Talk:Calendar/Archive 1

Asian Calendars
There is no information here on the main points someone would look for in a calendar article, which are the calendars in use today.

Japanese passports list birth dates that would make a westerner raise an eyebrow, and the Chinese calendar is misunderstood.

Perhaps before delving into the obscure, the present day topics should be tackled?


 * This article discusses calendars in general terms. For specific calendars see the category "Calendars" at the upper right hand corner of the article and especially its subcategory "Specific calendars" or even the List of calendars under "See also". In the last two you will find the Chinese calendar and Japanese calendar. Also see Chinese New Year. &mdash; Joe Kress 20:04, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Improvement Drive
Time management is currently a candidate on WP:IDRIVE. Support it with your vote if you want to see this article improved to featured status.--Fenice 07:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Untitled
Validation of article performed by WIKICHECK. August 17 2006 17:12pm. WikiCheck 17:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Calendars are constructs/systemizations/conceptualizations of civil time
Various calendars were created to conceptualize and give a semblance of order to the passage of time in reference to repeating events such as the changing of the seasons, the phases of the moon, the movements of Venus, the flooding of the Nile, etc. The orbiting of the earth about the sun is one of the most important repeating events for societies and civilizations for agricultural pursuits and animal husbandry, for example, not to mention preparing for temperature extremes, etc. Naming of calendrical units is not what a calendar is, but only a small part of the construct. Doc Rock 17:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

- This terminology from the existing article seems less than ideal. "A pragmatic calendar is one that is based on observation; an example is the religious Islamic calendar."

How about calling it "observation based calendar" and get rid of the pragmatic terminology.

"A theoretical calendar is one that is based on a strict set of rules; an example is the Jewish calendar. Such a calendar is also referred to a rule-based or arithmetical calendar."

I thought a "theoretical calendar" was one proposed bu never used.

Let's just move away from those two term and go with Rule based and observation based.

-Paul Hill

I've never seen the term pragmatic calendar used to mean observation-based calendar outside the Nupedia article in which it appears. It may be the author's invention. The terms astronomical and observation-based have been used elsewhere and I have added them to the article.

The same applies to the addition of arithmetical and rule-based for theoretical calendars.

Karl Palmen - A calendar is not an scheme for "giving names to days and years". What a year is is defined by the calendar...for example, in a lunar calendar a year is something different than in a solar one.


 * I didn't write that that line, but actually I can't fault it. The primary purpose of most calendars is indeed to provide names for periods of time.  Calendars generally do also define terms of common usage like "month", "week", and "year", and usually give alternate definitions for them that correspond in greater or lesser degree to other usages of those words which are not calendar-based (things like "mean sidereal year" exist independently of any calendar).  But the purpose of those definitions is to provide a convenient way to label moments and/or periods of time in the past and future, to make it easier to record history and make long-range plans.

"Provide names to periods of time" that's a bit closer to it...my problem is, a year did not exist until a calendar that defined it did, so a calendar doesn't give a name to a year, creates it. But how do you measure those periods of time? A day is a pretty obvious thing, based on the movement of an astronomical object, the sun. The year is a bit more problematic, and you can only define it observing the constelations in the sky at sunset or sunrise. Thus my attempted definition. If you can do better, please be my guest, but I'm not going to leave that line as it is.


 * You could always look at it from the units-of-measurement point of view. Things like "hour", "second", "week", etc. are somewhat arbitrary products of definition, but just as we chose units like "pounds" to be useful for everyday life and commerce (imagine buying food from a grocer if your only units of weight were milligrams or tons), our choice of units for time was not entirely arbitrary.  The day was such an obvious thing that it made sense for smaller units to evenly divide it.  Likewise the cycle of seasons pre-dated any calendar, so it made sense for calendars to define the "year" unit of time measure in a way that made it convenient for knowing when to plant crops.  So I wouldn't call calendars totally "arbitary", but I would say that they defined measurements of time that served the purposes of the prople that created them.

