What word names a month

МУНИЦИПАЛЬНОЕ
БЮДЖЕТНОЕ ОБЩЕОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ

«СРЕДНЯЯ
ОБЩЕОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНАЯ ШКОЛА № 40»

«English Calendar.What
do the names of the days of the Week and of the months mean?»

The work is made by

Kseniya Androsova

9V School № 40

The director

Yuliya G. Bogdanova,

English teacher

Astrakhan

2018

Content.

1.    
Introduction…………………………………………………….3

2.     A
calendar as a necessary attribute of human life.……………………………………………………………..4

3.    
Practice…………………………………………………………23

4.    
Conclusion..……………………………………………………25

5.    
Literature………………………………………………………26

6.    
Appendix……………………………………………………….27

2

Introduction

When we do the calendar, we learn the months, the
dates, the years. Every week, day has a name. There are lots of numbers that look
the same. So let’s begin to show you how we do the calendar right now. Every
day people try to remember what day is, what month is. People write notes, they
do tasks, but they don’t think what days’ and months’ mean.

Names of months are known too, but it is problem for
me to understand the meaning of days’ and months’ titles, their numbers and
orders.

So, the theme of my research in English calendarand
etymology of days of the week and months.

I think that theme of my work in actual because all
people use these words every day.

The goal of my work is studding of origin of
months’and days’ titles in the English language. To reach the goal I offer the
next tasks:

1. Study the literature about problem.

2. Find history of months’ and days’ names.

3. Conduct a quiz for students’ review of  days’ and
months’ titles.

4. Establish and start using training aids for 3-5
classes.

I use the following methods: analysis, research,
experiment in the form of a quiz, synthesis of material for the compilation,
training manuals.

According
to the foregoing I hypothesize: «Days’ of the week and months’ titles were occurred
from gods’ names, that’s why we use capital letters to write them»

3

1.     A
calendar as a  necessary attribute of human life

The history of calendars, that is, of people creating
and using methods for keeping track of days and larger divisions of time,
covers a practice with very ancient roots.

Archeologists have reconstructed methods of
timekeeping that go back to prehistoric periods at least as old as the
Neolithic. The natural units for timekeeping used by most historical societies
are the day, the solar year and the lunation. Calendars are explicit schemes
used for timekeeping. The first historically attested and formulised calendars
date to the Bronze Age, dependent on the development of writing in the Ancient
Near East, the Sumerian being the earliest, followed by Egyptian, Assyrian and
Elamite calendars.

A larger number of calendar systems of the Ancient
Near East appear in the Iron Age archaeological record, based on the Assyrian
and Babylonian calendar. This includes the calendar of the Persian Empire,
which in turn gave rise to the Zoroastrian calendar as well as the Hebrew
calendar.

Calendars in antiquity were usually lunisolar,
depending on the introduction of intercalary months to align the solar and the
lunar years. This was mostly based on observation, but there may have been
early attempts to model the pattern of intercalation algorithmically, as
evidenced in the fragmentary 2nd-century Coligny calendar. Nevertheless, the
Roman calendar contained very ancient remnants of a pre-Etruscan 10-month solar
year.

The Roman calendar was reformed by Julius Caesar in 45
BCE. The Julian calendar was no longer dependent on the observation of the new
moon but simply followed an algorithm of introducing a leap day every four
years. This created a dissociation of the calendar month from the lunation.

In the 11th century in Persia, a calendar reform led
by Khayyam was announced in 1079, where the length of the year was measured as
365.24219858156 days.Given that the length of the year is changing in the sixth
decimal place over a person’s lifetime, this is outstandingly accurate. For comparison
the length of the year at the end of the 19th century was 365.242196 days,
while today it is 365.242190 days.

4

The Gregorian calendar was introduced as a refinement
of the Julian calendar in 1582, and is today in worldwide use as the de facto calendar
for secular purposes.

The term calendar itself is taken from the calends,
the term for the first day of the

month in the Roman calendar, related to the verb
calare «to call out», referring to

the calling or the announcement that the new moon was just
seen. Latin

calendarium meant «account book, register»,
as accounts were settled and debts were collected on the calends of each month.

The Latin term was adopted in Old French as calendier
and from there in Middle English as calender by the 13th century. The spelling
calendar is from Early Modern English.

The alternative theory connects calendar with slavic,
pre-christian tradition Koledari which is later incorporated into Christmas.
Kolo means «circle, cycle» and dar means «a gift».

A number of prehistoric structures have been proposed
as having had the purpose of timekeeping (typically keeping track of the course
of the solar year). This includes many megalithic structures, and reconstructed
arrangements going back far into the Neolithic period.

A ceramic artefact from Bulgaria, known as the Slatino
furnace model, has been pronounced by local archeologists and media to be
oldest known calendar representation, a claim not endorsed in mainstream views.

A Mesolithic arrangement of twelve pits and an arc
found in Warren Field, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, dated to roughly 10,000 years
ago, has been described as a lunar calendar and dubbed the «world’s oldest
known calendar» in 2013.

The Oldest European calendar is found near to Vukovar
in modern day Croatia. It is a ceramic vessel bearing inscribed ideograms of
celestial objects visible each week and moth of the year.

5

The modern calendar was created in different countries
in various ways. The ancient Sumerian calendar divided a
year into 12 lunar months of 29 or 30 days. Each month began with the sighting
of a new moon. Sumerian months had no uniform name throughout Sumer because of
the religious diversity. This resulted in scribes and scholars referring to
them as «the first month», «the fifth month» etc. To keep
the lunar year of 354 days in step with the solar year of 365.242 days an extra
month was added periodically, much like a Gregorian leap year.

There were no weeks in the Sumerian calendar. Holy
days and time off from work were usually celebrated on the first, seventh and
fifteenth of each month. In addition to these holy days, there were also feast
days which varied from city to city.

