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The History of English Podcast
Episode 18: Keeping Time With The Romans
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We explore the origin of modern English words related to time. A direct connection is made to the calendar reforms of Julius Caesar. The etymology of English words related to time illustrate the combined influences of the Germanic languages and … Conti...
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Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language. This is episode 18, keeping time with the Romans. The last time we looked at the emergence of the ancient Celts, who once dominated much of Central and Western Europe. And we looked at the defeat of those same Celts by the Romans in the region known as Gaul, which is basically modern day France. And the Latin dialect spoken in that region eventually evolved into an early form of French known as Old French. And it was this version of French which the Normans brought with them to England in 1066 and which radically transformed English into the language we have today. Now, this time I want to talk about time, or at least the Roman concept of time, because not only do many of our time related terms come from Latin, but also because it helps to illustrate how the language of the Romans permeates modern English. And it also makes for some good etymology. So let's return to where we left off last time with Roman Gaul, the region that would eventually become known as France. And at this point in our story, Gaul was a newly conquered Roman territory and the conqueror was Julius Caesar. And Caesar was also now the dictator of what would soon become the Roman Empire. Now, Julius Caesar was an historical figure who has impacted the English language in many ways. His name exists in modern English as the medical procedure known as the Caesarean section or C section. And this is supposedly because Caesar himself was born by this method. But by the way, that's probably a myth, because during the time of Caesar, babies were only surgically removed from the womb when the mother died in childbirth. And Roman medicine wasn't capable of surgically removing a baby the way modern medicine can. So it was basically a last ditch effort to save a baby when the mother died, or was destined to die in childbirth. But Caesar's mother was alive during Caesar's lifetime according to recorded sources. So Caesar himself was apparently not born by that method. Now, some historians have noted that Caesar had a somewhat prominent relative who was also named Julius Caesar. And this other Julius Caesar was apparently born by that method. And so there's some speculation that the similarity of the names caused the confusion. And that's why the Caesarean has generally been attributed to the more famous Caesar. Now, I should note that the modern English pronunciation of Julius Caesar is quite different from the way the name would have been pronounced in Latin during the time of Caesar. And I mention this in part because a few listeners with a background in Latin have asked me about the name of the God Jupiter. In an earlier episode, I noted that the Name of the God Jupiter developed from an original Indo European word meaning sky, father. Now, technically, Classical Latin didn't have the J sound. So Jupiter was pronounced Jupiter during the period of Latin. And the Y sound in eupiter was represented by the letter I. And the same was true of the name Julius. It was actually pronounced Ulius during the period of Classical Latin. And again, it was spelled Iulius. The J sound actually developed in very Late Latin beyond the Classical Latin period. And one place where it developed was in Gaul. Now, many parts of the Roman Empire had a local Latin dialect, which are sometimes called Vulgar Latin dialects because they were the dialects of the common people of that region. And those dialects weren't the standard Latin dialect of the classical period. And in Gaul, the Latin dialect developed several new sounds. I've already discussed in an earlier episode how the K sound began to shift to an S sound before certain letters. And the H sound also began to disappear from the language, which is why we still sometimes have silent H's in words borrowed from Latin. And the Y sound began to shift to a brand new J sound in many words. So Jupiter became Jupiter and Julius became Julius. Now, these changes were part of the transition from Late Latin into a very early form of French called Old French. And these changes would be further impacted by the arrival of a Germanic tribe called the Franks, who would eventually oversee the transition of Gaul into the Frankish kingdom and then eventually into the nation we know today as France. But that's all much later in our story. So that's how Julius became Julius. But what about Caesar? Well, during the period of Classical Latin, Caesar was actually pronounced Kaiser. Remember that? The C always had the K sound in Latin. And as I just noted, the K sound shifted to an S sound before an E and an I in Old French. So from Julius Caesar to Julius Caesar, we can hear the impact of sound changes in Late Latin and Early French, and we can see how those changes impacted modern English. Modern English may not sound like French, but the way many English words are pronounced is a direct inheritance from French. And it also starts to explain why many English spellings can seem so random and complicated. Now, after Caesar's assassination, the name Caesar was adopted as a general name for Roman emperors. So Rome actually had many Caesars after Julius Caesar. And because of the heavy influence of the Romans, the term Caesar passed into German and Russian as well, where it also meant the top military or political leader. Remember, Caesar was pronounced Kaiser in Classical Latin, so the term passed into German as Kaiser, and it was still in use in the Austro Hungarian Empire until World War I. And the term passed into Russian as tsar. And