Calendars and timekeeping

Substantial postings about constructed languages and constructed worlds in general. Good place to mention your own or evaluate someone else's. Put quick questions in C&C Quickies instead.
Tmeister
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Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Tmeister »

I find this topic rather interesting, since there are so many questions to ask and so much potential for variation. And yet, here on Earth, such is the predominance of the Gregorian Calendar and the 24-60-60 timekeeping system that many people don't even realize how arbitrary the whole thing is.

So, share you're con-people's calendar and timekeeping system here! Some questions to start off:
  • Do the people live on Earth, or on another planet? If the latter, what is the astronomical environment of the planet (moons, seasons, etc.).
  • What celestial events are of importance to the calendar? (Different cultures might have different priorities even on the same planet; e.g., seafaring folk would care very much about the moon, while polar-region dwellers might not even have a concept of a "day").
  • Are there any non-celestial periods that are reckoned? (E.g., weeks)
  • How is the day divided? When is the day considered to begin? (Sunrise, sunset, midnight?)
  • How does the timekeeping system handle annual variation in the length of a day? (Since Earth's orbit is nearly circular, we can afford to ignore this here.)
  • Is there a notion of time zones or standard time? How does the "international date line" situation work?
  • Where did the calendar/timekeeping system originate? Religious functions, government decree, something else?

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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by finlay »

I haven't really developed any of the culture behind it, but my planet has two moons. There are something like 467 days in a year, IIRC, and the moons have 6 and 20 months, on average. Both have a lunar calendar as well as a solar calendar, but the lunar calendar for the closer moon takes precedence because it syncs with the solar calendar every 42 years. But the calendar is not consistent from culture to culture, and thus the 'international' dating system is simply the numerical day of the year. I haven't decided on how to handle timezones yet, because I'm leaning towards at least two competing hour systems, and also because I haven't made up anything about other countries.

I want there to be an 8 day week, just because it's different from 7, to be honest.

Days begin officially at sunrise or the equivalent of 6am, mainly because this is something I think should happen IRL.

Hours and minutes are divided up into 20s; this fits well with the 20 months of the further-away moon (which have a little over 20 days each). Days are about 28 earth-hours long. It's actually divided up three times, so instead of 24-60-60, it's 20-20-20-20. There's an alternative system which is something like 20-360-10. I'm sort of also planning on having a major cultural division between countries with base 20 and countries with base 10, with the implication that one set of countries uses one time system.

In my 'main' country, there are four seasons. Summer has a few extra days officially, but it's all essentially arbitrary; each season has a block of five months out of the 20, and the traditional solstice/equinox day is the first day of the second month of each block.

Just for fun, I have a second habitable planet in the same system which has about 1000 days of 17 hours each, which is specifically just being different from the first planet. I think it'd be fun to see what would happen if you sent guys from one planet to the next.

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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Torco »

the Selian calendar is quite different from Earth calendars because the planet is rather different. Suenu is an unremarkable terrestrial planet with a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, geological activity, and vegetation covering two of its three continents. Differences to earth include the fact that the day lasts 1296 earth hours, giving you something like a month-long day and a month-long night, the year lasts 5171 hours, making it so that each astronomical year lasts just under 4 day-night cycles. Every year, the first day comes a bit over 13 hours later, which means that for the equinox to occur at the same time of the day it takes around 397 days [the 27 earth days planetary revolution that is the day of Suenu, not the 24 hour earth day]. Seasons are also unheard of in the planet because it's eccentricity is really low and because the planet's equator has no discernable tilt.

One of the biggest challenges for the inhabitants of Suenu, therefore, is to measure small units of time. Since the only season-like phenomenon is the day-night cycle, that comes with extreme reliability, there's no great need to keep track of seasons and planetary revolutions, although it's still of great interests to astronomers, navigators, traders, and timekeepers [a highly relevant job, mind you]. small units of time are, obnoxiously, measured differently by different cultures, and often even local towns. Since there's no obvious astronomical way to measure any relevant unit of time, each town or city uses its own clocks: during the day it's quite easy to do so: you just need to track the movement of the sun and follow it across it's path to measure time in the order of 10 or 20 hours, shadow clocks or a dark room with a single opening for the sun to come in work fine for that. During the day, you can do the same with a star, but since the day and the year don't neatly line up, you really need to know your calendar to keep time at night.