The various astronomical days, months and years really do exist; but the calendrical day and month and year do not. They are creations of the calendar, which approximate the astronomical periods in some ways. But they aren't just inaccurate measurements; to use the astronomical units would be wrong by the calendar. So these units have no existence without the calendar. -- SJK

Beginning the year in winter
An important element influencing the placement of January [the beginning of our calendar year] certainly must be the apparent movement of the sun along the ecliptic throughout the earth's trip in its orbit around the sun. This is because starting with the third day after the summer solstice the length of the day appears to shorten by about eight minutes every day until the winter solstice and it appears that the sun "may be going away." The return of the sun, i.e., the lengthening of the daylight period daily following the third day after the winter solstice, occasions great joy that light and warmth are returning to earth--a beginning of an annual renewal. That is why Christmas, three days after the winter solstice, got stuck in the calendar where it is on the 25th of December. The Norse celebrated the New Year at this time. January, moreover, is named for the two-faced god, Janus, who looks backward and forward. The end of the shortening of the daylight makes a logical start time for a new year--there are other rationales for other times as well. Doc Rock 17:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Any Television Documentarys?
There are television documentarys about almost every subject a person can think of, (execpt to best of my knowlege - Valentine's Day). As anyone, ie PBS or the History Channel, done a made-for-tv documentary on the calendar? If not, then they should. There should be a least one television documentary on the history of the calendar.204.80.61.10 19:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)Bennett Turk

Pragmatic and Theoretical Calendars
Does anyone know of any use of the terms pragmatic calendar for an astronomical calendar or theortetical calendar for an arithmetic calendar, independent of wikipedia? If not these terms should be deleted as original. Karl 12:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the terminology of pragmatic and theoretical calendar on the grounds that they are original and other terms are used instead. You may restore them if you give good source independent of wikipedia for them. Karl 08:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Navigational bar 'Calendar systems'
The Dutch Wikipedia has a navigational bar about calendars:. Would this be a good idea for the English version as well? Wiki-uk 12:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks good. Used on over 20 pages. We should have one too. Robin Patterson 14:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * This was created on 27 June 2007: Template:Calendars Wiki-uk (talk) 17:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Calendar software
The calendar software section was getting a little spammy with a bunch of seemingly random additions. Ironically it was linking to Mozilla Sunbird but not Outlook even though this is probably one of the most widely used calender programs. Instead I've linked to the Electronic calendar article and Calendar standards cat which covers most of what was linked to. The electronic calender article is a bit crap but it's the best we have. Ideally it would be better to link to a electronic calender standards article but we don't have one Nil Einne (talk) 07:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Additional information to the article.
I feel that the part of the article on the Egyptian calendar should include the facts that their year was divided into three seasons of four months. I've seen a picture of the calendar taken off of an archeological site. One season was the harvest season, another was the flood season and the third I'm not sure of. This way of measuring may explain some human ages in the Bible. For example, Abraham and Sarah were not 75 and 90 years old when Isaac was born. She was about 25. This would explain why she was concerned about not having a child, and why she was considered a great beauty by the Pharoah.

I don't have the time or the exact references, but they should be easy to obtain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.244.188.179 (talk) 14:44, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Kurdish calendar
I've moved the following from the "currently used" calendar section: Kurdish calendar is a Solar calendar used among the Kurdish people. The Kurdish year begins on March 21st, at the time of vernal equinox. Kurdish calendar began 612 BC, when the Medes conquered Nineveh and Assyria, which marks and symbolizes the end of lowland tyranny. The year 2007 corresponds to the Kurdish year 2619. (Reference Kurdish calendar converter)

The only reference I can find for it is one that is associated with the already linked reference: http://www.kurdistanweb.org/kucs/project/calendar.html. There are maybe 2 other passing mentions of this calendar online. Other than that, there is no evidence of this calendar. If anyone else knows of other references, it would be worth creating a new article for the subject (under the category of "specific calendars"). It isn't notable enough to warrant a paragraph in the "currently used" section though. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nposs (talk • contribs) 23:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC).


 * It would be hard to get references for this as the Kurds have a mostly oral tradition. This makes it hard to get what you desire. However this does not mean that the kurdish calendar does not exist. In deed it does exist, and is well known among the kurds. Today is for example the first day of the year (20/3) 1 Jezhnan/Xakeléwe. Therefore i belive it is only just to mention the kurdish calendar in this encyclopedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.208.209.137 (talk) 12:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Who uses which
I would propose a 500-day 10-month 50-week "metric"-year calendar in which to rewrite history and current worldwide time recokings and tell solar, lunisolar and solar calendars fkoff away with their inconsistency and half-astrological half-astronomical religion-centred purposes because, really, when one reads a historical date... How much sense does it makes? Which land used which calendar when? Reading the articles on Julian reform there are questions still unanswered...

What calendar did the Ottoman Empire used? I guess the Islamic Calendar but then, they had an Ottoman Calenadar at the 18th century which was a modified Julian, when most of the world had stopped using the Julian, so had they been used the standard Julian before? What calendar[s] does modern day Turkey and Greece use? What calendar was Hungary using before occupied by the Ottoman Empire in the year 1526, starting with a battle (29/8/1526)? Before it being formally annexed (1541?)? During its occupation and then iduring its anexation and then afterwards when it was freed from Ottoman control (1699?) Does Hungary uses the Gregorian calendar now?