it too was in use in Russia as late as the 20th century. Now, the term Tsar has also been borrowed into English as a term for certain top political leaders. So the drug czar in the United States is the person responsible for enforcing US drug laws. Again, drug czar literally means drug Caesar in its original sense. Now, there's something else that we typically associate with Julius Caesar, and that's the Julian calendar. This calendar was developed at the instruction of Caesar, and it's the direct ancestor of the calendar we use today. So let's talk about time and how the ancients measured it. Last time I discussed the ancient Celts and I explained how Caesar conquered the Celtic territory of Gaul. And I mentioned that the ancient Celts didn't have a written language. And that's generally true. But as the Celts began to encounter other literate people like the Greeks and the Romans, it does appear that they began to adopt some very early, limited writing, like four inscriptions. And this occurred around the same time the Romans invaded Gaul. Caesar actually noted that the Celtic tribes had adopted some very limited writing for inscriptions. And this was all confirmed about 150 years ago when the remains of a Celtic calendar dating from the first century BC was discovered in France, which, as we now know, was once the Roman territory of Gaul. So given that date, the first century bc, it means the calendar was being used by Celts in Gaul around the same time Caesar invaded the territory. And the writing on the calendar used Roman lettering and numerals, but it was written entirely in a Celtic dialect. The calendar highlights several dates which were important to the Celts for ceremonial or agricultural purposes, or perhaps for both. And that makes it the oldest surviving document in a Celtic language. And it confirms that the Celts were not the barbarians the Romans considered them to be. And as I said, the calendar predates the Roman occupation. And it shows a sophisticated series of astronomical calculations which is completely independent of the calendar developed by the Romans. Now, I mention this Celtic calendar for two reasons. First, to make the point that shortly before the languages of the continental Celts died out, they had begun to adopt some limited writing for inscriptions and notations. But the other reason is to talk about the importance of ancient calendars and timekeeping. Many of our modern English words related to dates and timekeeping come from the Romans. In fact, many of them come directly from Julius Caesar himself. For example, the name of the month of July comes directly from the name Julius and Julius Caesar. And as I said earlier, the so called Julian calendar comes from certain reforms to the calendar implemented by Caesar himself. So let's take a closer look at that ancient Roman calendar. Now, in ancient times, the most important measurements of time were days, months and years. I mean, today we spend a lot of time focusing on hours and seconds and minutes, but that's largely a product of modern technology and our fast paced culture. But to the ancients, it was much more important to keep track of days and months and years. Seasonal measurements were essential to an agricultural society. Determining when to plant and when to harvest was essential for survival in these ancient societies. And that's why ancient monuments like Stonehenge, which predate both the ancient Celts and the Romans by many centuries, it probably had an astrological function, at least in part. And seasonal measurements were also important for military purposes. Military campaigns were avoided in the colder climates of Europe during the winter months. So the three basic forms of time measurement for ancient people again were days, months and years. Now a day is very simple. As we know, that's the length of time it takes for the Earth to make one complete rotation on its axis, or as the ancients would have viewed it, the length of time it takes for the sun to make one complete revolution around the Earth. So since the day was measured by the perceived movement of the sun, the sun was closely associated with the concept of a day. The original Indo European word for sky was something like diu. This word also meant to shine like sunshine. So it came to be associated with the concept of a day. And you may remember this word as part of the original Indo European word for God, which was sky father. It produced the Sanskrit word Dias Peter. It also produced the Greek word Zuspeter, which was later shortened to Zeus. And it also produced the name of the Anglo Saxon God Tew, which gave us Tewsday, another time related term, but more on that later. And that same original Indo European word produced the Latin word diu, pater, which became Eupater and then Jupiter in late Latin and early French, as I mentioned earlier. Well, this Indo European word for sky or shine, dieu, it ultimately produced two other words in Latin. One word was deus, which came to be a generic term for God. And we see that word in modern English in words borrowed from Latin, for example, in words like deity and divine, and even in the French word adieu, which literally meant to God and came to mean God be with you as a standard way of saying goodbye. The other word which developed in Latin from that original Indo European word diu was dies. And that word meant day in Latin. So there you can see how the original Indo European word for sky or shine developed the Latin words for both God and day. Now, with regard to the Latin word for day, which, remember, was dies, it produced modern English words like diary, which was a journal of the day's events. And it produced the word like dial, as in part of a sundial that marks the daylight hours. And it produced the word diet, which is how much you ate each day. And it also produced the word adjourn, which meant to put off to another day. Now, during the Middle Ages, it was common for calendars to set aside two days of each month, so 24 days