Before the Spring and Autumn period (before 770 BC),
the Chinese Calendars were solar calendars. In the so-called five-phase
calendar, the year consists of 10 months and a transition, each month being 36
days long, and the transitions 5 or 6 days. During the Warring States period
(~475-220 BC), the primitive lunisolar calendars were established under the
Zhou Dynasty, known as the six ancient calendars (simplified Chinese: 古六历;
traditional Chinese: 古六曆). The months of these
calendars begin on the day with the new moon, with 12 or 13 months (lunations)
in a year. The intercalary month is placed at the end of the year. In Qin
China, the Qin calendar (simplified Chinese: 秦历;
traditional Chinese: 秦曆) was introduced. It
follows the rules of Zhuanxu’s calendar, but the months order follows the Xia’s
calendar.

Although the earliest evidence of Iranian calendrical
traditions is from the second millennium BCE, predating the appearance of the
Iranian prophet Zoroaster, the first fully preserved calendar is that of the
Achaemenids. Throughout recorded history, Persians have been keen on the idea
and importance of having a calendar. They were among the first cultures to use
a solar calendar and have long favoured a solar over lunar and lunisolar
approaches. The sun has always been a symbol in Iranian culture and is closely
related to the folklore regarding Cyrus the Great.

Old Persian inscriptions and tablets indicate that
early Iranians used a

6

360-day calendar based on the solar observation
directly and modified for their beliefs. Days were not named. The months had
two or three divisions depending on the phase of the moon. Twelve months of 30
days were named for festivals or activities of the pastoral year. A 13th month
was added every six years to keep the calendar synchronized with the seasons.

The first calendars based on Zoroastrian cosmology
appeared in the later Achaemenid period (650 to 330 BCE). They evolved over the
centuries, but month names changed little until now.

The unified Achaemenid Empire required a distinctive
Iranian calendar, and one was devised in Egyptian tradition, with 12 months of
30 days, each dedicated to a yazata (Eyzad), and four divisions resembling the
Semitic week. Four days per month were dedicated to Ahura Mazda and seven were
named after the six Amesha Spentas. Thirteen days were named after Fire, Water,
Sun, Moon, Tiri and Geush Urvan (the soul of all animals), Mithra, Sraosha
(Soroush, yazata of prayer), Rashnu (the Judge), Fravashi, Bahram (yazata of
victory), Raman (Ramesh meaning peace), and Vata, the divinity of the wind.
Three were dedicated to the female divinities, Daena (yazata of religion and
personified conscious), Ashi (yazata of fortune) and Arshtat (justice). The
remaining four were dedicated to Asman (lord of sky or Heaven), Zam (earth),
ManthraSpenta (the Bounteous Sacred Word) and AnaghraRaocha (the ‘Endless
Light’ of paradise).

The Greeks, as early as the time of Homer, appear to
have been familiar with the division of the year into the twelve lunar months
but no intercalary month Embolimos or day is then mentioned. Independent of the
division of a month into days, it was divided into periods according to the
increase and decrease of the moon. Thus, the first day or new moon was called
Noumenia. The month in which the year began, as well as the names of the
months, differed among the states, and in some parts even no names existed for
the months, as they were distinguished only numerically, as the first, second,
third, fourth month, etc.

The ancient Athenian calendar was a lunisolar calendar
with 354-day years, consisting of twelve months of alternating length of 29 or
30 days. To keep the calendar in line with the solar year of 365.242 days, an
extra, intercalary month was added in every other year.

7

The Athenian months were called Hekatombion,
Metageitnion, Boedromion, Pyanepsion, Maimakterion, Poseidon, Gamelion,
Anthesterion, Elaphebolion, Munychion, Thargelion, and Skirophorion. The
intercalary month usually came after Poseidon, and was called second Poseidon.

In addition to their regular, «festival»
calendar, the Athenians maintained a second, political calendar. This
«conciliar» calendar divided the year into «prytanies», one
for each of the «phylai», the subdivisions of Athenian citizens. The
number of phylai, and hence the number of prytanies, varied over time. Until
307 BC, there were 10 phylai. After that the number varies between 11 and 13
(usually 12). Even more confusing, while the conciliar and festival years were
about the same length in the 4th century BC, such was not regularly the case
earlier or later. Documents dated by prytany are frequently very difficult to
assign to a particular equivalent in the Julian calendar.

The table of Greek Olympiads, following the four-year
cycles between the Olympic Games from 1 July 776 BC, continued until the end of
the 4th century AD. The Babylonian Era of  Nabonassar, beginning on 26 February
747 BC, was used by the Greeks of Alexandria. It was later known in the Middle
Ages from the works of Ptolemy.

The Greek calendars were greatly diversified by the
Hellenistic period, with separate traditions in every Greek state. Of primary
importance for the reconstruction of the regional Greek calendars is the
calendar of Delphi, because of the numerous documents found there recording the
manumission of slaves, many of which are dated both in the Delphian and in a
regional calendar.

The Macedonian Era of the Seleucids, which began with
the conquest of Babylon by SeleucusNicator in 312 BC. It became widely used in
the Levant.The Jews knew it as the «era of contracts», and used it in
Europe until the 15th century.

The Roman Republican calendar numbered years based on
the sitting consuls. References to the year of consulship were used in both
conversation and official record. Romans from the same family often had the
same praenomen, which sometimes makes it difficult to distinguish them, and
there were two consuls at any one time, each of whom might sometimes hold the
appointment more than once,

8

meaning that it was (and is) necessary to be well
educated in history to understand the references. The Romans had an eight-day
week, with the market-day falling every eight days. It was called a nundinum or
‘nine-day’ in inclusive counting.