Making dating meaningful is basic to make history a science of past-reckoning and not an art of realistic storytelling. In order to do that I guess a whole set of historians worldwide must study time in relation to a central, worldwide reckoning, that would mean killing off daylight saving times and stablishing a metric way to calculate time, much like the way space and mass are defined on things whose inconsistency, althought inevitable, is not pertinent to human simplicity as our complixity lays far away from their. But until such consesus is reached... Could more data be given on which region used which calendar when? I'm not Hungarian and probably the best and swiftest means I have to data about Ottoman presence on Hungary is from the English Wikipedia as the Spanish Wikipedia is not good enough right now and googling tends to redirect to Wikipedia anyway, otherwise giving useless results.Undead Herle King (talk) 15:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Easter
I'm genuinely confused about the assertions in the section about Easter Sunday:

 Calculating the calendar of a previous year is a relatively easy matter when Easter Sunday is not included on the calendar. However, calculating for Easter Sunday is difficult because the calculation requires the knowledge of the full moon cycle. Easter Sunday is on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox according to the computus. So, this makes an additional calculation necessary on top of the normal calculation for January 1st and the calculation of whether or not the year is a leap year.

There are only 14 different calendars when Easter Sunday is not involved. Each calendar is determined by the day of the week January 1st falls on and whether or not the year is a leap year. However, when Easter Sunday is included, there are quite a few different calendars.

The article asserts that calculating Easter Sunday results in "quite a few different calendars" than the 14 it asserts are all that exist by simply taking into account January 1 and leap days.

How?

Easter Sunday does not actually appear on any other day of the week but Sunday. It does not affect the seasons. Certain related holidays are "movable" depending on the date fixed for Easter, but they don't affect the calendar itself.

Perhaps there is a point to this section that simply eludes me, but if there is, it needs a source and some explanation.

Bikerbudmatt (talk) 17:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Easter can occur on any Sunday from March 22 to April 25 inclusive, which is a range of 35 days. If the range were only 7 days, then the 14 calendars would suffice even if Easter were taken into account. The range of 35 days results in 70 calendars being required. Each of these 70 calendars can be specified by the date of Easter and whether the year is a leap year. The sequence of these 70 calendars is much more complicated than the sequence of the 14 calendars ignoring Easter. See Computus for more details. Karl (talk) 09:24, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The Computus article was helpful...thank you. Perhaps what I am missing here, especially in the larger context of the Calendar article, is what is meant by "calendar" in this discussion. I am starting from the frame of reference of a Gregorian calendar. But the sequence of 70 possible calendars that are cited here seems to refer to placing the date of Easter itself, not to the overall Gregorian system. I would find it helpful as a reader to know this is what is meant here.

Thank you again for your patience in considering this...my interest is as a cleric who needs occasionally to explain items like this to interested congregants.

Bikerbudmatt (talk) 22:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

A look a the article showed to me that the section under discussion was badly placed. The previous sections dealt with different types of calendar system (e.g. solar calendar and lunar calendar) and this section dealt with different arrangements of dates in a single calendar system. I've reordered some of the sections including this one and added some clarification to it. Karl (talk) 09:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Karl; the reordering puts this section in context for me and addresses my concerns. Again, thanks for your patience and interest in working through this. Bikerbudmatt (talk) 14:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Definition of Easter
The article has "Easter Sunday is on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox according to the computus.". That is misleading (also it has the problem that, worldwide, the Equinox instant occurs on two adjacent local dates).

At least in the British Calendar Act / Prayer Book tradition, "Vernal Equinox" is not used in the definition; the date is given as March 21st. I've not seen whether the Catholic (Clavius) wording uses Equinox or 21st; but their calculation must be based on the 21st.

Since AD 325 or thereabouts, Easter has depended not on the actual moon but on a calculated approximation.

A simple change to sort that out would be to use "Easter Sunday is nominally on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox, and can be calculated according to the computus.".

