January - ME Januari(us), OE Januarius, translation of Latin Januarius, named after JANUS, god of beginnings.

February - ME OE Februarius from Latin Februarius, named for Februa, the feast of purification.


March - ME March(e), from Latin Martius, (month of) Mars.


April - ME Averil, OF Avril, Latin Aprilis mensis (month). The name may derive from the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.


May - ME OE Maius, Latin Maius mensis (month), from the Greek Maia, goddess of spring (growth).


June - ME Jun(e), OE Iunius, from Latin mensis Junius, named after the goddess Juno, Queen of the gods.


July - ME Julie, OE Julius, from Latin Julius (Caesar) after whom it was named in 44 BC. The original name was quintilis, fifth month in the early Roman calendar.


August - ME OE Agustus from Latin Augustus (Caesar) 8 BC. The original name was sextilis, sixth month in the early Roman calendar.


September - ME Septembre from Latin September, seventh month in the early Roman calendar


October - ME OE from Latin October, eighth month in the early Roman calendar


November - ME OE from Latin November, ninth month of the early Roman calendar, from novem NINE


December - ME Decembre from OF and Latin December, tenth month of the early Roman calendar (decem TEN + membri from mens MONTH + ri suffix).

NAME OF DAYS

Sunday - ME sun(nen)day, OE sunnandaeg, translation of Latin dies Solis, "Day of the Sun"


Monday - ME mone(n)day, OE mondaeg, translation of Latin Lunae dies, "Day of the Moon"


Tuesday - ME tewesday, OE tiwesdaeg, OHG ziestac, Day of the war god Tiw, translation of the Latin dies Martis, "Day of Mars"


Wednesday - ME Wednesdai, OE wednesdaeg, mutated version of Wodnesdaeg, Woden's day, compare with Dutch Woensdag, Danish onsdag, translation of Latin Mercuru dies, Day of Mercury


Thursday - ME OE Thursdaeg from Norse Thursdagr, "Thor's day", Germanic translation of Latin dies Jovis.


Friday - ME OE Frigedaeg, "Freya's day"


Saturday - ME Saturdai, OE Saternesdaeg, partial translation of Latin Saturni dies, "Saturn's day



ME = Middle English
OE = Old English
OF = Old French
OHG = Old High German

Where did Calendars Begin?

Ultimately, all calendars began with people recording time by using natural cycles: days, lunar cycles (months), and solar cycles (years).

The year is 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds long or 365.242199 days.

The time between full moons is 29.53 days.

Various peoples have attempted to organize these cycles into calendars to keep track of time and to be able to predict future events of importance to them, such as the annual Nile flood in ancient Egypt.

The main problem is that these natural cycles do not divide evenly. So a month measured by the moon doesn't equal an even number of days, and a solar year is not equal to a certain number of moon cycles (months or "moon"ths).

Early people could either try to stay in sync with the moon, perhaps making months alternating combinations of 29 and 30 days, with special rules to resync occasionally with a solar year by adding leap months (such as the Jewish or Chinese calendar) or abandon lunar cycles and concentrate on the solar year (such as the Ancient Egyptian calendar of 12 same-sized months).

If syncing a calendar with lunar cycles is most important, we call it a lunar calendar. If syncing a calendar with the solar year, a solar calendar, and if trying to meet both needs, a lunisolar calendar (such as the Ancient Roman calendar).

Why 12 months in a year?

Ultimately, all calendars began with people recording time by using natural cycles: days, lunar cycles (months), and solar cycles (years).

The year is 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds long or 365.242199 days.

The time between full moons is 29.53 days.

The Ancient Egyptians are credited with the first calendar of 12 months, each consisting of 30 days, comprising a year. They added 5 days at the end of the year to syncronize somewhat with the solar year.

By making all their months an even 30 days, they abandoned trying to sync with lunar cycles and concentrated instead on aligning with the solar year.

The Egyptians recognized that this calendar didn't quite align with a actual year. They called the 1461 Egyptian years it took to re-align with the 1460 solar years a Sothis Period.

Eventually, the Greek rulers of Egypt under Ptolemy added the concept of a leap year, adding a day every 4 years. The Romans reinforced this concept when they later ruled Egypt.

Why 28 days in February?

We owe the modern calendar's differing number of days each month to the Romans. The early Roman calendar consisted of 12 months beginning in March like this (later January became the start of the year):

Month Length
Martius 31
Aprilis 29
Maius 31
Iunius 29
Quintilis 31
Sextilis 29
September 29
October 31
November 29
December 29
Ianuarius 29
Februarius 28
Februarius (leap years) 23
Intercalaris (leap years) 27/28
The early Romans attempted to syncronize the months with the first crescent moon following a new moon resulting in some months of 29 days and some of more.

