History of Europe

Calendar history! Origin of the month name in English-Why is July in July and August in August?

The names of the English months are actually all derived from Latin.

The current calendar uses a calendar called the "Gregorian calendar", but before that, the calendar called the "Julian calendar" was adopted.

The "Julius" part of the Julian calendar is taken from Julius Caesar, or Julius Caesar in English, and the English July, which stands for July, is taken from Julius.

Before the Julian calendar was adopted, the calendar adopted by the second Roman king Numa Pompilius when it was a royal system was adopted, and it seems that the number of months was 10 before that.

This time I would like to take a look at the history of such a calendar.

The beginning was the 10th month

The history of the calendar has an era in ancient Rome.

Of course, there may have been a calendar before that, and some calendars are not derived from Rome, but the origin of the Gregorian calendar currently adopted is sought in ancient Rome.

It seems that the Roman calendar was initially 10 months.

It seems that the number of days in a year was not fixed at this time, and there was a major change in the calendar during the second King Numa.

The number of days in a year was 355 days, and the moon was adjusted to 12 every 20 years due to the phases of the moon.

At this time, because the 10th month was changed to the 12th month, the new month was brought before, so October, which represents 8, became October. Similarly, November was in November and December was in December, which was confusing for me personally.

After all, when I asked junior high school students to remember the English name of the moon, "Why is October 10 when the octopus is 8?", I couldn't answer. It is difficult for humans to memorize meaningless things. Some people could do it, but I couldn't remember the name of the moon.

The story around here is detailed in another article, so please have a look there.

Around the 1st century BC, Julius Caesar, a major historical star, established the "Julian calendar" with 365 days per year.

Caesar has a strong image of a military man, but he was also a writer, an excellent politician, and a priest. A truly versatile genius, the Julian calendar has been used for quite some time.

Caesar's successor is known to be Octavianus, the first Roman emperor later called Augustus, but after their death, July was named after Julius Caesar and August was named after Augustus in honor of these two. It is a translation that made it.

By the way, there was talk of trying to name September after the second emperor Tiberius, but Tiberius refuses to do so. He's a tyrant later, but at first he was really decent ...

Aside from that, let's summarize the expression and origin of December in Rome once.

* English names in parentheses

January:lanuariusu (January) Derived from the Roman god Janus. Numa seems to have been adopted because he had a great faith in Janus.

February:February (Febrary) Derived from the word "purficatio" which means "purify". February was the season for meat, so it was named after it. Or from Februus, the god of atonement and purification.

March:Martius (March) Comes from the war god Mars (Ares). It is said that the surnames of common names in Rome such as Marius and Marx are also derived from this Marus, and there is a tradition that the first king Romulus is a child of Marx.

April:Aprilis (April) It is said that the goddess of beauty, Aphrodina (Venus or Venus), is the origin. Since ♂ is originally a symbol for Mars, it may be a contrast with Aphrodina for ♀.

May:Maius (May) There is a theory that it is Maia, the goddess of fertility, and a theory that it is Mercury, the god of commerce. It seems to be the former because there is a custom in Rome on May 1 to worship the goddess Maia.

June:Lunius (June) Derived from Jupiter's wife, Juno (Hera). In Roman and Greek mythology, he is the most terrifying god. In a sense, it is an iron plate that Jupiter (Zeus) has an affair and Juno (Hera) gets angry. The Trojan War has become complicated ... Oops, it looks like someone has come.

July:Ilius (july) As I said at the beginning, I'm from Julius Caesar. Prior to that, the fifth month, "Quintilius," was used.

August:Augustus (August) As mentioned at the beginning, it also comes from Augustus, also known as Octavian. The title of Auguste in France has the same etymology.

September:September (September) means the 7th month. It's the 7th since it's been counted from March.

October:October (October) means the 8th month. The octopus has eight legs, so I want to make it remember as an octopus. It's pretty confusing because it's a squid with 10 legs.

November:November (November) Meaning the 9th month.

December:December (December) Meaning the 10th month.

Since Augustus, there have been many Roman emperors who arbitrarily changed their names to the names of the moon, but they are still used only in July and August. It can be said that these two actors are exactly different in Roman history and history.

The Julian calendar was used until 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII established the "Gregorian calendar", and the name of the moon is used as it is.

Considering that we, who are living now, use many names and systems derived from Rome, we can see how ancient Rome influenced the history of mankind.