82.163.24.100 (talk) 11:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Calendar
I was bold, and added this section. Please feel free to edit it or move to another place, but do not remove the entire section. I'd like to use it as a link or redirect to other legal articles. I will also find citations. Bearian (talk) 18:29, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Because this is so different from the other uses of 'calendar', which discuss how days are labeled or named rather than used, this would be better as an entry in calendar (disambiguation), possibly as an article named calendar (legal), even though it would be a Wikipedia stub. — Joe Kress (talk) 02:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I see now that you already knew of docket (court) to which court calendar redirects, which begs the question, why not link directly to either of those? In the meantime, I am simplifying the heading to Legal. — Joe Kress (talk) 09:20, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Meaning of the word Calendar according to Indo-Persian languages
Jamsh1d says he "added meaning of the word Calendar according to Indo-Persian languages" to the article. This was a new introductory paragraph:

The English word calendar is derived from the Latin word kalendae'', which was the Latin name of the first day of every month. The word Calendar consist of two words: 1)Cal( in Pashto means Year, in Hindi and Persian is Sal- also means Year).In Pashto question : so kalen ye? means how old are you? 2)Dar (Pashto - means having, Owning and in Persian - in). So we can say that Calendar means Having or owning or in the Year. ''

Obviously, this is not an appropriate introductory paragraph. It's also confusing, and lacks a reference. I would have moved it down rather than removing it, but the article already states this:

The English word calendar is derived from the Latin word kalendae, which was the Latin name of the first day of every month.

With a reference. Someone want to look into this? -AndromedaRoach (talk) 05:35, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The English word calendar is derived from the Latin word kalendæ which is derived from the Latin word calo meaning to call out or proclaim (that the thin crescent moon was observed on the western horizon, which marked the first day of each month in the original Roman lunisolar calendar). So if the English word was cognate to a Farsi or Sanskrit word, then calendar and call would begin with the same Farsi or Sanskrit letters, but using online English-Farsi and English-Sanskrit dictionaries, they don't. Because they aren't cognate, this 'derivation' was created by romanizing unrelated Indo-Persian word roots. — Joe Kress (talk) 09:13, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

History behind the year starting in winter
Coming from the southern hemisphere the question has occurred to me of why 1 January was placed in the middle of the nothern hemisphere winter. It doesn't appear to be a question that has occurred to anyone anwhere on the internet. Would it be one for modern psychologists or were there cultural/religious/astronomical reasons for the winter solstice being chosen over the summer solstice? Did the Chinese start their year in winter? What about the Mayans? - Diceman 18:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * January 1 has no relation whatsoever to the winter solstice. Its placement relative to the seasons was the accidental result of converting the non-solar Roman Republican calendar into the Julian calendar in 46 BC. When Christianity adopted the Julian calendar as its own during the fourth century, it decided that the vernal equinox was on March 21. This caused January 1 to be 79 days earlier (80 in leap years)—there is no other significance to its placement. The difference between the Julian year and the tropical year then caused January 1 to drift later (closer to the vernal equinox). The Gregorian calendar corrected the drift in 1582 by placing the vernal equinox on March 19/20/21, depending on its leap year rules. The Chinese year begins roughly halfway between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, but it is not a solar year. The Maya have two interrelated years: their 365-day haab year drifts relative to the seasons; their 260-day tzolkin year obviously has no relation whatsoever to the tropical year. — Joe Kress 09:49, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I can't seem to communicate the concept of someone arbitrarily deciding where the year should start (I grew up in a place where new year's eve is in summer, and later on began to wonder why in the northern hemipshere where the calendar was invented, why they put summer in the middle of the year). I wonder where hunter-gatherer societies (that use traditional means of timekeeping) generally place the year. Someone on another page suggested a link to crop planting cycles, I assume that for agarian societies in colder climates, the work would begin in spring and end in autmn, with winter off, so winter would be the "end" of one year and the start of another. But I believe in mediterranean conditions crops are planted in autumn and harvested in spring because summer is too dry, so that doesn't quite add up. - Diceman 14:26, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * There is no reason that the beginning of the year should be logical, although many are. The Julian/Gregorian calendar is illogical, whereas the Hebrew calendar is logical, but as a result of history has two beginnings of the year in a single calendar, in spring and autumn, the months of Nisan and Tishri. Nisan (the first month) was the beginning of the year in the Torah (Pentateuch) when numbered months were used (with some Phonecian/Canaanite names), whereas Tishri (the seventh month) became the beginning if the year as result of the Babylonian captivity when the Jews adopted Babylonian names for their months. — Joe Kress 21:50, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Originally March was the first month, December the tenth. Some of the months were named after gods, March = Mars. But most after numbers, Sep = 7, Oct = 8, Nov = 9, Dec = 10. These would have been in cycle with the moon originally. Later days were added to align months with the Solar Calendar (changed a number of times to correct them, additionally even numbers were considered unlucky by the Romans so that didn't help!). Jan and Feb were added in 713 BCE. before then it was just winter... The first month/moon cycle would have been when farming/trading resumed. The Romans celebrated New Year on the Ides on March. 15th March, although not always. This must have been in line with the Equilux when conceived but eventually dissociated and became half way in the month. Obviously the equilux would make sense, first signs of spring and equal day and night. Romans identified a year for dating purposes by naming it after two consuls who were in office. Elected on New Years Day. In 153 BCE Rome had problems controlling Lusitania (now Spain/Portugal) and they needed to elect new Consuls urgently. So they changed the election date to 1st January. And that date has stuck. Pnb73 (talk) 13:05, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Your 'equilux' theory may have some bearing on the Roman calendar during the time that kings ruled Rome, but only if we believe those Roman writers who state that King Numa added January and February (in either order) after December about 700 BC. Others state that at that time January became the beginning of the calendar year. Your theory has no bearing whatsoever during the time of the Roman Republic when consuls were elected. Since at least 450 BC (the time of the decemvirs) the calendar year had always been January to December, regardless of the day that consuls were elected to office. It was even January to December throughout the Middle Ages when days other than January 1 began the numbered year. According to Livy, consuls took office on July 1 before the third century BC. During most of the third century they took office on May 1. Only for the 70 years between 222 BC and 154 BC did they enter office on March 15. Furthermore, during this period the vernal equinox usually occurred in April or later. Indeed, the equinox occurred as late as Sextilis (August) (Roman) in 192–191 BC (the preceding March 15 (Roman) was November 5 (Julian)) ten years after the conclusion of the Second Punic War. See the conversion table associated with Roman Dates by Chris Bennett. From 153 BC until AD 888, when the Byzantine Empire ended the consulate, they took office on January 1. See Julian calendar. — Joe Kress (talk) 18:40, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

