"Word origins: September=the 7th month?" Topic

This has bugged me for a while, September, October, November and December seem to mean month 7, 8, 9 and 10 (but are in fact months 9, 10, 11 and 12) and I never understood why.

I have 2 theories on this:
The Romans at some point had a 10 month Calander but added 2 later on. I seem to remember reading once that July and August were created to honor Julius and Augustus Ceaser. But they my just have been renamed.

Or

Like the Chinese the Roman new year was around Spring so March would be Month 1, December month 10 and January and February the end of the year. But I've never heard of New Year being moved.

I suppose I could go to Google or Wikipedia but that would be cheating can anyone fill me in?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September

Oh, sorry, disregard that and wait until someone copypastes it :-)

link

In Latin, septem means "seven". The origin of the name may also be attributed to Vedic culture. In sanskrit, Sapta refers to "seven" and Ambar means "sky". "Sapt-Ambar" referred to the seventh sky or month in the Vedic culture. September was also the seventh month of the Roman calendar until 153 BC.

the Roman year began in March (spring equinoxish)

And the April Fools continued to celebrate new years day at that time instead of celebrating it in january.
ymmv

When was it moved to Winter Solstace (approx)?

July and August were not "added" to the clendar, but renamed. There were alway 12 months in any year, because they correspond to 12 lunar cycles.

As for renaming things, much the same thing is going on today in Turkmenistan, with "Turkmenbashi" president Niyazof renaming months in his own honor, and like a good boy, in honor of his mother, too.

There is no "rational" reason to start the New Year on Jnuary 1, beyond the convenient one of it being the first day of the first month. Much more "rational" is to base it on the equinoxes or solstices. That is why so many calendars begin the new year on March 21. Or 22, deopending…
Ancchoring it on January 1, and then adding days as needed to keep the seasons from meandering all over the place was actually a "rational" thing to do. January 1 was as good an arbitrary day as any, but it would have been nice to choose my birthday.

Heck, it's so arbitrary that they don't even hold the NCAA College Football championship games on January 1, anymore! Now, THAT is a tragedy! If anything should be used to ring in the New Year, it should be crowning Penn State #1!!!

Don't know about Penn St, but agree completely that the championship game should be on Jan 1st! It's such an anti-climax having the game on the 3rd, 4th, 5th just for TV ratings…

@ Kid Kyoto: in most of Western Europe, New Year was moved to January 1 during the 16th century, with some exceptions (e.g. England in 1752). Before that, the beginning of the year was on various different dates in different parts of Europe.

According to the Christian calendar, January 1 is the day of Jesus' circumcision.

I'm rather partial to the Hobbit calendar Tolkein invented.

John the OFM: "There were alway 12 months in any year, because they correspond to 12 lunar cycles."

I actually read a facinating book on this called "Clockwork Man." It pointed out that the Babylonians were the ones to standardize the calendar to 12 months in order to simplify collecting taxes and rents.

You seen, MOST years have 12 lunar cycles. But every few years we get 11 or 13! Imagine you own a building or land and are renting it to some nice peasants. Now imagine that most years you get 12 months of rent, but every now and then you only get 11 (and although this is offset by the frequent years you get 13 months of rent, your peasants are non-too-happy about it). The government tax collectors had similar reactions. Hence, the need for standardization.

—————-

The book, "Clockwork Man," was really an interesting study of calendars, time, clocks, and the effect their creation and assimilation into our culture has really changed society.

Oh, sure. Blame everything on TV ratings and tax collectors.

The weird thing about the Roman calendar is that they apparently didn't "count" the 60 or so days of winter, which is why they only had 10 months to start with.

I'm sure tax collectors were involved in standardizing those two new months. ;)

@KK

Why is it "cheating" to answer your own question by searching for the answer on wiki etc.? Is it better to take up bandwidth here?

Curiously,

w.

Because I thought about it and wanted see if my reasoning made sense.

Or something.

It worked in my head.

And also discussing it here allows for other subject to be brought in through discussion, things I would not learn if I just looked up the answer.

Like the NCAA finals.

ur all squarz.