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While Edievia now uses a duodecimal timekeeping system, akin to the rest of Earth, ~~for convenience purposes~~, it previously used a decimal time keeping system that divided the day into 10 roughly equal parts. The current system, called ha tjot imtjios hatiót imtiíos "twelve time", was implemented approximately 130 years ago, and thus has enjoyed regular usage for a few generations. Nonetheless, traditional Colian timekeeping (ha tjot colxs hatiót colaes "Colian time") still lives in vestiges in the language.

The Colian timekeeping system divided the day into 10 equal parts, called ur ur (this word was later used to mean "hour" in the current system; when specificity is required, they are called ur coles ur coles). Each or was 144 Earth minutes long. These ur were further divided into 10 ora iuf oraiuf, each of which was 14 minutes and 24 seconds long. The oraiuf were also divided into 5 ha trin hatrin, each of which was just short of 2 minutes and 53 seconds long. More specific time scales were not used.

1 day

10 ur
(1 or = 2 hours and 24 minutes)

100 oraiuf
(1 oraiof = 14 minutes and 24 seconds)

500 hatrin
(1 hatren = 2 minutes and 52.8 seconds)

Each or was numbered, one through ten. The day began at sunrise, with or 1 beginning and or 10 ending as soon as the sun rose. Due to Edievia's subtropical location, seasonal variation was not particularly enormous, and overall timekeeping was relatively constant throughout the seasons.

This traditional timekeeping system is still used traditional Edievian astrology, though it has been adapted slightly to fit better with the modern system. The main change was the shifting of the beginning of the day from sunrise to midnight, so that the traditional Colian day began at the same time as the modern day.

[edit] [top]Linguistic Effects of the Traditional System

While the original Colian timekeeping system is never used in modern society, some expressions still remain that hearken back to its usage:

dóis íims or	"At the 10th or"; more or less equivalent to "the crack of dawn" - wickedly early, before the sun has risen. Still used somewhat commonly in Edievian.
póis muden óis caéins	"In the middle of the third"; roughly "high noon" or around when the sun is highest for the day. Solar noon was normally about 5 and a half to six hours after sunrise, which placed it around the middle of the third or of the day.
dóis magaes óis nagiáéis	"At the end of the fifth"; normally referring to sunset or at the very least, mealtime, for Edievians.

The words ur and oraiuf have shifted to mean "hours" and "minutes" in the contemporary system, while hatrin is unused, supplanted by saegaond to mean "second". However, hatren can still be heard, meaning "an instance, moment" or "quick second" (such as Mes méis hatren cag? "Do you have a quick second (to chat) with me?").

[edit] [top]Telling Time in Contemporary Edievian

Contemporary Edievian is pretty straight-forward regarding the semantics of telling time. The overall pattern is:

[minutes] nóis/núis [hour]

Nóis is only used for 1 o'clock, otherwise núis is used.

Time	Spoken
1:45	leimnáig nóis nao
12:17	imsad núis imtií
17:32	caenimtií núis imsad
20:59	nagiímcab núis tiím

If no minutes are included (e.g. 8pm), ur or or (for 1am) is included: imtií ur "twelve o'clock". Otherwise, the words ur ("hours") and oraiuf ("minutes") are generally excluded when telling time, and are only included when needed for clarification or to actually count off elapsed time.

A basic statement of telling the time uses the verb amae, "to have", and always in the third person singular. In the present, the progressive is used: Maéis imnao ur. "It is eleven o'clock." In the past and future tenses, amae instead appears in the perfect: Maen tiím ur. "It is eight p.m."; Maec caenim núis sad. "It'll be 7:30."

Times can be written as #u#of as well as the scheme using a colon; 9:30 can be written as 9u30of. In the uncommon event of 1am being written out, it can be either 1:00 or 1o (as opposed to 1u). Of may be excluded, similar to the French style that includes just an initial for the hour: 12u30, "12:30". Edievian uses 24-hour time, so American times such as '5pm' are instead rendered as 17:00 or 17u.

Much like English, certain divisions of the hour can be replaced with quarters and halves. Where words are divided between parentheses, the former is used for 1 o'clock, while the latter is used for all other times:

# daéis/déis	# after
oleat daéis/déis	quarter after
odiát daéis/déis	half past
odiát sertaéis/sertéis	half past
oleat héis	quarter to
# héis	# to

[edit] [top]A Competing Method

Many Edievian speakers, particularly those under 30, prefer to use a different way to state the time. In place of the singular and plural distinction used (such as nóis and úis), instead the word order is inverted to "[hour] iae [minutes]". This method extends to the other shorthand ways to state the time, such as using odiát for 'half past'.

Time	Spoken
1:45	nao iae leimnáig
12:17	imtií iae imsad
17:32	imsad iae caenimtií
20:59	tiím iae nagiímcab
3:15	caen iae oleat

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