RAMADAN DATE
WHAT WAS THE DATE OF RAMADAN IN 1983 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.64.77.151 (talk) 11:00, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * According to Calendrica the month of Ramadan began on 13 June 1983 (1 Ramadan 1403) in the observational (not arithmetic) Islamic calendar, and ended on 11 July 1983 (29 Ramadan 1403). However, each Muslim country and Muslim association in non-Muslim countries use individual calendars with dates up to three days before or after these dates. — Joe Kress (talk) 00:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Pictures of calendars
ther are no real pictures of calenders on here if you are searching for one to create a travel website turn around you have come to the wrong site —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.235.165.225 (talk) 16:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Calendario Romano
There is a calendar named Calendario Romano that is released by the Vatican every year, and which features priests on the cover of the monthly pages. I'm not sure how notable it is exactly, but it does get significant media coverage every year when it is published. ADM (talk) 23:00, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Bulgarian calendar
Removed copyvio text from which was added to this talk page by 89.253.134.16 on 13:24, 16 May 2010 (UTC). — Joe Kress (talk) 22:17, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

The Eternal Calendar of the Bulgarians is a modern calendar proposal which is vaugely reminiscent of the Bulgar calendar but is falsely attributed to the ancient Bulgarians, so I'm removing its link. The equivalence 6328 AM − 823 AD = 5505 BC is simply the Anno Mundi epoch used by the medieval Bulgarian historian Constantine of Preslav in 894 according to the eminent Bulgarian historian Vasil Zlatarski (1866–1935) in. — Joe Kress (talk) 10:31, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Advent Calendar as a 'See Also' entry vs. a term needing disambiguation
I noticed in the "See Also" section for this page that an entry for "Advent Calendar" had been added.

That seems more like an entry for disambiguation, as another use for the term "calendar". An Advent "calendar" does not attempt to mark a solar cycle, which at base is the general use for calendars in this entry. It's more like a countdown to a specific day, a very slow clock if you will, and thus the term itself could be considered an ambiguous application.

To be clear, I do not in any way object to documenting the term "Advent calendar" in Wikipedia. It is an established cultural and religious practice (including in my own faith). It just doesn't seem to belong in the "See also" list.

I am certainly open to other interpretations of this term, and would like to hear the rationale for placing it in the list of "see also" terms.

Bikerbudmatt (talk) 16:11, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

New Calendars
How do new calendars become recognized as legitimate and added to wikipedia? As an example, I haven't seen the Borealis, Australis, & Globus Kalendars (http://ehoah.weebly.com/kalendars.html) on wikipedia, it is relatively new so it may have been by passed. If that is not the case, how do calendars like these gain the go ahead? 65.92.205.173 (talk) 19:32, 17 March 2013 (UTC)


 * New articles must be about notable topics, as explained in the "Notability" guideline. For something to be mentioned in an article about something else, the "Neutral point of view" policy should be followed, in particular, the "Due and undue weight" section. For instance, the calendars mentioned by 65.92.205.173 seem to be related to the Reformed Druids of North America, which seems have only a few thousand people involved. Further, some of the sources seem to regard the movement to be humorous rather than sincerely held beliefs. So this would qualify as a tiny fringe movement, and its calendars should probably not be mentioned except in articles about the movement.