Most of the regional Hindu calendars are inherited
from a system standardized in classical Hindu astronomy as adopted via
Indo-Greek transmission in the final centuries BCE, and reformed by Gupta era
astronomers such as Āryabhaṭa and Varāhamihira.

Time keeping was important to Vedic rituals, and
Jyotisha was the Vedic era field of tracking and predicting the movements of
astronomical bodies in order to keep time, in order to fix the day and time of
these rituals. This study was one of the six ancient Vedangas, or ancillary science
connected with the Vedas – the scriptures of Hinduism.

Hindu calendar, sometimes referred to as Panchanga, is
a collective term for the various lunisolar calendars traditionally used in
Hinduism. They adopt a similar underlying concept for timekeeping, but differ
in their relative emphasis to moon

cycle or the sun cycle, the names of months and when
they consider the New Year to start. The ancient Hindu calendar is similar in
conceptual design to the Jewish calendar, but different from the Gregorian calendar.
Unlike Gregorian calendar which adds additional days to lunar month to adjust
for the mismatch between twelve lunar cycles (354 lunar days) and nearly 365
solar days, the Hindu calendar

maintains the integrity of the lunar month, but insert
an extra full month by complex rules, every few years, to ensure that the
festivals and crop related rituals fall in the appropriate season.

The Hindu calendars have been in use in the Indian
subcontinent since ancient times, and remains in use by the Hindus in India and
Nepal particularly to set the Hindu festival dates. Early Buddhist and Jain
communities of India adopted the ancient Hindu calendar, later Vikrami calendar
and then local Buddhist calendars. Buddhist and Jain festivals continue to be
scheduled according to a lunar system in the luni-solar calendar.

The old Roman year had 304 days divided into 10
months, beginning

9

with March. However the ancient historian Livy gave
credit to the second ancient Roman king NumaPompilious for devising a calendar
of 12 months. The extra months Ianuarius and Februarius had been invented,
supposedly by NumaPompilious as stop-gaps.Julius Caesar realized that the
system had become inoperable, so he effected drastic changes in the year of his
third consulship. The New Year in 709 AUC began on 1 January and ran over 365
days until 31 December. Further adjustments were made under Augustus, who introduced
the concept of the «leap year» in 737 AUC (AD 4).The resultant Julian
calendar remained in almost universal use in Europe until 1582.

Marcus Terentius Varro introduced the Ab urbe condita
epoch, assuming a foundation of Rome in 753 BC. The system remained in use
during the early medieval period until the widespread adoption of the Dionysian
era in the Carolingian period. In the Roman Empire, the AUC year could be used
alongside the consular year, so that the consulship of Quintus FufiusCalenus
and PubliusVatinius could be determined as 707 AUC (or 47 BC), the third
consulship of Caius Julius Caesar, with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, as 708 AUC (or
46 BC), and the fourth consulship of Gaius Julius Caesar as 709 AUC (or 45 BC).

The seven-day Week has a tradition reaching back to
the Ancient Near East, but the introduction of the «planetary week»
which remains in modern use dates to the Roman Empire period (see also names of
the days of the week).

For the first six centuries since the birth of Jesus
Christ, European countries used various local systems to count years, most
usually regnal years, modeled on the Old Testament. In some cases, Creation
dating was also used. In the 6th century, the Christian monk Dionysius Exiguus
devised the Anno Domini system, dating from the Incarnation of Jesus. In the
8th century, the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede the Venerable used another Latin
term, «ante ueroincarnationisdominicae tempus» («the time before
the Lord’s true incarnation», equivalent to the English «before Christ»),
to identify years before the first year of this era.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, even Popes
continued to date documents according to regnal years, and usage of AD only
gradually became common in Europe from the 11th to the 14th centuries. In

10

1422, Portugal became the last Western European
country to adopt the Anno Domini system.

In 1267, the medieval scientist Roger Bacon stated the
times of full moons as a number of hours, minutes, seconds, thirds, and fourths
(horae, minuta, secunda, tertia, and quarta) after noon on specified calendar
dates. Although a third for 1⁄60 of a second remains in some languages, for
example Arabic ثالثة, the modern second is
further divided decimally.

Rival calendar eras to Anno Domini remained in use in
Christian Europe. In Spain, the «Era of the Caesars» was dated from
Octavian’s conquest of Iberia in 39 BC. It was adopted by the Visigoths and
remained in use in Catalonia until 1180, Castille until 1382 and Portugal until
1415.

For chronological purposes, the flaw of the Anno
Domini system was that dates have to be reckoned backwards or forwards
according as they are BC or AD. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia,
«in an ideally perfect system all events would be reckoned in one
sequence. The difficulty was to find a starting point whence to reckon, for the
beginnings of history in which this should naturally be placed are those of
which chronologically we know least.»For both Christians and Jews, the
prime historical date was the Year of Creation, or AnnusMundi.The Eastern
Orthodox Church fixed the date of Creation at 5509 BC. This remained the basis
of the ecclesiastical calendar in the Greek and Russian Orthodox world until
modern times. The Coptic Church fixed on 5500 BC. Later, the Church of England,
under Archbishop Ussher in 1650, would pick 4004 BC.

While the Gregorian calendar is now in worldwide use
for secular purposes, various medieval or ancient calendars remain in regional
use for religious or social purposes, including the Julian calendar, the Hebrew
calendar, the Islamic calendar, various Hindu calendars, the Zoroastrian
calendar etc.

There are also various modern calendars that see
limited use, either created for the use of new religious movements or reformed
versions of older religious calendars, or calendars introduced by regionalist
or nationalist movements.

11

The names of the days of the week in many languages
are derived from the names of the classical planets in Hellenistic astrology,
which were in turn named after contemporary deities, a system introduced in by
the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity. In some other languages, the days are
named after corresponding deities of the regional culture, either beginning
with Sunday or with Monday. In the international standard ISO 8601, Monday is
treated as the first day of the week.