total for the year as evil days or unlucky days. In Latin, the term evil day was dies malus, combining the Latin word dies for day and malus for evil. Well, an evil day or dies malus became Anglicized during the period of Middle English, and it became known as the dismal days. And from this we get the Modern English adjective dismal, meaning dreary or unfortunate. So the Latin word dies meant day. So did the modern English word day come from this Latin word dies? Well, according to most modern linguists, the answer is actually no. The English word de comes from an Old English word dea, which had a different Indo European root. And you may think there's a connection between the English word day and the word date. But again, linguists tell us that each of those words are not actually cognate. The word date comes from a Latin word unrelated to those I've already mentioned and having an altogether different Indo European root. So I've discussed the ancient concept of a day, which was directly connected to the concept of the sun and the sky and sunshine or daylight. So let's consider the concept of a month. And as you might suspect, just as a day is connected to the sun, a month is connected to the moon. A month was based on the movement of the moon around the Earth. Specifically, one complete orbit of the moon around the Earth represented a month. And for the ancients, this cycle was based on observing the changing phases of the moon. So from one new moon to the next, you had a month. We can easily see the connection of moon and month in Modern English because both words come to us from Old English and they both ultimately come from the same Indo European root. The Indo European root word was mensis, and it produced the original Germanic word menen for moon and meneth for month. And that Germanic language gave us the Old English word month, muna for moon and munath for month. So moon and month have a direct lineage, and they still closely resemble each other because they both come to us via the same sources. Indo European to Germanic to Old English to Middle English, and then to modern English. Words that do that tend to maintain a close resemblance over time. And we still see that in those two words, month and moon. Now, Latin also developed a word from that same original Indo European root word mensis. And the Latin word was very similar, pronounced mensis. And this word is the root of mensturate and menstrual in modern English, again referring to a monthly cycle. The Romans also used this word, mensis, to represent a period of six months. They combined the Latin word for sex, which was sexual, with the word mensis to create the word semester, which originally meant a period of six months or half a year. Of course, it's evolved in modern English to mean half of a school year. So month, moon, menstrual, and semester are all cognate. All relate back to the original Indo European word for moon. But Latin also developed a separate word for moon, and that other word is actually the more familiar Latin word. In modern English, that word was luna, which gives us the modern English word lunar, as in lunar eclipse or lunar phase, or as we'll see shortly, lunar calendar. Now, there's a direct connection between the Latin words mensis and luna, both meaning moon. And that's because the ancient Romans had a moon goddess named luna. So the Romans eventually associated the term luna with the moon itself. And so luna came to refer to the moon and things associated with the moon. Now, this Latin word also came from an original Indo European word which was something like lauk and meant light or brightness. And this Indo European root word gave us a Germanic word which came into Old English as laut, and that is the original version of the word light. So light came from the same root word which produced luna in Latin. Now, this Indo European root word, leuc, actually produced several words in Latin. And from those Latin words, we get modern English words like luster, referring to the way certain bright things look. We get lucid, which originally meant shining. We get illustrate and elucidate, which meant to shine a light on something. We get translucent, which is something that light can shine through. We get luminous and illuminate, which again refers to the brightness of something. And as I said earlier, we get the Latin word luna, which produced both lunar and lunatic. So what's the connection between lunar and lunatic, you ask? Well, since the Roman goddess Luna was the goddess of the sphere, which was closest to The Earth. The Romans thought that she had a great deal of power. The phases of the Moon were thought to reflect changes in her mood. And they also thought that her changing mood was responsible for many mental conditions. So people who acted abnormally or crazy were thought to be under the influence of Luna. And again, this was thought to be connected to the Moon in some way. So this condition has come to be known as lunacy. And a person who suffers from it is called a lunatic. Of course, the idea that the Moon makes people a little crazy, it's passed into our modern culture as well. We still speak of people acting a little strange on a full moon. And some of this is an inheritance from the Germanic culture, which had notions which were very similar to the Romans. The Germanic culture developed the concept of a werewolf, which was a human who turned into a wolf on a full moon. Remember from an earlier episode that the old English word for man was were, and a man wolf was a were wolf. And we still have notions of someone going crazy and howling at the Moon. Again, it was a common belief in ancient cultures that the Moon affected the mental and psychological conditions of people. So we see that reflected in modern English as well. So I've talked about the connection of a day to the sun and the sky and sunlight, and I've discussed the connection of a month to the Moon and moonlight. So what about a year? Well, like a day in a month, a year was based