The Selian calendar, the one used by the focal culture of the conworld, works in this manner.

The first astronomical unit is the day, lasting, as has been said,
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by masako »

http://kalaueki.wikinet.org/wiki/Calendar

I have also just named the 19 days/months to correspond to a 'totem' similar to the Aztec calendar.

Code: Select all

1	red	ketla
2	fire	tlatsa
3	north	kita
4	snake	kuatla
5	cloud	nyepa
6	green	kuya
7	earth	kaya
8	south	mina
9	deer	masa
10	mountain	yama
11	blue	nila
12	water	maya
13	west	nisi
14	fish	uatsi
15	rain	pana
16	yellow	yana
17	wind	yasa
18	east	timu
19	eagle	tanka
And "flower, hua" for the four/five days that fall outside of the 19*19 table.

So, today (25 May) would be Deer day of Snake month.

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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Rik »

For my conworld, Kalieda ...

Do the people live on Earth, or on another planet? If the latter, what is the astronomical environment of the planet (moons, seasons, etc.). How does the timekeeping system handle annual variation in the length of a day? (Since Earth's orbit is nearly circular, we can afford to ignore this here.)

Image

Kalieda takes 380.41 days to complete an orbit around its primary.
- Average diameter: 13,029km
- Density: 5,498kg/m³
- Minimum distance from Wage: around 145 million km
- Maximum distance from Wage: around 149 million km
- Surface gravity: 10.04m/s²
- Axial tilt: 16.7°
- Average surface temperature: 289K

Kalieda has two moons: white Leprhaakhe has an orbit of approx 8.23 days, while red Tuustinte takes a more leisurely 35.91 days (again, approx). Both are (mostly) tide-locked but currently don't have an orbital resonance, which leads to small irregularities in their orbital periods - neither has much influence on any Kaliedan calendar system, which are all resolutely solar-based.

What celestial events are of importance to the calendar? (Different cultures might have different priorities even on the same planet; e.g., seafaring folk would care very much about the moon, while polar-region dwellers might not even have a concept of a "day").

All the major calendars use the northern spring (southern autumn) equinox as the starting point for their calendrical years.

Is there a notion of time zones or standard time? How does the "international date line" situation work?

Although the humans living on the planet have long forgotten their extraKaliedan origins, it's likely that the colonisers decided to set the meridian as the longitudinal arc that passed through the southernmost point of the largest continent - and the convention has stuck ever since. Given that for most of the planet's human history the vast majority of people lived on the two continents bisected by the meridian, this was not a problem.

However, since the Disaster, all civilisations on the largest continent have collapsed entirely and the civilisations on the northern continent are remnants; the most populous continent is now the one bisected by the 'international date line' (meaning 'east' is west, and vice versa). There's talk of moving the meridian, but no agreement yet about where the new line should be drawn.

Given that most settlements and cities work on local time, and there's no single agreed calendar for the whole continent, this is not a big problem for anyone other than scientists. The new-fangled internets use the local time in the city of Ramaja as an informal reference point.

Are there any non-celestial periods that are reckoned? (E.g., weeks). How is the day divided? When is the day considered to begin? (Sunrise, sunset, midnight?). Where did the calendar/timekeeping system originate? Religious functions, government decree, something else?

It varies between calendars - See this page of the Encyclopaedia for more info

Gevey calender - a local adaption of the Falah standard calendrical system.
O Yis calendar - a form of the Istran calendrical system.

