During this time of year, we display new calendars on the wall. Turning the calendar pages and imagining the unique occasions the coming year will bring is enjoyable. It’s also intriguing to learn more about the calendar itself.
Calendars weren’t a thing for the primitive people. Even while they were aware that days, nights, and seasons continually cycled, they were unaware of their purpose. We now understand that the way our earth revolves around the sun determines the length of the years and the seasons. When individuals realised this, they started basing their plans on yearly events. Later, men discovered that breaking the year up into smaller chunks was even more practical. That marked the advent of calendars.
Ancient peoples made use of a variety of calendars. Then, Julius Caesar, the emperor of Rome, gave the go-ahead for a calendar that is quite similar to the one we use today. All of the years on this “Julian” calendar had 365 days, except for leap year, which had 366. The early Roman calendar had ten months, starting early in the spring. March, the first month, is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. The Latin phrase “aperio,” which means “I open,” is thought to have been the source of the name of the following month, April. This was because around this time of year, the buds of trees and flowers were starting to open. Maia, a different Roman deity, inspired the name May. The month of June was given its name in honour of Juno, the goddesses’ queen and Jupiter’s wife. Because of Julius Caesar, July was given its name, and August was named for the emperor who ruled after him, Augustus Caesar. In the Julian calendar, the final months of the year were designated by numbers. September denoted the seventh month, followed by October, November, and December, which were all scheduled in that order at the time.
The Romans chose to divide the year into twelve halves after using a ten-month calendar for some time. At the beginning of the year, the two new months were added. For the god Janus, the first was given the name January. It seemed right to use his name for the period when one might look back on the previous year and ahead to the new one because he was supposed to have two faces, one looking forward and the other looking back. It’s possible that the Latin word “februare,” which means “to purify,” is where February got its name. We continue to make use of the Roman names and 12-month calendar.
The duration of the months varies so that our year has the correct number of days. Have you ever heard of this commercial that describes the days of the month?
September has 30 days.
June, April, and November.
Everyone else has thirty-one.
excluding just February,
which twenty-eight of us assign
Till the 29th of the leap year.
Even a month is a fairly large measure of time, therefore people divided it into weeks when they felt the need for shorter intervals. The practise of measuring time based on the moon’s various phases may have given rise to our seven-day workweek. Each of the four phases of the moon—new, half, full, and waning—lasts roughly seven days.
Our week’s first day, Sunday, is named after the sun, whereas Monday is named after the moon. The Teutonic deity of war Tiw is where Tuesday gets its name. The peoples of Northern Europe known as Teutons—Germans, Norse, and other peoples—were the source of many of the words we use today. The names of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday all refer to Teutonic gods: Woden, Thor, and Frigg. The Roman deity of agriculture, Saturn, is the root of the word Saturday, which bears his name. For more details, please click here https://calendrier-shop.fr/