around astronomy. A year was the length of time it took for the seasons to complete a full cycle. So in modern astronomical terms, it's the length of time it takes for the Earth to make one complete orbit around the Sun. Now, ancient people didn't really understand that the Earth moved around the sun, but they did understand the concept of seasons like summer, autumn, winter, and spring. And they understood that those seasons came in regular cycles. And they were able to measure those cycles by the trajectory of the Sun's movement across the sky at various points during the year, and also by measuring the length of the days and the nights. Long days meant more heat and therefore good conditions for planting. Long nights meant more cold and a time for harvesting and storing food. And, of course, the Sun's trajectory and the length of the days and nights, they all vary because the Earth is tilted on its axis. When the northern hemisphere is tilted toward the sun, we get longer days, and thus spring and summer. And when the Earth moves around the sun as part of its natural orbit, eventually the Earth is located on the opposite side of the Sun. And now the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun, so the days become shorter, and we get autumn and winter. But twice a year, the nine in the day are the exact same length, or almost the exact same length, if you want to be technical. This occurs when the Earth reaches the two transition points in its movement around the sun. And the Romans called these two dates the equal night, since the night was equal to the day on those two dates. The Latin term for equal was equus, and the term for night was nox. So when those two words were combined, they gave us the word equinox. Now, one equinox occurs in March, and it's called the vernal equinox, from the Latin word ver, which meant spring. And this marks the point when the days start to become longer than the nights. So it marks the beginning of spring. And the other equinox occurs in September, and it marks the transition point at which the days start to become shorter than the nights. So in other words, it marks the beginning of autumn. And this was called the autumnal equinox by the Romans, from the Latin word autumnus, meaning autumn. Now, similar in concept to the equinox was the solstice. The solstice also occurs twice a year, and it's basically the opposite of an equinox. The first solstice is the day when the daylight is at its longest and the night is at its shortest. So this longest day of the year occurs in June, and it's called the summer solstice, and it marks the beginning of summer. And the other solstice is the day when the daylight is at its shortest and the night is at its longest. And this shortest day of the year is the winter solstice, and it marks the beginning of winter. Now, the trajectory of the sun through the sky, that trajectory moves over the course of the year. And on the summer solstice, the sun reaches its highest trajectory. And on the winter solstice, the sun reaches its lowest trajectory. An ancient people could very easily measure the beginning of summer and winter by keeping track of the Sun's trajectory. And when it reached its height, it was summer. And when it reached its lowest, it was winter. On the two dates when it appeared to stop for the day before changing directions, it was called a solstice, which combined the Latin terms for sun, which was sol, and to stand still, which was sistera. Thus, since the trajectory of the sun appeared to stand still in those two days before it changed directions, those days were called a solstice. So, by keeping track of the Sun's movement in the sky, and by keeping track of the length of the days and nights, ancient people could predict the seasons. So these transition dates were easy to measure, and they were very important, as I noted earlier, for agricultural purposes alone. It told the people when to plant and when to harvest and when to begin storing food for the winter. Remember, even the Stone Age people who built Stonehenge understood these concepts, because the stones at Stonehenge are arranged in a way that they actually measure the movements of the sun for these purposes. And like the Romans, who associated the sun with God, the builders of Stonehenge also apparently used the monument for both astronomical and religious purposes. And the Celtic Druids, who eventually migrated to Britain, also recognized this purpose, because Roman, they too, used Stonehenge for both astronomical and religious purposes. So we can really see the connections here between the heavens and the ancient concept of heaven. Even though ancient peoples may not have understood that the Earth revolves around the sun, they did understand how to measure the movement of the sun's trajectory in the sky and how to measure the relative length of the days and nights. And they understood these events occurred at fixed intervals and that they mark the changing of the seasons. So they had a definite concept of a year. Now, the English word year comes from Old English, and it actually goes back to the original Indo European language. The Indo European root word bears a remarkable similarity to the modern English word. It was something like year, and it meant year or season in the original Indo European language. It also produced a Greek word, hora, which originally meant season in Greek, and it produced the word horoscope in modern English. The Greek word hora later came to be used to refer to a part of the day, like the morning or noon or night. And it eventually evolved into our modern word hour. And here's what happened. The Greeks had encountered the Babylonians who were using sundials, and the sundials were divided into 12 segments. You might remember from an earlier episode that I mentioned that the Indo Europeans tended to count in increments of 10, as is reflected in our modern numbers. But the Babylonians tended to count in terms of 12s and 60s. And that tendency was reflected in the