 * Also, the person creating new articles or adding to existing articles should consider how he/she is involved in the subject and take care to follow the "Conflict of interest" guideline. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:57, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the response. As I understand, the calendars are specifically related to Ehoah, an offshoot of the Reformed Druids of North America(RDNA). Even so the RDNA was founded on humor, but continued in a serious fashion with many dedicated practitioners that reflect the movement in a serious light. Especially with the Orders that require devoted rites to be performed by those who wish to join those Orders along with a third Ordered Druid to oversee and affirm that the rite be valid. It seems far from humor based on these observations. Either way, the points addressing the necessary elements for the calendars to be notable stands to reason. 65.92.205.173 (talk) 15:48, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Easter section
Is there a reason why there is an entire section about Easter in the Gregorian calendar? It seems out of place in this article which is a general overview of various calendar systems. Jaxcp3 (talk) 04:31, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree and have removed it. Dougweller (talk) 14:04, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Venus-based calendar in ancient Egypt?
Our article says "There are some calendars that appear to be synchronized to the motion of Venus, such as some of the ancient Egyptian calendars; synchronization to Venus appears to occur primarily in civilizations near the Equator.".

The link to Egyptian calendar was missing, so I added it - but there is no mention whatever of "venus" in that article. Instead it talks about a calendar linked to the rising of Syrius. Since neither article has adequate references - it's hard to know what to fix.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:38, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * See Sirius. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 9sbga (talk • contribs) 11:52, 24 December 2016 (UTC)


 * The article on Egyptian calendar suggests that the link with Sirius and the same calendar is far from obvious and is mostly speculation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 9sbga (talk • contribs) 11:58, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Complete / Incomplete - The calendar of Romulus
The section refers to the Roman theory that their calendar started as a 10 month calendar with some unnamed winter. As the [|article on the Roman Calendar] succinctly states the sources contradict one another. The most commonly cited one is Ovid's Fasti which might be called Roman Edutainment. The thing is, the Romans had no clear idea how their institutions started.

A 10 month calendar can only be considered, if there is no other explanation. For what, you ask? - Well, the numbering of the months is off. October means 8-ish, but is the tenth month. How did that happen? First consider why a 10 month year is highly unlikely. - Months are based on the moon, the moon is there all year long. Also we have evidence of a lunar calendar through rituals performed on New Moon by the Rex sacrorum. - The year end festivities happen in February. That's why February is shorter. Caesar was very unwilling to mess with February for religious reasons. So until Caesars time we have clear indications the religious did start in March. Using different calendars for civic and religious purposes is not uncommon. Many more arguments were brought by Rüpke, who is also cited in the section on the Roman Calendar.

So why, do we start the year in January? - The Romans didn't count their years. The named them after the ruling consuls. So the civic always starts when the consuls take office, because of how the system works. This might or might not have been in March originally, but then it would be very sensible to move the date into winter, because when it gets warmer, the neighbors might get unruly and need some pacifying and you really want to give your commanders in chief some time to settle in. --Holothuroid (talk) 06:18, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

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Principal calendars
A recent version of the article stated "The two principal calendars in most widespread use today are the Gregorian and Islamic calendars" but offered no source for this statement. Campista1891 revised the article to state "The three principal calendars in most widespread use today are the Gregorian, Jewish, and Islamic calendars" and gave the "[calendar]" entry in the American Heritage Dictionary as a source. Although that source has a box titled "THREE PRINCIPAL CALENDARS", it does not say they are "the" three principal calendars, nor does it say they are the most widespread in use throughout the world.

I changed the article to instead cite the United States Naval Observatory which states "There are six principal calendars in current use." This is a clear statement that these are the principal calendars. The wording (or lack thereof) at the American Heritage Dictionary leaves open the possibility there are other principal calendars they did not describe. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:52, 11 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking the time to do this. Doug Weller  talk 18:17, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

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"Dionysian Era"?
It appears to me that the "Dionysian Era" may be an OR invention of some earlier editor, with no supporting refs, and with no regular scholarly use outside of this article when referring to varuous "eras." If you could, would you mind please explaining here where the name Dionysian Era might be regularly used by a majority of scholars outside of this article, so we can properly keep this phrase in the article? If you might not happen to find such documentation here, tomorrow I will update the article accordingly.

