Aphorismes météorologiques en Inde du Nord

SHODH SARITA, 2020

The human civilizations have come across various obstacles in their development pertaining to weather and climate. The indigenous weather forecasting is a system of prediction about the climate variability locally for making important decision that enable to adapt with the changing climate as well as the seasonal distribution of rain for better yield crops. The knowledge of weather forecasting was deeply rooted in the Bodo tribes of Northeast India and they utilize these types of knowledge in their day-today life. In Bodo society, the nature and character of insects, birds, animals, fish, trees, flowers, fruits, movement of wind and cloud, sunshine and rainbow etc. communicate the weather condition.

11th Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Proverbs, ACTAS ICP 17 Proceedings, 2017

Proverb lore about weather is one of the subject matters included in many specialised paremiographical publications. Notwithstanding that, weather proverbs appear to be much contentious in their term and nature because this kind of paremias, according to some scholars, should not be treated as bona fide proverbs but rather predictive sayings, weather signs or merely superstitions (see e.g. Dundes 1984, Grzybek 2016). The purpose ascribed to the pilot study is an attempt at the interpretation of unilingual weather-related proverbial material with the use of the semantic approach and revealing whether the weather text is expressed in the form of a proverb or proverbial sign. Furthermore, a secondary objective is a categorization endeavour of this special folklore genre according to Kuusi's International Type System of Proverbs in order to highlight the main themes of proverbial thinking in the analysed category. The article examines a corpus of eleven American proverbs that belong to the thematic field 'weather' found in the major American proverb collection − A Dictionary of American Proverbs (1992) edited by W. Mieder, et al. For example, such text as In fair weather prepare for foul due to its polysemanticity falls into the group of weather proverbs because apart from its weather-related contexts it may also refer to something beyond what is literally denoted, viz. being vigilant and provident in all life circumstances. The main semantic theme that could be ascribed to the text in Kuusi's database is M. coping and learning; the class is M1. PRECAUTION : INCAUTIOUSNESS; and the subclass is M1b. dangerous situations should be anticipated.

Current Science, 2009

Summary and conclusion IAV patterns of monsoon rainfall as des-cribed in ancient Indian texts have been presented here. It is interesting to note that the dominant periods were taken to be 3, 5, 7, 18 and 60 years. Time-series analysis of actual seasonal rainfall data of the past 100 years shows that near the above periods the spectrum has signifi-cant peaks. It is now known that the ENSO oscillations of 2–3 year period explain maximum variance of the year-to-year fluctuations 2 . The Venus visibil-ity portent of Parāśara, stated also in the Artha śā stra appears to be a proxy for this ENSO signature. For understanding the within-year variability of rainfall, ancient texts have to be interpreted after making correction for the precession of equinoxes. Blind following of the texts, in letter but not in spirit, has led to marking of the date of winter solstice ( makara sankr ā nti ) as 14 January in the pan cā nga s. Hence the tra-ditional dates of expecting rainfall de-pending on th...

Intercontinental Dialogue on Phraseology, 10. Reproducibility of multiword expressions in paremiological and linguo-cultural studies, 2021

The paper is an attempt to scrutinize and categorize the weather proverbs/sayings pertaining to human action with the use of a semantic approach, often applied in linguo-cultural analysis. Such weather texts are commonly based upon people's (in particular, sailors, farmers, travellers, fishermen and shepherds) careful observations and scrutiny of atmospheric conditions, and among other social functions, they represent speech acts exhorting people to either do or refrain from doing something. The corpus for analysis constitutes a major paremiographical collection titled Weather wisdom: proverbs, superstitions, and signs (1996) edited by S. A. Kingsbury, M. E. Kingsbury and W. Mieder. Under selected key words, such as rain, cloud, sky, wind and sun, related to five occupations, i.e. sailors, farmers, travellers, fishermen and shepherds, two groups of the examined weather proverbs/signs/superstitions are distinguished and analysed in terms of their content and referent. In one category a prospective and/or suggested human action is not directly stated, e.g. Wind right, sun right, fish bite. The other category of proverbial weather texts constitutes the one where the weather statement overtly implies a need to take a certain activity, e.g. When wind comes before rain, soon you may make sail again. The obvious inference is that proverbs/signs/superstitions which express the relation between atmospheric conditions and human action either explicitly or implicitly exhort their hearers to make use of fine weather and take some steps or to escape inclement weather and avoid particular work. What remains of special interest in the pragmatic analysis of weather proverbial utterances, though, is the precise referent and/or the type of action that are presupposed by such texts, and which constitutes another major concern of the article in question.