Babylonian sundials. So the daytime was divided into these 12 equal segments on the sundial. Since these were sundials, they didn't really measure the nighttime. So initially it was only the daytime that was divided into 12 segments. Now, the sundial began measuring time at dawn. So that was the first hour. And that meant that the darkness came at the 12th hour. And it's in this sense that we have the term the 11th hour in modern English to mean near the very end or the the last opportunity before time runs out. Now, the Greeks had encountered the Babylonians and had borrowed their sundials, and thus their concept of dividing the day into 12 segments. And the phrase 11th hour is actually a phrase used in the Book of Matthew in the New Testament of the Bible. Remember that the New Testament was written in Greek and it borrowed the Greek concept of time, with the 12th hour being the onset of darkness at night. So the 11th hour was nearly at the end of the day. And that's actually the origin of the term the 11th hour in modern English. Now, the Greeks had borrowed the concept of time from the Babylonians, and the Romans borrowed this same concept from the Greeks. And they also borrowed that Greek word hora, which, remember, came from the same original Indo European root word as the modern English word year. By this point, though, the Romans no longer pronounced the initial h in the word hor, so it became ora and eventually in modern English became our. I mentioned earlier that Latin eventually lost the h sound, and we see that here. And that's why the word our has that silent h at the beginning, because it was originally pronounced by the Greeks in the original Greek version of the word. Now, I've already mentioned that the amount of daylight varies throughout the year. So a Roman hour was merely 1/12 of the daylight ever how long that was on a given day. So an hour was longer in the summer months, since a day was longer then, and by the same token, an hour was shorter in the winter months when a day was shorter. It wasn't until the Middle Ages that the hour was given a precise measurement by allocating 12 segments to the day and a corresponding 12 segments to the night. And these 12 segments thus created 24 total segments in the day. And this created our modern concept of an hour. This also reflects the movement away from using the sun to measure hours. As early mechanical watches began to be developed, the sun was no longer needed to measure time. And this begins the movement toward measuring time more in terms of hours and minutes rather than days, years and months. So, based on the information I just presented, the words year and horoscope and hour are all cognate having evolved from the same Indo European root word. But again, they get to us in various ways. Year coming from the Germanic languages and horoscope and hour coming from Greek and Latin. But again, just like with the word month, which I discussed earlier, the Roman word for year didn't come from the same root as the English word year. The Roman word came from a separate Indo European word which was at, which meant to go or a period gone through in the original Indo European language. This word at later evolved into the word atnos in an early form of Latin, and then evolved into the word annus in Classical Latin. And that's the word which the Romans used for year. Of course, we get that word in English as annual and anniversary, meaning once a year, and annuity, which originally meant a sum that was paid yearly. And in finance, we sometimes calculate interest per annum, which again means per year. So let's take a breather for a second and consider where we are so far in this episode. I've discussed some words which came from the name of Julius Caesar, and I've explored the etymology of words which we have related to hours, days, months, and years. Now, I want to put those two together, because as I noted earlier, it was Julius Caesar who oversaw the revision of the Roman calendar and gave us the roots of the calendar which we use every day. Now, there's been a lot of discussion in recent months about the Mayan calendar and the purported end of the world. So even if you don't know a lot about keeping time in the ancient past, you probably know that ancient peoples had many different calendars and many different ways of measuring months and years. And I mentioned a Celtic calendar from Gaul earlier in this episode, which had its own methodology. So you may wonder why this was all so complicated in ancient times. I mean, why didn't everybody just figure out how to keep track of time? After all, everybody was measuring time based on these same basic principles. A day was the period from sunrise to sunrise. A month was the period from one new moon to the next. A year was the period from one summer solstice to the next. Pretty much everyone used these same celestial events to keep track of time. So why couldn't they all get on the same page, the same calendar page in this case? Well, part of the answer is because these three celestial events, an astronomical day, an astronomical month, and an astronomical year, they don't divide evenly into each other. There are three events which we just happen to use to measure time, but none of them fit neatly and evenly into the others. So let's take a day. That's the most basic form of measurement. And even in ancient times, everybody generally agreed on what a day was from sunrise to sunrise. But the first problem is that you can't divide an astronomical month into an even number of days. There's no perfect division for a month. The amount of time it takes the Moon to orbit the Earth. In other words, to experience a complete Moon cycle from new Moon to new moon, it's about 29 and a half days. Now, as a practical matter, there was no way ancient people could keep track of a precise measurement of 29 and a half days. So they had to round it off to the nearest day. And that meant if they were counting strictly by days over a period of many months, the