Between the 1st and 3rd centuries, the Roman Empire
gradually replaced the eight-day Roman nundinal cycle with the seven-day week.
Our earliest evidence for this new system is a Pompeiian graffito referring to
the 6th February (viii idusFebruarius) of the year AD 60 as dies solis
(«Sunday»). Another early witness is a reference to a lost treatise
by Plutarch, written in about AD 100, which addressed the question of Why are
the days named after the planets reckoned in a different order from the actual
order?.

The days were named after the planets of Hellenistic
astrology, in the order Sun, Moon, Mars (Ares), Mercury (Hermes), Jupiter
(Zeus), Venus (Aphrodite) and Saturn (Cronos).

The seven-day week spread throughout the Roman Empire
in Late Antiquity. By the 4th century, it was in wide use throughout the
Empire, and it had also reached India and China.

The Greek and Latin names are as follows(Appendix №1)

Romance languages. Except for modern
Portuguese, the Romance

languages preserved the Latin names, except for the
names of Sunday, which was replaced by [dies] Dominicus (Dominica), i.e.
«Day of the Lord» and of Saturday, which was named for the Sabbath.
In Corsican, the Saturday is known either by Sabatu or De Sadorn. (Appendix№2)

Celtic languages. Early Old Irish
adopted the names from Latin, but introduced separate terms of Norse origin for
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, then later supplanted these with terms relating
to church fasting practices. (Appendix №3)

Adoptions from Romance. Albanian
adopted the Latin terms. Other languages adopted the week together with the
Latin (Romance) names

12

for the days of the week in the colonial period. Some
constructed languages also adopted the Latin terminology. (Appendix  №4)

The Germanic peoples adapted the
system introduced by the Romans by substituting the Germanic deities for the
Roman ones (with the exception of Saturday) in a process known as interpretation
Germanic. The date of the introduction of this system is not known exactly, but
it must have happened later than AD 200 but before the introduction of
Christianity during the 6th to 7th centuries, i.e., during the final phase or
soon after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. This period is later than
the Common Germanic stage, but still during the phase of undifferentiated West
Germanic. The names of the days of the week in North Germanic languages were
not calqued from Latin directly, but taken from the West Germanic names.

·       
Sunday:
Old English Sunnandæg (pronounced [ˈsunnɑndæj]), meaning «sun’s day».
This is a translation of the Latin phrase dies Solis. English, like most of the
Germanic languages, preserves the original pagan/sun associations of the day.
Many other European languages, including all of the Romance languages, have
changed its name to the equivalent of «the Lord’s day» (based on
Ecclesiastical Latin dies Dominica). In both West Germanic and North Germanic
mythology the Sun is personified as Sunna/Sól.

·       
Monday:
Old English Mōnandæg (pronounced [ˈmoːnɑndæj]),

meaning «Moon’s day». This is equivalent to
the Latin name dies lunae. In North Germanic mythology, the Moon is personified
as Máni.

·       
Tuesday:
Old English Tīwesdæg (pronounced [ˈtiːwezdæj]), meaning «Tiw’s day».
Tiw (Norse Týr) was a one-handed god associated with single combat and pledges
in Norse mythology and also attested prominently in wider Germanic paganism.
The name of the day is also related to the Latin name dies Martis, «Day of
Mars».

·       
Wednesday:
Old English Wōdnesdæg (pronounced [ˈwoːdnezdæj]) meaning the day of the
Germanic god Woden (known as Óðinn among the North Germanic peoples), and a

13

prominent god of the Anglo-Saxons (and
other Germanic peoples) in England until about the seventh century. It is also
vaguely related to the Latin counterpart dies Mercurii, «Day of
Mercury». The connection between Mercury and Odin is more strained than
the other syncretic connections. The usual explanation is that both Wodan and
Mercury were considered psychopomps, or guides of souls after death, in their
respective mythologies; both are also associated with poetic and musical
inspiration. The Icelandic Miðviku, German Mittwoch, Low German Middeweek and
Finnish keskiviikko all mean mid-week.

·       
Thursday:
Old English Þūnresdæg (pronounced [ˈθuːnrezdæj]), meaning ‘Þunor’s day’. Þunor
means thunder or its personification, the Norse god known in Modern English as
Thor. Similarly Dutch donderdag, German Donnerstag (‘thunder’s day’), Finnish
torstai, and Scandinavian Torsdag (‘Thor’s day’). Thor’s day corresponds to
Latin dies Iovis, «day of Jupiter».

·       
Friday:
Old English Frīgedæg (pronounced [ˈfriːjedæj]), meaning the day of the
Anglo-Saxon goddess Fríge. The Norse name for the planet Venus was
Friggjarstjarna, ‘Frigg’s star’. It is based on the Latin dies Veneris,
«Day of Venus».

·       
Saturday:
the only day of the week to retain its Roman origin in English, named after the
Roman god Saturn associated with the Titan Cronus, father of Zeus and many
Olympians. Its original Anglo-Saxon rendering was Sæturnesdæg (pronounced
[ˈsæturnezdæj]). In Latin, it was dies Saturni, «Day of Saturn». The
Scandinavian Lørdag/Lördagdeviates significantly as it has no reference to
either the Norse or the Roman pantheon; it derives from old Norse laugardagr,
literally «washing-day». The German Sonnabend (mainly used in
northern and eastern Germany) and the Low German words Sünnavend mean «Sunday
Eve», the German word Samstag (mainly used in southern and western
Germany) derives from the name for Shabbat. (Appendix  №5)

·       
Sunday
comes first in order in calendars shown in the table below. In the
Judeo-Christian or Abrahamic tradition, the first day of the week is Sunday.
Biblical Sabbath (corresponding to 14

Saturday), when God rested from six-day Creation, made
the day following Sabbath the first day of the week (corresponding to Sunday).
Seventh-day Sabbaths were sanctified for celebration and rest. After the week
was adopted in early Christianity, Sunday remained the first day of the week,
but also gradually displaced Saturday as the day of celebration and rest, being
considered the Lord’s Day.