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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by installer_swan »

Interesting question, I still don't have a conworld for my conlang yet, and wonder how long I can get away with it until I need a conculture to enrich the language
Tmeister wrote:
  • How does the timekeeping system handle annual variation in the length of a day? (Since Earth's orbit is nearly circular, we can afford to ignore this here.)
A minor nitpick, variation in the length of the day doesn't happen due to the orbit being elliptical (neither do seasons on earth). It is the tilt of the axis that causes these effects. and no matter how tilted the axis, the length of day+night is always fixed by the conservation of angular momentum, so while it doesn't cause much trouble calendrically.

PS: Also, while the Babylonian heritage of the 24-60-60 is as far as I know universal now, the Gregorian calendar is much less so. The Islamic calendar, various luni-solar Hindu calendars are definitely still used in reckoning fetivals and anniversary, as I believe many East Asian caledars are as well.
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Foolster41 »

The world Saltha on as a earth-like planet, with basicly the same conditions of orbit and environment.

In Saltha, the calendar is a religous-based calendar, and contains a cycle of 15 months, each (except the last which has 3 weeks) have 5 weeks, and each week has 5 days (4 week days and a weekend). The year begins on the beginning of spring.

Days are divided into normal 24 hour days (trying to divide into 25 was too difficult).
Last edited by Foolster41 on Sat May 26, 2012 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Tmeister »

installer_swan wrote:A minor nitpick, variation in the length of the day doesn't happen due to the orbit being elliptical (neither do seasons on earth). It is the tilt of the axis that causes these effects. and no matter how tilted the axis, the length of day+night is always fixed by the conservation of angular momentum, so while it doesn't cause much trouble calendrically.
Clarification / counternitpick - I was referring to the variation in the length of the day/night cycle, which is caused by a combination of axial tilt and the varying speed of the planet in its orbit around the sun (see Analemma and Equation of time). For example, on Earth, the time from one solar noon to the next can differ from 24 hours by up to 30 seconds, depending on the time of year; however, for a more eccentric planet such as Mars, this effect might be more practically significant.
finlay wrote:Days begin officially at sunrise or the equivalent of 6am, mainly because this is something I think should happen IRL.
I've often thought the same myself, particularly when having a conversation between midnight and sunrise, and someone says "tomorrow" only to be (hyper?)corrected "You mean today?" (In informal contexts, the day seems to be reckoned to begin at sunrise.) I'm curious though -- is this reflected in the timekeeping system, e.g., like the ancient Roman system of 12 daylight hours and 12 nighttime hours, whose lengths are stretched or compressed depending on the season? Or are the hours fixed in relation to the mean solar time?
sano wrote:I have also just named the 19 days/months to correspond to a 'totem' similar to the Aztec calendar.
What's the basis of the ordering of the totems? The OCD part of me notices that the colors aren't in spectral order and the directions aren't in order either.
Rik wrote:Gevey calender - a local adaption of the Falah standard calendrical system.
O Yis calendar - a form of the Istran calendrical system.
I like the idea of giving names to the particular hours of the day -- kind of like the Chinese "Hour of the Rat" etcetera.

Oh, and another question I thought of: How are anniversaries and holidays observed? (This becomes an issue whenever intercalary days, weeks, or months are inserted.)

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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by finlay »

By the lunar calendar of the further away moon. It has a full-length intercalary month inserted every 7 years, by which time it has drifted by around 75 days from the solar calendar (it has long months). The lunar calendar has standardised month lengths, though, and doesn't always exactly match the phases of the moon, so it may end up a day or two out. IIRC, it's either 73 or 74 for normal lunar months and 75 for the intercalary month, while the solar calendar has either 75 or 76 days in each month, essentially because there are however many extra days to account for.

The lunar calendar and solar calendar sync exactly every 42 years (again, this is standardised and was actually an unintended quirk of the way it worked out for me). The solar calendar loses a day every 3 years, but doesn't lose it on the 42nd year (14 cycles), while the lunar calendar's intercalary month loses a day on the 42nd year (the 6th cycle of 7 years) to keep in sync.

