Astrology 101: Voiced, Semi-Voiced, and Mute Signs of the Zodiac
Fish Mosaic in Pompeii
I have spent a lot of time digging through traditional astrology texts, and have come across a division of the three groups of voiced, semi-voiced (or half-voiced), and mute signs of the zodiac. It turns out that dividing the signs into these three groups is quite ancient and comes from the Greeks. There is a very good reason why one sign would be mute rather than voiced, and we’ll discuss it. Over time, the classifications have grown muddled in telling and re-telling, and every author can have their own version of this scheme.
The voice sign divisions are quite useful in two contexts:
Horary Astrology: In questions dealing with sound, singing, speech, and communication, seeing significators in a voiced versus a mute sign can indicate the answer itself. If someone is asking “should I go into voice acting?” and his significator is in a mute sign, that would be one testimony for “no.”
Natal Astrology: Prevalence of one type of sign over another can indicate the native’s speaking style and voice. As an example, traditionally, Mercury in a mute sign with a hard aspect to Saturn can indicate speech problems for the native.
As an example, here is Abu Ma’shar’s list of voiced, semi-voiced, and mute signs of the zodiac from the Abbreviation of the Introduction to Astrology, written in the 9th century AD:
Voiced signs: Gemini, Virgo, Libra
Semi-Voiced signs: Aries, Taurus, Leo, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius
Mute signs: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces
Most authors assign the water signs to being mute, since a crab, scorpion, and fish theoretically make no sound (actually, this is not true. The fish in the pond outside my window definitely make themselves heard when they want to be fed; they come up to the surface and blow really hard right at the water line to create a loud sputtering noise.).
Here is where this division of signs really comes from: Dionysius of Thrace (2nd century BC) wrote a work called the Ars Grammatica, which separated the Greek alphabet of 24 letters into seven vowels and 17 consonants. The 17 consonants were then subdivided into eight semi-vowels and nine voiceless consonants. Now, you have to understand that the ancient Greeks were busily
assigning meanings, zodiac signs, letters, divine, and angel names to the letters of their alphabet for centuries before Dionysius wrote his work. This is not to suggest there was total agreement on these assignments, and surely systems varied among authors and in popular usage. However, Dionysius’ work represents the first assignment of zodiac signs to certain kinds of sounds.
Following popular attributions of signs to sounds, Dionysius assigned 12 of the letters to zodiacal signs, so you can probably see where this is
going:
Voiced vowels led to the full-voiced signs: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Virgo, Aquarius
Semi-vowels resulted in semi-voiced signs: Leo, Sagittarius, Capricorn
Mute/voiceless consonants resulted in the mute signs: Cancer, Libra, Scorpio, Pisces
Compare this with the list from Abu Ma’shar, writing about a thousand years after Dionysius; one can see there have been a number of changes and most likely Abu Ma’shar and his sources did not understand reasons for the original assignment of the signs to sounds.
Much of the Greek material in this article came from the excellent book The Greek Qabalah: Alphabetic Mysticism and Numerology in the Ancient World, by Kieren Barry, published by Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1999.
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