Saint Martin of Dumio (c. 520–580), archbishop of
Braga, decided not to call days by pagan gods and to use ecclesiastic
terminology to designate them. While the custom of numbering the days of the
week was mostly prevalent in the Eastern Church, Portuguese and Galician, due
to Martin’s influence, are the only Romance languages in which the names of the
days come from numbers rather than planetary names.

Icelandic is a special case within the Germanic
languages, maintaining only the Sun and Moon (sunnudagur and mánudagur
respectively), while dispensing with the names of the explicitly heathen gods
in favour of a combination of numbered days and days whose names are linked to
pious or domestic routine (föstudagur, «Fasting Day» and laugardagur,
«Washing Day»). The «washing day» is also used in other
North Germanic languages, but otherwise the names correspond to those of
English.

The ISO(International Organization for
Standardization) prescribes Monday as the first day of the week with ISO-8601
for software date formats.

The Slavic, Baltic and Uralic languages (except
Finnish and partially Estonian) adopted numbering but took Monday rather than
Sunday as the «first day». This convention is also found in some
Austronesian languages whose speakers were converted to Christianity by
European missionaries.

In Slavic languages, some of the names correspond to
numerals after Sunday: compare Russian vtornik «Tuesday» and vtoroj
«the following», chetverg «Thursday» and chetvertyj
«the fourth», pyatnitsa «Friday» and pyatyj «the
fifth»; see also the Notes.

15

1.2 Why
do we need a calendar?

The first
calendar was created to monitor weather changes by Egyptians in about 5
thousand years BC. Medieval calendar shows us different agricultural seasons,
months of year and their

respective
activities. Every month corresponded zodiac sign. This calendar helped people
to orient in sacred time. Days were determined by sacred holidays and memorial
days of the saints. Modern calendar doesn’t base on religious holidays. It is
only a table with names days of week, months, where work days and weekend are noted.
We need one to remember what we want during a week, a month, a year. Also it
helps us to keep track of time, to recall the holidays, the meetings and the
events, to organize our time and to focus on studying or on work.

The
Calendar and Religion.Religion has played a major part in the
development of the Calendar. Throughout history, man’s tendency to worship
heavenly bodies as well as observe and record them has given Calendar
development a religious significance. Centuries upon centuries religious priesthoods,
dogmas and recordings have been involved with time reckoning; establishing
Calendars, reshaping old Calendars and promoting or blocking the adoption of
new Calendars.

People
followed to the Church. It dictated when they had to work and when they may
have rest. For example, believings relaxed on Easter, Christmas, Holy Trinity
Day, the Baptism of Lord and so on. Also humans kept the fast. But now it isn’t
so respected. We celebrated only Christmas and Easter. So, people who live in
the USA celebrate Christmas in 25 December, but they celebrate Easter in
between 22 March and 25 April. In Russia Christmas is celebrated in 7 January,
but humans celebrate Easter in the fist Sunday after the vernal equinox.

Type of
calendar.The ancestor of the modern calendar is the
Julian calendar , which was introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC. The successor
to the Julian calendar (old style) is Gregorian calendar (new style),
introduced in 1582 on the initiative of Pope Gregory. The main goal of these innovations
was to eliminate inaccuracy in the amount of 10 days that had accumulated since
the introduction of the Julian calendar.

So, one of
Man’s earliest and greatest inventions was that of the Calendar and
correspondingly, time measurement standards such as Months, Weeks and Days.

The
Calendar is an indispensable part of everyday life. Calendars allow man to
track passing time and to prepare for the future. Calendars help man know when
to plant, when to prepare for festivals and other important events, when to
prepare for harsh weather, when to celebrate his religion, his own birthday and
much more.

The Calendar is a deceptively simple tool.
It is a means of counting the days and

16

organizing
them into agreed upon standard units such as weeks, months and years. These
units generally derive from recurrent astronomical cycles, which are among the
most constant and most conspicuous changes in nature.

1.3 Why does the week start on Sunday?

As
with so many things passed down to us from antiquity, religion is the reason
the calendar week starts (for many of us) on Sunday.

The
first day of the week (for many), Sunday has been set aside as the “day of the
sun” since ancient Egyptian times in honor of the sun-god, Ra. The Egyptians
passed their idea of a 7-day week onto the Romans, who also started their week
with the Sun’s day.

For
some in the Christian tradition, the first day of the week is named in
accordance with the creation tale in the first book of the Bible, Genesis,
where one of the first things God did was say “let there be light, and there
was light.”

This
is the international standard, several countries, including the United States, Canada,
and Australia consider Sunday as the start of the week.

Why
Are There Seven Days in a Week?

The
number of days in the week has not always been 7 in all societies. The point
about this is that a week — unlike a year  or a day has no scientific basis;
there is no astronomical event pertaining to a week, much less a week of 7
days.

However
the number 7 did hold a sacred significance for many societies in which ritual
was of great importance. The lunar month was approximately 28 days long , and
in the sky there were 7 traditionally identified planets. Both of these factors
contributed at different times to the adoption and proliferation of the 7 day
week as we shall see.

English
Names of Days

1)
SUNDAY — Sun’s Day. Germanic translation of the Roman ‘Day of the Sun’.

2)
MONDAY — Moon’s Day. Germanic translation of the Roman ‘Day of the Moon’.

3)
TUESDAY — Tyr’s Day. Named for the Norse / Teutonic God.