I worked out my birthday as Koos 51, the 51st day of the second lunar month, in the year 6200. Last year was a 42nd year (it was 6216, although I'm thinking of revising this to be a lower number, because 6000 years is like 9000 earth years!), so this year the lunar and solar calendars started on the same date; it's currently Koos 5 in the solar calendar and Koos 6 in the lunar calendar (this is because the months have different lengths in each calendar). However, legally one's birthday is defined by the numerical day of the year, mainly for international purposes. My legal birthday would be 6200/83 (ie the 83rd day of the year); currently it's 6200/80, so my 17th legal conworld birthday is in 3 conworld days. But the one that would actually be celebrated is in 45 conworld days, which is 52 earth days.

The system I use has hours set at a specific time, like how we do it.

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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by masako »

Side note; I'm changing the "fish" day to a "turtle" day...

Updating wiki soon.

EDIT:
Tmeister wrote:
sano wrote:I have also just named the 19 days/months to correspond to a 'totem' similar to the Aztec calendar.
What's the basis of the ordering of the totems? The OCD part of me notices that the colors aren't in spectral order and the directions aren't in order either.
I only just saw this.

The order is not less random than saying "north, south, east & west", as for the other totems included...I just picked stuff.

There are four cardinal directions, so, the five totems per, including direction gives twenty.

For each direction:

1) color
2) element
3) direction
4) animal
5) natural phenomena

The remaining natural phenomenon being #20 flower.
Last edited by masako on Sat May 26, 2012 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by installer_swan »

Tmeister wrote:
installer_swan wrote:A minor nitpick, variation in the length of the day doesn't happen due to the orbit being elliptical (neither do seasons on earth). It is the tilt of the axis that causes these effects. and no matter how tilted the axis, the length of day+night is always fixed by the conservation of angular momentum, so while it doesn't cause much trouble calendrically.
Clarification / counternitpick - I was referring to the variation in the length of the day/night cycle, which is caused by a combination of axial tilt and the varying speed of the planet in its orbit around the sun (see Analemma and Equation of time). For example, on Earth, the time from one solar noon to the next can differ from 24 hours by up to 30 seconds, depending on the time of year; however, for a more eccentric planet such as Mars, this effect might be more practically significant.
Oops, my bad, I stand corrected. Interesting, I never thought about this. Though, if the planet is confined to the habitable zone, its orbit can't be too eccentric, so this would matter only if the rotation period (day) is very long, so that changes in the revolution (angular velocity) can be a significant proportion of the rotational ang. velocity.
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by 2+3 clusivity »

Rik wrote:For my conworld, Kalieda ...
Sweet globe! How did you generate that? I'm quite impressed.
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Durakken »

Think about it... it isn't really all that arbitrary.

Here's i think it developed...
Day Night split...
sun dial invented...

when the sun dial was invented you have 2 cycles for each day. The Light cycle and the Night cycle. They both make the sun dial shadow go around once and the "actual" time that passes changes because where the moon is over head changes and shortens and lengthens with the year which results in the variable hour.

Now once you have that you realize that hours are more or less variable so what you are really looking at is the position of the shadow on the sun dial and what to refer to each position. It's a circle and because circles are 360 degrees you are going to use some form of that multiple.

Because you are looking for some form of that multiple you are probably looking for an accurate but a relatively substantial amount of time, meaning that a number system that is "too" accurate will be too cumbersome and thus less likely to catch on. Further you have to take into account the writing utensils and such at the time and you realize that 36 is probably too big of a number. What if we divide that in half? That to me looks a little bit too cramped. Divide in half again and you get 9. 9 is odd and an odd number in not what we want when evenly dividing things and it is probably 2 small. So the number we select is going to be above 9 and and 18. What are the even numbers that are multiples of 360 between 9 an 18? 10 and 12. 10 is slightly better because it's not odd, but it probably felt small and not as "pure" as 12 since 12 is a multiple of 3, 2, 6, and can much more easily be kept small to allow for more complex mathematics to be done with smaller numbers which makes things slightly easier to grasp.

Once you have 12 hours a cycle and a variable hour you combine that for the 24 hour day.

