Calendar System
▲
0▲ 0 ▼ 0
Misc. notes on timekeeping and calendars
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 18 Dec 2020, 16:46.
[comments] elbab
1. Calendar System
?
?
2. Language Info
?
?
3. Language name
?
?
4. Swear words
?
?
So, I've said before that Arvus doesn't have, like, a culture associated with it, since it's something I made up essentially with the purpose of being arbitrary, but the way we keep time is also a little bit arbitrary in some ways, and there are a few things that always bothered me about the Gregorian calendar, or at least, things that didn't make intuitive sense to me. So, there is an Arvrus (Arvrusian?) calendar, with the following changes:
- The new year is in spring, because that's when everything is coming to life again
- There are 6 seasons; two interim seasons were added, between fall and winter, and between winter and spring. There isn't much of a clear transition period between summer and its adjacent months, at least in the American Midwest, so I didn't add any interim seasons there. The new seasons are called (in English) Doldrums, before winter, and Mud Season, after winter.
- There are not set days in the calendar when the seasons start; often I find myself saying "yeah, it's technically [season], but it doesn't feel like it," or "it's not really [season] until..." so the changes in season are counted as follows:
- Winter begins at the first snowfall that actually sticks (once the ground is frozen),
Mud season begins when the sap begins to flow in the trees again (when things begin to thaw),
Spring begins when the first crocus blooms (when things have begun to come to life),
Summer begins once the fireflies come out (once it's warm enough at night for bugs),
Fall begins when the leaves start changing colors (when the summer heat starts fading), and
Doldrums begins once all the leaves have turned brown or fallen off (when the world looks dull and barren)
I'm aware that this makes seasons very location-specific, and sometimes means that one or more seasons will be skipped altogether in a year, but that's fine by me. Seasons are kinda location-specific anyways, like people who live closer to the equator basically don't have seasons at all, so I think it makes sense to do it this way.
- Months are lunar, with a new month starting every full moon. I know that gives some years an extra month, but the 12 months thing is arbitrary anyway.
- Weeks are also lunar, a new week begins every full, half, and new moon. I don't know if I just like having weeks because I'm used to that with the Gregorian calendar, but I think it makes at least some sense this way.
- The new year begins on the closest full moon to the spring equinox. This actually places it in mud season and not spring sometimes, but I wanted each new year to begin at the start of a month, and for it to be at least approximately one rotation around the sun, so I had to tie it to something a little more concrete. Also, when I was initially coming up with this calendar, the full moon for March happened to fall on the spring equinox, which I took as a sign that this is totally the way I should count the start of my years in this calendar system all the time, so that's what I did.
- Days are pretty much the same, but instead of the new day starting at midnight, it starts at sunrise, and/or whenever you wake up. This does make it slightly different for everyone, but even in English we talk about it kinda like that, like: "I got my day started at 9am today," y'know? Technically the day started without you by our current system, or if you stayed up past midnight you technically started your day doing whatever you were doing then. With the Arvrusian system, if you didn't sleep at all it's a new day at sunrise, but if you did sleep and then got up before the sun it's the new day when you wake up. I don't know if that's confusing or not.
I think that's all--if I remember anything else I guess I'll edit the post. ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article
Comments