4)
WEDNESDAY — Woden’s Day. Named for the Norse / Teutonic God.

5)
THURSDAY — Thor’s Day. Named for the the Norse / Teutonic God.

17

6)
FRIDAY — Freya’s Day. Named for the Norse / Teutonic Goddess.

7)
SATURDAY — Saturn’s Day. Germanic translation of the Roman ‘Day of Saturn’.

SUNDAY —
This day was designated in early Roman Latin as ‘dies Solis’, or ‘Day of the
Sun’, but in later Latin this became ‘Dominica’, ‘Day of God’.

MONDAY — Like Sunday, Monday was
named by the Romans after the Moon. The Latin term was ‘dies Lunae’ or ‘Day of
the Moon’.

TUESDAY — In the Roman world Tuesday
was dedicated to the Roman God of War, Mars, and was known as ‘dies Martis’,
which has given us the Spanish (Martes) the Italian (Martedi) and the French
(Mardi), but in the Germanic Tuesday was re-named after Tyr, the Norse God of
War.The Germanic version of Tyr was Tiw, or Tiu, and when the tribes invaded
Britain, the day became Tiwesdaeg. In the Middle Ages this became ‘Tiwesday’ or
Tiu’s Day, and later ‘Tuesday’.

WEDNESDAY — Wednesday
was originally named for the Roman Messenger of the Gods, Mercury, and known as
‘Dies Mercurii’. However, like Tuesday, the Northern tribes substituted a God
of their own — Odin  orWoden.The Old English ‘Wednesdaeg’ was a corruption of
‘Wodnesdaeg’ or Woden’s Day. This became Wednesdai  in the Middle Ages, and
later ‘Wednesday’.

THURSDAY — Thursday was originally
named for the supreme Roman God, Jove, or Jupiter. ‘Dies Jovis’ was adapted for
other Latin languages such as Spanish (Jueves), The Northern Germanic tribes
chose to substitute their God Thor, in the naming of the day. This name came to
Anglo-Saxon Britain as ‘Thursdaeg’ or Thor’s Day, later developing into
‘Thursday’.

FRIDAY — Friday was originally named
by the Romans after Venus, the God of Love, and called ‘Dies Veneris’. Again,
the Germanic tribes installed their own equivelant Goddess for this day. They
chose Frigg or Freya, Norse and Teutonic Goddesses of Love. The day has come
down to us in Modern German as ‘Freitag’. When the Angles and Saxons invaded
Britain, ‘Frigedaeg’ or Freya’s Day of the Old English language developed into
‘Fridai’ in the Middle Ages, and eventually this became ‘Friday’.

SATURDAY — Saturday is Saturn’s Day,
named after the Roman God of time and the harvest and known to the Romans as
‘Dies Saturni’. This day, like Sunday and Monday, was simply modified by the
Germanic languages without substitution of one of their own Gods. Thus, the
Anglo-Saxon ‘Sater-daeg’, or ‘Saternesdaeg’ which both have clear Roman roots,
developed into Middle English ‘Saterdai’ and then ‘Saturday’.

Almost
all these days are owned by various gods, and the ancestors of the English
people revered and respected them. A big letter — as a sign of respect. Even
with

18

the
reductions of names of days are capitalized.

Why
Are There Twelve Months in a Year?

The
reason for calendars was to record long periods of time, and to predict
important events such as the flooding of the Nile in Egypt, and the only way in
which ancient civilizations could do this was through the natural astronomical
cycles. Three such cycles were known to the ancients — the day (rotation of the
Earth), the year (revolution of the Earth around the Sun), and — significantly
for the purposes of this discussion — the lunar cycle (revolution of the Moon
around the Earth).

One
aspect of the calendar did become established at a fairly early stage — the
number of months in a year. Lunar cycles are about 29.53 days long, and there
are about 365.24 days in the year. Simple division allowed the ancients to
partition the year into 12 segments.  What remained was to allocate names to
these months, and to allocate the number of days to each month.

The
English Names of the Months

1
) JANUARY — The Month of Janus, the Roman God of the gateway

2
) FEBRUARY — The Month of Februa, the Roman Festival of Purification

3
) MARCH — The Month of Mars, the Roman God of War

4
) APRIL — The Month of Aprilis, which means ‘opening’ (of leaves and buds)

5
) MAY — The Month of Maia, Greco-Roman Goddess of Spring and Fertility

6
) JUNE — The Month of Juno, the principal Roman goddess

7
) JULY — Named in honour of Roman dictator, Julius Caesar

8
) AUGUST — Named in honour of Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar

9
) SEPTEMBER — Named simply as ‘the 9th month of the year’

10)
OCTOBER — Named simply as ‘the 10th month of the year’

11)
NOVEMBER — Named simply as ‘the 11th month of the year’

12)
DECEMBER — Named simply as ‘the 12th month of the year’

Tales
about days of week and months.

There
are many tales about days of week and months such as “Twelve months”,

19

 “Days
of week” by Hans Andersen. They show us months’ external appearance, their characters,
their relationships with each other and with people.

January:
Ok. Let’s call all our brothers: 12 MONTHS

In
January it sometimes snows

The
days are short, the cold wind blows.

I’ve
got a brother February

February:
Hello! I’m February.

In
February the winter trees

Are
black and brown, there are no leaves.

The
snow is falling,

The
wind is blowing,

The
ground is white,

All
day and all night.

I’ve
got a brother March

March:
Hello!!! I’m March

In
March the birds begin to sing

They
are happy now it’s spring.

I’ve
got a brother April

April:
Hello! I’m April.

In
April blue sky comes again

There’s
sometimes sun and sometimes rain.

I’ve
got a brother May.

May:
Hello everybody!! I’m May.

In
May it’s warm and we can play

Out
in the sunshine every day.