Thanks,

Warrenfrank (talk) 20:25, 30 July 2017 (UTC) (Notification: )


 * After doing some work with the Google n-gram viewer, it appears that other alternatives, such as "Christian Era", "Common Era", and "Anno Domini" are much more common than "Dionysian Era". "Christian Era" is a redirect to "Anno Domini" so I think either of those terms would be better than "Dionysian Era".


 * "Common Era" won't do because in the sentence where it occurs, a link to an explanation of what the Anno Domini era is should be provided, not an explanation of the debate of which terminology is most appropriate. And of course it would be endlessly confusing to code . Jc3s5h (talk) 23:52, 30 July 2017 (UTC)


 * If somebody wants to create a new wording proposal that links to Dionysius Exiguus I'm interested in hearing it. Otherwise, I would remove the sentence in question and merge the sentence starting "The year number" into the previous paragraph. Power~enwiki (talk)
 * ✅ — JFG talk 02:20, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

RfC :Principal calendars

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should the Calendar article say there are three principal calendars (Gregorian, Jewish, and Islamic) or six principal calendars (Gregorian, Jewish, Islamic,  Indian,  Chinese, and Julian Calendars)?

Discussion on principal calendars
The idea of three principal calendars is supported by the American Heritage Dictionary but the page just displays three principal calendars, without saying these are the three principal calendars. The idea of six principal calendars is supported by the U.S. Naval Observatory which states "There are six principal calendars in current use. These are the Gregorian, Jewish, Islamic, Indian, Chinese, and Julian Calendars." [Hyperlink in original.]

It has been common to look to astronomy for information about calendars, and in particular, agencies responsible for the publication of nautical almanacs, because these have long been used by sea captains to inform themselves about what they will encounter in worldwide travel. I suggest the U.S. Naval Observatory, and the publication they cite, the Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac (3rd ed.) are more authoritative on this matter than a dictionary. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:19, 19 July 2017 (UTC)


 * There's no right answer to this question. What a source regards as a "principal calendar" is a matter of preference, not of authority (I'd consider adding the Coptic calendar to my own list). The article should avoid using the term "principal calendar" if there's a danger of readers thinking it's a well-defined term. Maproom (talk) 11:14, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Comment: The right answer to the question is that the expression "principal calendar" has no place or merit in the article as used so far at all, because all the sources use the expression without any cogent definition, and completely based on personal bias. The only implicit bases for such an evaluation as far as I can tell offhand are
 * 1) How old it is
 * 2) How widely it is used (and by how many people perhaps)
 * 3) On what basis it rests (religious, political, astronomical, geographic, physical, mathematical etc)
 * None of those criteria enables us to imply any approval of or respect for any calendar I know of, as being better, or better established than the others. The fact that a holy script prescribes one, or indeed, that a Naval Observatory discusses the status of one in comparison to some others, does not lend it any definitive advantage. I say, remove the word "principal" altogether; rather rephrase the descriptions in objective terms. Eg: "The three principal calendars are the Gregorian, Jewish, and Islamic calendars" might better read: "Several types of calendar currently are in wide use, variously justified on astronomic or religious principles. They include the Gregorian, Islamic, and Jewish, but there are more, including various Indian, Chinese, and Julian Calendars." That wording is straight out of my thumb and certainly could be improved, but already improves on the current facile assertions. JonRichfield (talk) 12:36, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Comment: I agree with. The classification "principal" is arbitrary and subjective and should be replaced by a clearer objective description. CapitalSasha ~ talk 22:45, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Comment: I too agree. The article should list all the notable calendars, ordered by popularity. &#8220;WarKosign&#8221; 07:36, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * , do you have a source for popularity? Jc3s5h (talk) 11:33, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Lead of Gregorian calendar has sources for it being most popular, I can't open the links but maybe they support it. If we don't have real usage numbers we could make an educated guess - a rough order is better than no order. &#8220;WarKosign&#8221; 12:34, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Comment I agree as well that "principal calendars" is problematic. If that phrase must be used, I personally feel (though I have no references) that only the Gregorian calendar should be called a "principal calendar". Power~enwiki (talk) 07:05, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Do not use – As noted by other participants, "principal calendar" is a subjective term; best avoid it if we can. — JFG talk 20:40, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Comment. I agree with everyone above that the term "principal calendar" is the core problem here. We can discuss multiple calendars with context that makes it clear how significant each one is both historically and in the modern world; but using "principal calendar" as label makes it sound like this is some big formal designation, when it seems to just be an informal term used by one or two sources. --Aquillion (talk) 00:46, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Comment - Summoned by bot. I'm not understanding this. Every calendar that has an article should be listed here. TimTempleton (talk) (cont)  05:43, 6 August 2017 (UTC)


