๐๐จ๐ง๐ญ๐ก ๐๐๐ฆ๐๐ฌ ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ก๐๐ข๐ซ ๐๐จ๐ฆ๐๐ง ๐๐ซ๐ข๐ ๐ข๐ง๐ฌ
Mohamad Mostafa Nassar
Twitter@NassarMohamadMR
- January is โthe month of Janusโ the Roman god of beginnings and endings. Janus presided over doors and gatesโappropriate for the beginning of the year. Indeed, Janus was usually depicted with faces looking backward and forward, as is characteristic of a new year.
- February, โthe month of cleansing,โ is derived from februa, the name of a Roman purification festival held on the 15th of this month.
- March is named after the god of war and a planet: Mars. In ancient Rome, several festivals of Mars took place in March because that was the earliest month of the year when the weather was mild enough to start a war. At one time, March was the first month in the Roman calendar. The Romans changed the order of months several times between the founding of Rome and the fall of the Roman Empire.
- April is from the Latin Aprillis, which is a derivative of the Latin base apero-, meaning โsecond.โ April was named as such because of the tweaking of the ancient Roman calendar, where April was the second month.
- May springs from the Greek goddess Maia, daughter of Atlas and mother of Hermes. She was a nurturer and an earth goddess, which certainly explains her connection with this springtime month, when flowers and crops burst forth.
- June descends from Juno, wife of Jupiter, and the Roman ancient goddess of marriage and childbirth.
- July was named in honor of Julius Caesar right after his assassination in 44 B.C., with July being the month of his birth. July is the first month in the calendar that bears the name of a real person, rather than a deity.
- August represents another Roman ruler having been enshrined. In 8 B.C., the month Sextilis (โsixthโ) was renamed after Augustus, nephew of Julius Caesar and the first emperor of Rome. The emperorโs name came from the Latin augustus, which gave rise to the adjective โaugust,โ meaning โrespected and impressive.โ
- September, from the Latin septem (โsevenโ), seems as if it should be the seventh month of the year.
- The names for October (octo), November (novem), and December (decem) suggest that they would be the eighth, ninth, and tenth months. And they once were, when the Roman lunar calendar started the year in March at harvest time.
But all that changed in 46 B.C., when January became the first month of the new Julian calendar, making September through December the ninthโtwelfth months of the year.
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