:

English: The Sun/Sol (or Sun/Sol; this English fluent people should debate it)

French: Le Soleil/Sol

Spanish: El Sol/Sol

etc...

It is now clear that the definite article is just a question of linguistic; as you've mentioned in Japanese they don't exist; no problem, in this case:

Japanese ideogram of sun/Sol



Another point to use the define article (if it exist in a language) is the right bottom HUD display; actually we have for example "Follow Sol", "Sync orbit Sol", etc... where we could have "Follow the Sun", "Sync orbit the Sun" etc...

This is also big advantage for internationalization. If this feature is here, we can translate a body's name keeping original English name (For example, Earth / Terre / Erde).

Why keeping the English term? the Latin term IS a reference so must be present, then each language should use his own word, no?

[Sui Ota]

OK, I had greatly misunderstood....

Japanese ideogram of sun/Sol

If it will be so, it's OK.

Why keeping the English term? the Latin term IS a reference so must be present, then each language should use his own word, no?

...I confounded English name with Latin one.
I just thought I don't like losing original name for the benefit of translation, because of not supporting multiple names in .ssc file now....
It seems better to select a object by both translated name and original one.

[cpotting]

Again, within the framework of my above explanation of the importance of those 3 bodies for us, it would be cool to have:

term in supported language/term in Latin/other if exist.
Example for the Sun:

English: The Sun/Sol (or Sun/Sol; this English fluent people should debate it)

French: Le Soleil/Sol

Spanish: El Sol/Sol

etc...

I do like your idea. It seems that having the names defined this way would overcome linguistic differences (and even personal ones). My only concern is one that you may be implying, but that I think needs to be stated implicitly: one of these names must be immutable.

Scripts, educational activities and even general discussions between people about Celestia require that one of the names (presumably the second 'latin' name) be defined by Celestia and not be changable by the user. Otherwise a script trying to find "the earth" would not know whether to find "El Sol/Terra" or "The Sun/Tellus". The script writer needs to know that there is a "Sol" and an "Earth" in every copy of Celestia.

Which leads us around to the circular debate: should the immutable name of our planet be "Earth", "Terra", "Tellus"...

[ElChristou]

Clive, you are perfectly right, the Latin name is present, must be present and will stay present of course.
Now, it is not question in this topic to let people edit the terms (they can if they want) but to have a better translation, this depending on the actual existing .po files (translation files in cvs).

Personnally I was thinking in having the translated term in first place, the problem is that this is breaking completely ALL the existing stuffs ... so this seems to be impossible...

Concerning the name of Earth, the immutable name should be the official Latin one...