The 88 Constellations in Different Languages: Andromeda to Vulpecula

The 88 constellations and their names

The International Astronomical Union recognises 88 constellations. It fixed their Latin names and three-letter abbreviations in 1922, starting from 89 because the old ship Argo was still counted before it was split into Carina, Vela and Puppis, and it adopted Eugène Delporte’s boundaries in 1928; they were published in 1930.¹ Since then the whole sky has been divided among the 88 without gaps, from Hydra, the largest, to Crux, the smallest.¹ Nothing in the list has changed, so the set below is the current one.

Most European languages translate the Latin names word by word. Ursa Major is Großer Bär in German, Grande Ourse in French, Iso karhu in Finnish, Nagy Medve in Hungarian and Büyük Ayı in Turkish. Russian Большая Медведица (Bol'šaja Medvedica) is a she-bear, and Estonian Suur Vanker and Lithuanian Didieji Grįžulo Ratai see a wagon in the same stars. Hindi calls the group सप्तर्षि तारामंडल (saptarṣi tārāmaṃḍal), the constellation of the seven sages, beside a borrowed अरसा मेजर (arsā mejar).

Arabic names go back to medieval astronomy and often describe a figure: Andromeda is المرأة المسلسلة (al-marʾâẗu l-musalsalâ), the chained woman, Cassiopeia ذات الكرسي (ḏātu l-kursī), the one with the chair, and Cygnus الدجاجة (ad-daǧāǧâ), the hen. Persian translates many of them, so Andromeda becomes زن برزنجیر (Zane berzanjir) and Cassiopeia keeps the Arabic ذات الکرسی (Zâtol-korsi).

East Asian languages add a fixed ending to every name. Chinese and Japanese close with 座, read zuò and za, as in 獵戶座 (lièhù zuò, the hunter) and オリオン座 (orion za) for Orion; Korean ends in 자리 (jari), as in 오리온자리; Thai opens with กลุ่มดาว (klùmdāw), a group of stars, as in กลุ่มดาวนายพราน. Malay gives a native name, a Jawi spelling and often the Latin one, so Leo is Singa, Asad and Leo.

Each constellation has its own table, in the alphabetical order of the Latin names. The first row gives the Latin name and the English one, and languages that write a name identically share a row. Where a name is borrowed or translated twice, the cell lists both, separated by a semicolon.