Evidence of weather forecasting in Anglo-Saxon England – in works such as Bede’s De natura rerum – attests to the continuity of interest in meteorological phenomena in the early Middle Ages – as Anne has now explained in such minute detail. This may come as a surprise to some modern scholars interested in the history of science and meteorology, for standard works in these areas tend to bypass the medieval period altogether. Such works tend to focus on the better-known developments of the classical period and the Renaissance. But interest in meteorology was not only limited to the Anglo-Saxon period during the Middle Ages. Works of thirteenth-century English scholars, such as Roger Bacon, also deal with meteorological questions; Grosseteste even wrote a treatise on weather forecasting (De prognostication temporum) – which Anne might discuss in a bit more detail after this paper. A growing interest in natural philosophy has been recognised by scholars as the logical consequence of developments in the twelfth-century, when a large number of hitherto unknown texts of Greek and Arabic origin reached the shores of Northern Europe. Thus, it is worth asking if developments by the likes of Grosseteste are the product of a renewed interest in long-lost meteorological lore, or if we can find evidence of a continued interest in weather-forecasting linking the Anglo-Saxon period to the developments of the twelfth-century and beyond. By examining the work of the English philosopher Adelard of Bath as a case-study, this paper will attempt to provide some answers to this broad question.

Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge, 2011

Observations of plants are a common source of information for predicting weather patterns. In this study of Bulgarian folk knowledge, more than 30 plant species were documented as weather indicators, 20 of which were assessed as having a very high level of repeatability. Three species of fungi are also reported as weather indicators. The plants, consisting of herbs (47.6%), trees (28.6%) and shrubs (23.8%), are well known and widespread in the study area. The original texts relating to traditional forecasts and the involvement of plants in folk beliefs and customs are presented. Folk botanical knowledge about the morphology of plants and phenological states (e.g., grass growing, fruitfulness of trees, natural leaf fall, secondary flowering) are the basis used by Bulgarians for mostly long-term forecasts, and for predicting seasonal disasters caused by rain, drought, snow, extreme heat or cold, ice, or wind. The knowledge of folk meteorology today and its rational basis and importance are discussed in a contemporary context.

2018

Draft version. Published version here: https://doi.org/10.18732/hssa89 Most notions of the seasons in works of ancient Indian medicine list frost, spring, summer, rainy season, autumn and winter as the particular times of the year. However , in some contexts, the hibernal season frost (śiśira) is left out and replaced by a second rainy season, called beginning of the rain (prāvṛṣ) and placed between summer and the actual rainy season. In this paper, I firstly introduce the concept of the seasons and the division of the year into two halves. Secondly, I examine the di-chotomy of two seasonal schemes inside one scientific corpus, which varies regarding the included seasons. Concerning this matter, I follow the investigations of Francis Zimmermann 1 in order to prove that the two schemes are utilized both intentionally and systematically in specific contexts. The two seasonal schemes serve diverse cases, being of use for the physician in different aspects of his work.

2014

History of Science in South Asia, 2017

This paper supplements and corrects the information given in the works of David Pingree regarding four major authors on Tājika or Sanskritized Perso-Arabic astrology from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century: Tejaḥsiṃha, Yādavasūri, Bālakṛṣṇa and Balabhadra. It further contributes information on a fifth such author, Tuka, not discussed by Pingree.