As far as seconds and minutes. I would bet originally there were only 30 minutes in an hour (being that both of those were variable) and then used another system of measurement that just happened to take 60 somethings to fill or do when people stopped using variable time they mixed the two systems and thus you have a 60 minute hour. From there it is just a matter of deciding if you're going to divide by 60 for an hour and you need something more accurate why not do it again?

This is based on sky light though. All sky-light time systems are going to have something like 12 hour cycle. But if you somehow create something else to keep track of time it likely will be different. I'm trying to figure out how to create a calender around an underground civilization. There isn't anything i know of that has a regular daily action underground so I'm not having too much luck on that.... Maybe geysers or underground springs...

btw... remember that when you are talking time systems you are talking about 2 different things... a "schedule" and a "measurement of change." The larger numbers are almost always for scheduling when developing I would think while the smaller are for measurements. After all, specific time wasn't important until we had busy lives with things that could be super accurate.

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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by installer_swan »

Durakken wrote:Now once you have that you realize that hours are more or less variable so what you are really looking at is the position of the shadow on the sun dial and what to refer to each position. It's a circle and because circles are 360 degrees you are going to use some form of that multiple.
That is the arbitrary part. Also, so is the seven day week. It's pretty old, probably back to proto-Indo-European times, but it's still arbitrary.
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Durakken »

installer_swan wrote:
Durakken wrote:Now once you have that you realize that hours are more or less variable so what you are really looking at is the position of the shadow on the sun dial and what to refer to each position. It's a circle and because circles are 360 degrees you are going to use some form of that multiple.
That is the arbitrary part. Also, so is the seven day week. It's pretty old, probably back to proto-Indo-European times, but it's still arbitrary.
never thought about that, but it does seem slightly off. 360 is used because of the length of the year, but the year is 365 days which means various cultures dropped the extra 5 days or simply didn't know about them or had ways of correcting for them.

I guess you would decide how many days are in a year for your world, but then take and extract the concepts I was talking about.

One calender i made is...
7 days a week, 7 weeks a month, 7 months a year which left several days remaining which then required a short year and a correction week so that 7 Gregorian Years = 8 of these years, but it's not corrected enough so i extend that to several cycles and it corrects on a later cycle by dropping a day. so every 28 years the two calenders are exactly aligned. The 7 number is based on their religion and only works due to not needing astronomy, mathematics, nor an agrarian life style.


I suppose a calender's creation must also originate from how advanced the civilization is and how willing they are to change their measurements. I know for me at least I have trouble with measurement conversion cuz i don't have a mental base for a lot of it that is there along with the conversion equation. I'd use SI measurements if I had the units better and I personally would love a more metric style time keeping as well as a calender that took into account the entire universe or at least our galaxy, though given the numbers for how you measure time and space at the lowest standard units we use every day they might be a bit impractical.

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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by dgoodmaniii »

2+3 clusivity wrote: Sweet globe! How did you generate that? I'm quite impressed.
My thought, as well; so much so that I'm even coming back out from lurking for several years.

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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Purple Wyrm »

(Please note that all Zurvár terms given in this summary are pending conversion into an updated, less Englishy phonology...)

The Zurvár are obsessed with the number 5, which is reflected heavily in their traditional calendar. Up until the 1960s they were nomadic - moving from alternate Earth to alternate Earth, so their calendar had no connection to astronomical phenomena (as these would vary - within some basic parameters - from world to world). After settling permanently on Zurvár Arèáná the traditional calendar was heavily modified by the Konsâtèum to suit the planet, which is basically identical to Earth as far as orbit, day and year length are concerned.

Both calendars are based around a sùln (day), which starts at sunrise and lasts until the following sunrise. This was divided into standard time periods of roughly an hour (I can't find the exact details right now), which keep ticking over until the sun rises again (so the number of 'hours' in a day would vary from world to world and season to season, and often end up as a fraction). This system has been preserved on Zurvár Arèáná, although the length of the hour (and it's subsequent breakdown into smaller units) has been tweaked so 25 of them fit into one rotation of the planet.