May
brings flowers, joy and grass

20

And
the holidays for us.

I’ve
got a brother June.

June:
Hello! I’m June

In
June the days are hot and bright

And
stars shine in the sky at night.

I’ve
got a brother July.

July:
Hello! I’m July.

In
July we feel so free

Swimming
in the bright blue sea.

Hot
July brings apples, cherries

And
a lot of other berries.

I’ve
got a brother August.

August:
Hello! I’m August.

In
August we are on holidays

Summer
is the time to play.

I’ve
got a brother September. September, come here!!!

September:
Hello everybody!!!I’m September.

In
September “Hello Friends”

It’s
time to go to school again.

I’ve
got a brother October.

October:
Hello my friends!!! I’m October.

In
October yellow leaves

Fall
from all the autumn trees.

I’ve
got a brother November.

November:
Hello!!!I’m November.

21

In
November days are dark

And
we can’t play out in the park.

I’ve
got a brother December.

December:
Hello!! I’m December.

In
December Christmas comes

Fun
and games for everyone.

1.    
Practice

To
carry out the practical part of the project I had to interview students to exam
knowledge of etymology days of the week and months. So, the questionnaire is
consisted of the following questions (Appendix №6)

A
total of 130 pupils from school №40 participated in the survey.

The
first question is “How many months are there in year?” 89 % of students
answered correctly on the question. It tells us that only a small group of ones
hasn’t coped with this one. (Appendix №7)

84
% of students are sure that March starts spring, and they are right. (Appendix
№8)

The
third question is “What month is the first in the year?”72% of learners
answered that it is a January, and it is true. (Appendix №9)

Only
8 % of students hasn’t coped with the fourth question which sounded like “How
many days have we got in the week?”(Appendix № 10)

Less
than half (41 %) of respondents knew that Sunday is the first day of the week.
(Appendix №11)

In
order to consolidate the acquired knowledge of students I have created
atraining aid for 3-5 classes because children remember better if it turns a
game.

Some
exercises I find in the Internet and in student books, but many I concocted
myself.

First
one of them helps children to remember an order of days of week. Names of days
of week are written on a wagon of the train. Student must arrange how days
follow each other. (Appendix №12)

So,
there are many poems about days of week. We find some of them. They also

22

help
to learn names of days of week and months easier.

I
like Sunday best

Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday less,

Thursday,
Friday are not bad.

Saturday
is better yet,

But
I like Sunday best.

Solomon
Grundy

Solomon
Grundy,

Born
on a Monday,

Christened
on Tuesday,

Married
on Wednesday,

Took
ill on Thursday,

Grew
worse on Friday,

Died on Saturday,

Buried on Sunday,

That was the end,

Of Solomon Grundy.

This poem was first collected by James Orchard Hallоwell and published in 1842 with the lyrics.
The rhyme has varied very little:

Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday,

Christened on a stark and stormy Tuesday,

Married on a grey and grisly Wednesday,

Took ill on a mild and mellow Thursday,

Grew worse on a bright and breezy Friday,

Died on a gay and glorious Saturday,

Buried on a baking, blistering Sunday.

That was the end of Solomon Grundy.

23

An idiom (Latin: idiomī, «special
property is a phrase or an expression that has a figurative, or sometimes
literal, meaning. Categorized as formulaic language, an idiom’s figurative
meaning is different from the literal meaning. There are thousands of idioms,
occurring frequently in all languages. It is estimated that there are at least
twenty-five thousand idiomatic expressions in the English language.

There are a lot of idioms about week days. We think that these
ones will help little students to remember the days’ names and use them
correctly.

Sunday (воскресенье)

Sunday’s child – дитя, родившееся в воскресенье или в переносном значении –
человек, которому везет

When two Sundays come/ meet together – “когда воскресенья
пересекутся”, то есть “никогда”

Sunday face – двуличный человек или
человек, который лицемерит.

Sunday driver — Неумелый, медлительный
водитель

Sunday face — Лицемерный вид

Sunday‘s child — удачливый человек

Monday (понедельник)

Black Monday – первый понедельник
после отпуска или каникул;

Blue Monday — Тяжелый понедельник
(первый рабочий день после воскресенья)

Fat Monday – понедельник перед
Великим постом;

Monday feeling – после воскресенья
нежелание приступать к работе.

Tuesday (вторник)

Holy Thursday– Великий Четверг (на
страстной неделе)

Friday (пятница)

Man Friday – преданный слуга

Girl Friday – юная девушка,
прислуживающая кому-то

Friday face – перекошенная мина, “кислое”
выражения лица.

24

Good Friday —  Страстная, Великая
пятница

Saturday (суббота)

Egg—Saturday – Суббота перед
Масленицей

We have found enough phrases with word “day”(Appendix  №13)

The result of my practical part is served as a training aid that
will help students to understand the etymology of the days of the week and
months and remember their names.

25

Conclusion

“One kind word can
warm three winter months”

Anton Chekhov

What is a calendar in modern society? How does it help
humans?

According to my research, the Calendar is a
deceptively simple tool. It is a mean of counting the days and organizing them
into agreed upon standard units such as weeks, months and years.

Calendar
allows man to track passing time and to prepare for the future. Calendar helps
man know when to plant, when to prepare for festivals and other important
events, when to prepare for harsh weather, when to celebrate his religion, his
own birthday and much more.

Nowadays
there are lots of explorations about the calendar and etymology of days of the
week and of weeks.

So,
it was interesting for me to prove that days’ of the
week and months’ titles were occured from gods’ names, that’s why we use
capital letters to write them. And I did it.

I
think that the calendar will always exist in human life.

Also I hope that
exercises which were found by me will help students and their teachers.