Every other year, February was shortened and a leap month (Intercalaris) was added in an attempt to realign lunar cycles with the solar calendar. The lengths of the years in a four year cycle of this lunisolar calendar were 355, 377, 355, and 378 days. This added up to 4 days too many to stay in sync with the solar year.

Julian Calendar

Eventually Julius Caesar asked an astronomer, Sosigenes of Alexandria, Egypt, to devise a better calendar. What resulted is called the Julian Calendar. He abandoned aligning the months with lunar cycles, and adopted months of 30 or 31 days length, keeping February at 28 days. He introduced an extra day in February in leap years. Sound familiar?

Julius Caesar re-named the 5th month after himself. His successor, Augustus Caesar, re-named the 6th month after himself.

The first day of each month was called Kalendae, or calends. Debts were due on this day, so books to track payments were called calendarium (account book) from which we get our modern day calendar.




Origin of Year 0 and AD, BC

Counting years according to our modern system was suggested by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century and more commonly adopted in the 9th century.

Before that, Christianity counted years by the reign of the Roman emperor, or according to the biblically-calculated time since Adam, or Anno Mundi (AM). The AM count was based upon biblical passages. In particular, it used a 12 hour analogy, with Jesus appearing at the 11th hour. Unfortunately, this calendar had the world coming to an end around 500 AD.

Dionysius proposed an alternative calendar that set the year 0 to Christ's incarnation upon the world based upon the history available to him, and to the beginning of the age of Pisces (where new years began with the sun in the constellation of Pisces). Pisces, the sign of the fish, was linked to the first Christian symbol, ICHTHYS (i.e., fish in Latinised Greek). It also made the end of the age of Pisces occur close to an auspicious alignment of the 5 major planets in 2003.

Seven points summarize the calendrical significance of the Year 2000 and the connection of the planetary positions in May 2000 with the definition of the yearly counting:

1. The period of 2000 years was a definitive base from which to calculate the year 1 AD. Under the concept of the world in antiquity and early medieval times, the period of 2000 years was a precessional age calculated by using periods of the starry sky.

2. The most important basis for calculating such an age is the duration in which one constellation holds its function as a spring constellation until it loses it due to precession to the succeeding constellation. This period is also called a Platonic month. The whole cycle of precession lasts about 25,800 years and is called a Platonic year. In late antiquity and in the medieval orient, the assumed precession-constant of 66.6 years for 1° served as a design fundamental. Because of using this constant, it was calculated that the spring equinox would progress 30° at the zodiac in 2000 years. A new constellation would announce spring, bringing in a new age. So one age after Christ's incarnation, whose pictogram became ICHTHYS (fish or Pisces), a new spring equinox constellation, Aquarius, became the object of a 2000-years calculated age.

3. Another point of view was the so-called Greatest Year, when a conjunction of all classical planets including sun and moon occurs. The period in between two Greatest Years (conjunction of all planets) was called the Great Year, after which - as the ancient assumption states - all history would repeat itself from the beginning of the world.

4. The conjunction of all planets in the year 531 CE is the starting point of two worldwide time-bearings to similar alignments. The one with a view into the past was the adjusting of the Indian Kali Yuga by Aryabhata. The other, looking into the future, but focusing also on the period of 2000 years, was the establishment of 1 AD by Dionysius.

5. The content of a private family text tradition refers to the secret meaning of the yearly counting by Dionysius Exiguus.

6. An essential reason for inventing the AD count was that with the year 6000 AM of the previous creation-of-the-world era (year 500 CE), the seventh and final day, Doomsday, was threatening and the rising end-of-the-world fear was averted by a new time calculation. The creation of the new AD count shifted the Last Day to the end of the age of Pisces.

7. The year 1 AD of the Catholic Christian yearly counting was defined by using the conjunction of all planets in the year 531 CE and the commensurate planetary periods to calculate the date of a future occurrence of the same conjunction. After finding the future alignment of all planets (which took place in May 2000), the starting point of the new yearly counting was established exactly 1999 years before it, in 1 AD, by determining the length of one age, using the constant of precession (66.6y/1°). This is why the same planetary conjunction occurs in the year 2000 of the Christian yearly counting, as it often does at the beginning of ages.

It is outside the realm of probability that the Dionysian yearly counting was determined randomly. It is also rather improbable that a mythic conjunction of all planets should so closely coincide with the second millennium at the arbitrary end of a religious age by accident!

The Christian way of yearly counting came to an end, whose foundation was laid by adjusting the first year of AD and by aiming to the Last Day, at the second millennium. In German, this day is called the "First Day" (Jüngster Tag), showing a further reference to an age, just like another symbol of Jesus, alpha and omega, the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet.

Wednesday..Odins day.

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