Moon cycles were out of phase. So they had to readjust from time to time. And we encounter the same problem when we look at a year. A year is based on the amount of time it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. But based solely on this factor, one orbit equals 365 and 1/4 days. Again, if you round this off the 365 days as we do today, then every four years you have to readjust by adding a day, which we call leap day. The point here is that the three astronomical events which were the basis of days, months and years are three completely different things. And you can't use one to measure the others without using complicated fractions, which were impractical in ancient times. And if you round off to the nearest number, then the measurements soon fall out of line without constant readjustments. So these constant fractions and leftover hours and days confounded these early calendar makers. Yet, as I've noted, these calculations were very important to people during ancient times. If you didn't plant and harvest crops at the right times, it was often a matter of life and death. So early people struggled with the proper calculations for these activities, and they devised all sorts of calendars to make the necessary adjustments which were required to make these numbers reconcile and balance out over time. So how did the Romans handle this problem? Well, if we go back to the very beginning of Rome, around the time Rome was founded, The Romans used a 10 lunar month year with an additional winter period that was not even part of the calendar. So they didn't measure a year by a certain number of days like we do today. Instead, it was based on a certain number of months. And that's why we call it a lunar calendar. So let's look at how the Romans did this. Like many ancient peoples, the Romans kept track of the length of the days, and they could determine the vernal equinox in spring, when the length of the day and the length of the night were the same. This marks the beginning of spring, and it was an indicator of the planting season. So when the vernal equinox occurred, the Romans began counting this was the date when their 10 month lunar calendar would begin. So it ran from modern day March until around modern day January. Then they waited through the undefined winter period where they were basically off the grid until the vernal equinox occurred again. And then they began counting the 10 months all over again. Now, this original 10 month calendar also explains some of the names of the months. If you're familiar with Latin or any of the Romance languages, you probably recognize the Latin prefixes of septum for 7 and octo for 8 and novum for 9 and decem for 10. And I've discussed some of those prefixes in earlier episodes, and we see them all the time in English in words like octopus for a sea animal with eight legs, and decade for a period of 10 years. But September is not the seventh month, it's the ninth month. And October is not the eighth month, it's the 10th month. And November is not the ninth month, it's the 11th. And December, which is based on the Latin root decem. Well, it's not the 10th month, it's the 12th month. But part of the reason why these month names seem out of sorts is because the original Roman calendar only had 10 months. And the names of the last four months were based on the Roman numerals septim for 7, October 8, novum for 9, and decem for 10. And those month names became September, October, November and December. And those were months seven through 10. And just as today, they were the final four months of the year. So in the original Roman calendar, those numbers matched. But what about the first six months, beginning with the vernal equinox in spring? Well, the very first month was called Martius after the Roman God Mars. Mars was originally a God of agriculture before becoming a God of war. And since the first month came at the beginning of spring, it meant the time for planting crops and preparing to plant crops. It was also the month in which military campaigns were often initiated, since cold weather was starting to break. So that's why this spring month was named after Mars, since he was the God of both agriculture and war. The name of the month became Marche in Old French and English took the name from French after the Norman invasion. The second month was called Operis. Now, historians are not certain where this name originated. Some have suggested an Etruscan origin with the Greek goddess Aphrodite, or from Apollo, who also had Etruscan origins. It became Avril in Old French. And again, English took the name from the French after the Norman invasion and eventually converted it into April. The third month was called Maus, after the goddess Meia, who was the mother of Mercury by Jupiter. It became Mai in old French, and again English took the name from the French after the Norman invasion, eventually converting it into May. The fourth month was called Unius, probably after the God Uno, which eventually became Juno in late Gallic Latin and early French. Remember this was the same change that made Julius into Julius and Jupiter into Jupiter. And the month Junius became Junius. The name later evolved into June during the Middle English period, again after the Norman invasion. So the first four months we still have in modern English, March, April, May and June. And the last four months we also have September, October, November and December. But what about the two months in the middle of the original 10 month Roman calendar months 5 and 6? Well, those two months use the same Roman numbering system, which was also the basis of September, October, November and December. The fifth month was Quintilis, which was based on the Latin adjective for fifth, which was Quintus, since this was the fifth month at the time. And the sixth month was Sextillis, which was based on the Latin adjective for sixth, which was Sextus, since again, that was the sixth month at the time. But as we'll see, the names of these two months