In the traditional calendar five mon sùln form a hasaq or 'week'. Each day of the hasaq is associated with a concept or (as Sano has so eloquently stated it) totem, as follows

Katálásùl - Fish
Pâratsùl - Bird
Lòtòsùl - Ship
Minaksùl - Star
Takalsùl - Knot

This allocation appears to be particularly ancient, as the same sequence shows up in other aspects of Zurvár culture - most notably in the five suits of the traditional deck of cards.

With the settlement of Zurvár Arèáná a sixth day was added, Soransùl which is simply "New Day". Support for this change was garnered by promoting it as a weekly holiday and day of rest, a move that proved very popular.

In both the new and old calendars five hasaq formed a zaqaq or 'month'. In the traditional calendar this lasted 25 mon sùln, in the new calendar it lasts 30 mon sùln.

The anniversary of one's birth in each zaqaq is considered a auspicious day, and a good time to start on a new project, business venture or journey. On the other hand it is considered an unlucky day on which to enter into a vitelá ('partnership' - the Zurvár version of a marriage) - possibly because the partner whose birth anniversary falls on the partnering day would be perceived to have an unfair advantage in the relationship.

In the traditional calendar five hasaq formed a Þásálá or 'year' of 125 mon sùln. The most radical change in the new calendar is altering the Þásálá to 12 mon hasaq. This longer year is known as the Þásálá Soran ('new year'). The Þásálá Soran contains four intercalary days placed between every three mon hasaq, with an extra intercalary day at the start and end of the year (with an extra leap day every four years - also at the end of the year) to bring the total up to 365. These days are mandated as public holidays and have been given names adopted from roughly concurrent holidays celebrated by various English speaking cultures on Earth (although no associated traditions have been adopted).

First intercalary holiday (located at the start of the Þásálá) - Nûyistà
Second intercalary holiday - Yestur
Third intercalary holiday - Midsumá
Fourth intercalary holiday - Tenkskèrvin
Fifth intercalary holiday (located at the end of the Þásálá) - Yùl
Leap intercalary holiday (located between Yùl and Nûyistà) - Nûyisèv

The difference in length between the traditional and revised mon Þásálá has led most Zurvár to calculate their chronological age in two ways, by the old calendar and new calendar. Important milestones (such at the coming of age ceremony when a young Zurvár takes on some of the responsibilities of an adult at the age of 50 - just over 17 by the new calendar) are usually celebrated according to the old calendar.

The most important yearly festival for the Zurvár on Zurvár Arèáná is the Lacè, which is a community party held every year on the night of the full moon closest to the anniversary of the founding of a settlement. Every household contributes buffet style food and a huge bonfire is constructed in the settlement's central plaza. The celebration starts just before sundown and continues until sunrise, or until everyone has collapsed (whichever comes first). Zurvár who are working or studying away from their home settlement will always try to return for the Lacè.
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Turtlehead »

sano wrote:http://kalaueki.wikinet.org/wiki/Calendar

I have also just named the 19 days/months to correspond to a 'totem' similar to the Aztec calendar.

Code: Select all

1	red	ketla
2	fire	tlatsa
3	north	kita
4	snake	kuatla
5	cloud	nyepa
6	green	kuya
7	earth	kaya
8	south	mina
9	deer	masa
10	mountain	yama
11	blue	nila
12	water	maya
13	west	nisi
14	fish	uatsi
15	rain	pana
16	yellow	yana
17	wind	yasa
18	east	timu
19	eagle	tanka
And "flower, hua" for the four/five days that fall outside of the 19*19 table.

So, today (25 May) would be Deer day of Snake month.
I like your system.
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by masako »

Turtlehead wrote:I like your system.
nyasa
Thank you.

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clawgrip
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by clawgrip »

I have only developed a method of timekeeping for one of the cultures in my conworld.
Because of how long ago I created the world, it contains numerous parallels to our own world. Namely, days and years are nearly the same length. I am thinking of having the days slightly longer, but more or less the same. The year is only a couple days longer than an Earth year.