26

Literature

1.     Селешников
С. И. «История календаря и хронология», Издательство «Наука»,1970

2.     Климишин
И. А. «Календарь и хронология», Издательство «Наука», 1990

3.     Уилльямс
Б. «Календари», Издательство «Мнемозина», 2012

4.     Опи
И. и П.«Оксфордский словарь потешек», Оксфордский Университет, 1951

5.     Longman
«Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English», Longman  House,          2002

6.     http://englishgu.ru/kalendar-dni-nedeli-mesyatsy/

7.     http://study-english.info/vocabulary-days-months.php

8.     https://www.liveinternet.ru/users/2864003/post410045363?aid_refresh=yes

9.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Grundy

27

Appendix

№1

№2

№3

№4

№5

№6

The questionnaire.

1.    
How
many months are there in the year? 

2.    
What
month does start spring? 

3.    
What
month is the first in the year? 

4.    
How
many days have we got in the week? 

5.    
Is
Sunday a last day of week? 

№7

№8

№9

№10

№11

 №
12

№13

Wondering how you abbreviate months of the year or simply the word “month?” You’ve come to the right place to learn.

What Are the Months of the Year

You probably came to this page to learn what the months are in order so here you go:

List of Months in Order

In English-speaking countries, here is a list of months of the year in order:

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Comma Separated List of Months in Order

We used our comma separator tool to create this list:

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

January,February,March,April,May,June,July,August,September,October,November,December

How Many Days Are in Each Month

1. January – 31 days
2. February – 28 days (29 days during leap years)
3. March – 31 days
4. April – 30 days
5. May – 31 days
6. June – 30 days
7. July – 31 days
8. August – 31 days
9. September – 30 days
10. October – 31 days
11. November – 30 days
12. December – 31 days

How Do You Abbreviate Months of the Year

However, when it comes to the individual months they each have their own abbreviation and they are far more prevalent in day-to-day use. The abbreviations of the twelve months are listed as follows:

The general rule to abbreviate each month is simply to take the first three letters in each one, which makes it easy to remember and to put into practice.

Two exceptions technically exist, the first being May which is only three letters long and as such arguably has no abbreviation. And then there is September, which can be abbreviated as Sep, but is also abbreviated often as Sept. which has four letters instead.

All in all, the three-letter rule works perfectly fine for all months and should be kept in mind.

When to Use the Abbreviations

Abbreviations, as a rule, are only meant to be used when it’s important to save space or avoid constant repetition. What this means is that the above abbreviations will likely see use mainly when it comes to newspaper headers, printed articles, specialized reports with extensive length and presentation cards. Any context where saving space is relevant will make a great place to use the abbreviation.

Additionally due to their importance when it comes to dates and times the abbreviation of the months can be common in calendars and any sort of displays that give the date, like those found in clocks and phones.

Additionally, certain style guides have very specific rules for abbreviating months. These rules for MLA and APA include:

• MLA: All months are abbreviated as above, except for May, June, and July, which are spelled out in full. Abbreviations begin with a capital letter and end with a period.
• APA: Spell out the month completely. Avoid abbreviations when possible.

Some Examples of When to Use Abbreviations

• The company expects to see increased profits between Apr. and Jun.
• Dec. 24th is an important date all over the world.

About the Word Month

How Do You Abbreviate the Word Month

The short form of month is usually abbreviated as MTH, however as the purpose of an abbreviation is to save on space and month itself isn’t too long of a word it’s rare to see this form used. MTH is usually relegated to small displays particularly in clocks and calendars.

The abbreviations of “month” are:

• mth (plural mths)
• mo/mos (MLA style)
• m’th
• m-th
• mo. (plural mos.)

Definition of Month

A month is defined as a period of roughly four weeks, which makes up one of the twelve periods that form a year.

Due to the various differences in the exact amount of days each month has there isn’t a meaning based on a specific length, but the main factor in the definition is always the notion that a month makes up roughly one twelfth of the year.

Synonyms for Month

Technically speaking the word, the word month doesn’t have a synonym, and neither do the individual months of the year. This is largely because they are proper nouns, and that’s the only word required to refer to the concepts.

Based on the context it might be possible to use words such as Date, Past or Weeks as replacements for month. But in these cases it’ll be more due to the associated context of the phrase, not because they are direct synonyms of the word month.

FAQs

What Are the Spanish Months? Spanish Months in Order

List of Spanish Months

enero
febrero
marzo
abril
mayo
junio
julio
agosto
septiembre
octubre
noviembre
diciembre

Table of Spanish Months

What Are the German Months? German Months in Order

List of German Months

Januar
Februar
März
April
Mai
Juni
Juli
August
September
Oktober
November
Dezember

Table of German Months

What Are the French Months? French Months in Order

List of French Months

janvier
février
mars
avril
mai
juin
juillet
aout
septembre
octobre
novembre
décembre

Table of French Months

What Are the Italian Months? Italian Months in Order

List of Italian Months

gennaio
febbraio
marzo
aprile
maggio
giugno
luglio
agosto
settembre
ottobre
novembre
dicembre

Table of Italian Months

What Are the Arabic Months? Arabic Month List

Here is a list of Hijri, Arabic months you can copy:

Muharram
Safar
Rabi I
Rabi II
Jumada I
Jumada II
Rajab
Shaaban
Ramadan
Shawwal
Dhu al-Qidah
Dhu al-Hijjah

What Are the Hindi Months? Hindi Month List

The Hindu calendar is a multi-dimensional way of structuring time, combining information about lunar days, solar days, lunar months, and solar months.

Here is a list of the Hindu calendar months in order:

What Are the Solar Months in Astrology

Sources:

• https://abbreviations.yourdictionary.com/articles/standard-month-and-days-of-the-week-abbreviations.html
• https://www.aresearchguide.com/monthdayabb.html
• https://www.saralstudy.com/blog/12-months-of-the-year-in-hindi-and-english/