were eventually replaced. So today we just pick up the Latin numbering of the months was September. So that was the original 10 month calendar. Remember that the Romans basically went off the grid after December when winter kicked in and they just waited for the next vernal equinox in spring, and then they just started counting all over again. And also remember that these months were based strictly on the cycle of the moon. From one new moon to the next new moon was a month. So it wasn't really based on a set number of days. It was strictly a lunar calendar. Well, at some point during the Etruscan period, the Romans filled in that winter period with two additional months. The first was named Januarius after the God Janus, which at this very early date was the most important God in the early Roman culture. Again, thanks to that French J sound, we know the goddess Janus today the month as January. Janus was actually much more important than Jupiter or Eupiter early on. But as the Romans encountered the Greeks and they began to align their Roman gods with the Greek gods, they came to realize that the Greek God Zeus was the preeminent God in Greece. And the corresponding sky God in Rome, remember, was Jupiter. So Jupiter got an upgrade thanks to his association with the Greek God Zeus. But prior to that, Janus Or Janus was the preeminent Roman God, so that's why this new winter month was named after him. The second winter month was named Februarius, and this month was either named for the Roman God Februs, or a feast of spiritual cleansing called Febra, which was held during this same period of time each year. Or perhaps it was named after both. But in either case, the name comes to us eventually as February in modern English. Now, remember that these early Roman months were still based on lunar months, which required constant revisions to be kept accurate. This was a lunar calendar, which meant that each month changed when the moon cycles changed. But that meant that the Romans needed to make constant adjustments by adding days or subtracting days to keep these lunar months in sequence with the seasons. Remember that the movement of the moon around the Earth is not tied to the movement of the earth around the sun. So if you're counting months based on moon cycles, you have to readjust to keep it in line with the seasons, which are based on the sun. Now, this wasn't a problem originally with that 10 month calendar. When the Romans began each season with the vernal equinox. At that point, the calendar year was, was pretty much always in alignment with the seasons. You just started each year on that date, the vernal equinox. But now the Romans had filled in that winter gap with two new months. They were no longer off the grid in winter and allowed to readjust when spring kicked in. They were now on the grid all year, but they were using moon cycles to determine when the months changed, not the equinox or solstice. And they weren't making regular adjustments to account for this discrepancy. Occasionally they did make an adjustment when things were really out of sorts. And since February was the last month of this early Roman calendar, which began in the spring, this last month of February was used for adding days to resolve the discrepancies, which is why we still use it today for adding the leap year every four years. It's also partially why it has an odd number of days of 28, while the other months have 30 or 31. Now, in 153 BC, the Romans decided to shake things up a bit and they decided to use January as the official beginning of the year, since that was when they installed their consoles. So just as modern businesses can have a fiscal year, which is often different from the calendar year, the Romans had an official period which began with the installation of consuls, and they had this separate calendar year which began in basically modern day March in the spring. So they decided to readjust and just make January the first month, since that corresponded with the beginning of their official or political year. But this meant that all of those months, which were named after Roman numbers, were now out of phase. The fifth month, Quintilis, was now the seventh month, and the sixth month, Sextillis, became the eighth month, and so on. And that's how September, October, November and December went from being months 7, 8, 9 and 10 to months 9, 10, 11, and 12. Now, let's skip forward about a century to the time of Julius Caesar. Remember that the Romans were not making the regular adjustments to the calendar that they should have been making. And as a result, by the time of Caesar, the whole calendar was completely out of phase with the seasons. It was actually an entire season off. So everything was a mess. So Caesar employed the Greek astronomer Cosigenus to come up with a plan to revamp the calendar. And Sosigenus proposed that they completely abandon the idea of using lunar months. In other words, the 29.5 day moon cycles to measure time. They decided instead to just convert to a lunar year. Now, the lunar year would be 365 days, with a leap year added every four years to account for the extra six hours which accrued each year. And in keeping with tradition, the extra day would be added to February. The lunar phases of the moon would cycle through the year, but they would no longer be tied to any particular month. And this is the calendar which Caesar adopted on January 1, 45 B.C. and which we still know today as the Julian calendar. But two more revisions were later made to the calendar. In 44 BC, shortly after the assassination of Caesar, the Roman Senate renamed the seventh month, Quintilus as Julius, to honor Julius Caesar, who was born in that month. And as you'll recall, Julius became Julius, and it eventually passed into English as July. And lastly, the eighth month, Sextillus, was renamed as Augustus in favor of Augustus Caesar, Julius Caesar's successor and the first Emperor of Rome. Augustus also made its way into modern English as