Anyway, in this culture there are seven animistic gods or spirits that represent aspects of nature throughout the year. Each one has a male and female manifestation. There are also two other spirits, the binder and the destroyer. There are 23 months, one for each spirit. Each month has 16 days, with the male/female manifestations sharing a day.

1 Xawo (binder)
2 Dhoung (water)
3 Gantē (rivers and streams; male manifestation of Dhoung)
4 Ŕōcha (lakes and the ocean; female manifestation of Dhoung)
5 Ūrd (rain; spring)
6 Dolot (rain and lightning; m. Ūrd)
7 Ngas (clouds and thunder; f. Ūrd)
8 Hīhit (forests and plants)
9 Āsach (leaves and branches; m. Hīhit)
10 Ḍug (trees and wood; f. Hīhit)
11 Hewich (fire, ash; summer)
12 Xeŕin (sun; m. Hewich)
13 Kleg (warmth and safety; f. Hewich)
14 Hōūs (wind and mountains)
15 Qaya (strength and power; m. Hōūs)
16 Yama (hills and mountains; earth; f. Hōūs)
17 Īyao (sky)
18 Vouyas (appearance and vision; m. Īyao)
19 Sheyaḍ (heart and mind; f. Īyao)
20 Gyaod (cold and winter)
21 Waoyao (falling snow and rain; m. Gyaod)
22 Īwab (snow and ice on the ground; f. Gyaod)
23 Qabūy (destructor)

The first day of the year is Xawo-Xawo (also called Yaolek Xawo or Tyoubek Xawo), the second Xawo-Gantē-Ŕōcha, and the third Xawo-Dhoung (male/female separated days come before the integrated days). The last day is called Qabūy-Qabūy or Hū-Qabūy.

The calendar is most useful to me in its capacity to name individuals.

The day-name is important because it is used in naming people. A person will receive as a part of their name the deity that reigns over that day. Their personal name will also sometimes be influenced by this. Sometimes names reflect the ruling deity, e.g. a girl born on a Gantē-Ŕōcha day may be named Ŕōcha-Ngowaḍīsyāsh (Moss-Edge), while sometimes names reflect the deity opposite in the cycle, so someone born under Hīhit may be called Hīhit-Xyūdarpūwam (Smooth-Line). Or, it may reflect the month-deity, e.g. a boy born on the day Gyaod-Qaya-Yama may be named Qaya-Ngoujxaich (Ice-Mound). Other times, personal names are unrelated to the deity, e.g. Waoyao-Hadgakīp (Pious-Mantis).

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Rik
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Rik »

dgoodmaniii wrote:
2+3 clusivity wrote: Sweet globe! How did you generate that? I'm quite impressed.
My thought, as well; so much so that I'm even coming back out from lurking for several years.
Thank you both! All glory, however, goes to the Gimp - specifically Filters > Animation > Spinning Globe. Works best if your starting map is big, with a width double that of the height.

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finlay
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by finlay »

Today's XKCD:
Image

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Pinetree
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Pinetree »

I'd really like to see how he managed to synch it with Narnian time.

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2+3 clusivity
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by 2+3 clusivity »

Rik wrote:Thank you both! All glory, however, goes to the Gimp - specifically Filters > Animation > Spinning Globe. Works best if your starting map is big, with a width double that of the height.
What did you use to create the original map? Free drawn or a generator?
linguoboy wrote:So that's what it looks like when the master satirist is moistened by his own moutarde.

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Rik
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Re: Calendars and timekeeping

Post by Rik »

2+3 clusivity wrote:
Rik wrote:Thank you both! All glory, however, goes to the Gimp - specifically Filters > Animation > Spinning Globe. Works best if your starting map is big, with a width double that of the height.
What did you use to create the original map? Free drawn or a generator?
Free-drawn on Gimp, from original hand-drawn maps.

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