August. Now, a few other minor adjustments were made to the calendar by Pope Gregory viii in the 1500s, thereby giving us the modern Gregorian calendar. But most of what we know and recognize as the modern calendar came from the reforms commissioned by Julius Caesar. And since I've discussed the names of the months, let me conclude this episode on time by looking at the days of the week. Now, I've repeatedly expressed the idea that modern English is, at its core a blend of Germanic, Old English and Latin. And the way we keep track of time is a perfect example of that blend. Whereas the names of our months come from Latin via French after the Norman invasion, the names of our days of the week are rooted in the Germanic language of the Anglo Saxons. But even so, the days were still not immune from Latin influences. Four days were named after Germanic gods. One is named after a Roman God, and the other two have origins in Latin, but were modified by the later Germanic Anglo Saxons. So let's begin with the Greco Roman astronomer and mathematician Ptolemy. Now, according to Ptolemy, there were seven planets which revolved around the Earth. And those planets were the sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. So the sun and the moon were considered planets at this time. The idea also probably dates back to the Babylonians. And during this pre Christian era, the Romans adopted the seven day week, and they decided to name the seven days after these seven planets. The first day was the Sun's day. Since sun in Latin was sol, the Latin name for the day was solus dies. The Germanic tribes took the name, but they substituted the Germanic words for sun and day. And thus we get Sunday. The same thing happened for the next day. The next day was the moon's day. So in Latin it was lunead. Again, the Germanic tribes simply substituted the Germanic words for the Latin words, thereby yielding moon's day or Monday. Now, these two translations were easy because the Germanic tribes had their own words for sun and moon, but the other days were named for planets which were named after Roman gods. So the Germanic tribes just substituted their own gods. The next day was named for the planet and Roman God Mars. We know it in modern French as Mardi, as in Mardi Gras, meaning Fat Tuesday. While the Germanic tribes substituted the Roman God Mars with the Germanic God Tyr, or as the Anglo Saxons knew him, Tew, and we thereby get Tuesday. The following day was named for the planet and Roman God Mercury, and we know it in modern French as Mercury. But the Germanic tribes substituted Mercury with the Germanic God Odin, or as the Anglo Saxons knew him, Woden. So Mercury's day became Woden's day in Old English and Wednesday today. And Woden was one of the most important Germanic gods. When a soldier died in battle, it was believed that they went to Woden's Valhalla in the afterlife. And I'm going to talk more about Woden and these other Germanic gods when we get to the Germanic tribes in an upcoming episode. The next day of the week was named after the planet and Roman God Jupiter. In modern French it is Jerde the Germanic tribes substituted Jupiter with their God Thor long before he became a comic book and movie hero. And the day became Thor's day, hence now known as Thursday. The next day of the week was named after the planet and Roman goddess Venus. And being a female God, the Germanic tribes substituted her with Woden's wife Frigga, thereby creating the modern Friday. Frigga was closely associated with another female Germanic goddess named Fr. Freya, and it appears that some of the Germanic tribes named the day after her instead. In Icelandic, for example, Freya may be the source of the name for their version of Friday. Some historians believe that these two goddesses may have originally been a single goddess at some very early point, and that there was later evolution that divided them into two separate goddesses. And this might also account for some of the confusion as to which goddess was used as the source for the name of Frank Friday in the various Germanic languages. That leaves us with the final day which the Romans named after the planet and God Saturn. Apparently the Germanic tribes didn't have an equivalent God for Saturn, or at least not one that they wanted to use to make this substitution. So they kept the Roman God Saturn and we ended up with Saturn's day, or as we know it today, Saturday. The important point with respect to the names of the week is that these names were adopted before the Anglo Saxons migrated to Britain, because names or versions of these names are found throughout the Germanic languages. So these names were adopted by the Germanic tribes while the Romans were still in control of Gaul and before the Roman Empire began to collapse. So these are very old Germanic words which predate Old English. So I hope you found this discussion of time related terms interesting. Not only does it make for some interesting etymology, but it also illustrates how modern English is a blend of Germanic and Latin roots. Next time I'm going to take a look at the period of the Roman Empire in Western Europe and I'll explore the Roman invasion of Britain and the growing contact with the Celtic tribes in Britain. And I'll also look at the growing Roman contact with the Germanic tribes in Northern and Eastern Europe. And I'll continue to look at Latin words which have found their way into modern English. And after that I'm going to turn our attention to the Germanic tribes themselves. I'll explore the emergence of the Germanic tribes in Northern Europe, the nature of the original Germanic language and the spread of those Germanic tribes into Western Europe. And the story of the Germanic tribes will culminate with the migration of the Anglo Saxons into Britain in the fifth century. AD and that will bring us to volume two of this podcast series, which will be dedicated to Old English. So until next time, thanks for listening to the History of English podcast SA.