 * It seems to me listing every calendar that has an article is a job for a category or a navigation box. The article already has both. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:35, 6 August 2017 (UTC)


 * You're right - I had no idea there were that many. Six are manageable and convenient to include - dozens are not.  I like 's suggested verbiage, removing the idea of a calendar being labeled "principal". TimTempleton (talk)  (cont)  21:29, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Comment - Another uninvolved editor chiming in late to agree. "Principal" designation should be avoided even if our sources are happy to go there. There's just no good reason to and it can be easily avoided with something along the lines of what has suggested above. ~Kvng (talk) 00:55, 8 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Greek influence?
In "History" I found this sentence:


 * A great number of Hellenic calendars developed in Classical Greece, and with the Hellenistic period also influenced calendars outside of the immediate sphere of Greek influence, giving rise to the various Hindu calendars as well as to the ancient Roman calendar.

If Greek calendars influenced the Hindus, then surely the Hindus were in the sphere of Greek influence—"influence" is not a geographical notion. But if geographical distance is a concern, it makes no sense to list the Romans as outside Greece's immediate geographical position, and logic therefore dictates that the influence on the Romans be mentioned first, and that on the Hindus last. Nevertheless, an expert in the history should review the statement, since Hindu civilization is not just much older than the Greek, but closer to the even older civilization of Sumer, so it seems strange that the Hindus should have had no calender at all until the Greeks influenced them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wordwright (talk • contribs) 23:06, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

spelling
AFAIK, the first day of the month in Latin was called kalendae, rather than calendae.

Dan Oom (talk) 16:10, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Calendae is listed in Lewis and Short as an alternative spelling for the more common Kalendae. — Joe Kress (talk) 21:30, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

TOTAL LACK OF CITATIONS (!)
Just wanted to draw everybody's attention to the fact that this article has very minimal sources, and they are all contained in the first three sections after the lead (which has none). I could add tags to every single one that qualifies, but why bother? That's probably a job for a bot. I think we need to find good references and then see what information is supported, and then if some of it is wholly contradicted, we can remove that. Anyone else have any suggestions? Thanks... 2600:6C44:237F:ACCB:25C2:FD43:EFAE:C84C (talk) 01:57, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I have added to one of the sections. I also noticed that there are several good sources in the "Sources" section, but no one has added citations to individual sentences or paragraphs to connect to those sources. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:51, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

From VfD

 * How to compute calendars - Article rehashes knowledge already available in detail on Gregorian calendar, Julian calendar, and Calendar itself, as well as being very centered on both of those calendars, but not giving details for either. If I have missed something, the missing content should be merged into one of those three and this page deleted; it does not provide additional value. Should the article instead be enhanced to encompass a "how to" guide for every calendar around, a lot of duplication would be neccessary (of the articles for the respective calendars) Eike 03:16, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)
 * Info needs correcting, but merge any useful content with calendar and redirect -- Graham :) 12:01, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * Ditto. Elf 17:14, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * merge and redirect Rossami 04:22, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * If anyone wants to merge How to compute calendars into Calendar, they can access the non-redirected version from here.

Unsupported edit about where Gregorian calendar has been adopted
In [this edit]] claims "The four countries which have not adopted it officially are Ethiopia (which continues to use the Ethiopian calendar), Nepal (Vikram Samvat and Nepal Sambat), Iran and Afghanistan (Solar Hijri calendar)." No source is cited. The edit summary states "It's mentioned in Wikipedia itself in the expanded article." Per the Wikipedia verifiability policy Wikipedia is not a reliable source and may not be cited to support edits.

The edit summary also states "And the calendar can only be officially adopted by those places where there was another calendar which in the Us was in 1752 not 1776". The United States as a country has never adopted the Gregorian calendar. What did happen is that practically all of the US states, one by one, adopted English Common law by passing reception statutes. The mechanism of adopting the Gregorian calendar in US places that derive their legal system from the civil law, Louisiana and Puerto Rico, would have to be investigated. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:08, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

"Time cycles" a much wider topic than "calendar"; misleading redirect
I have opened the discussion at Talk:Time cycles, and a related one at Talk:Season. Please add your comments there. Arminden (talk) 07:21, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Systemic bias towards Eurasian calendars
It looks to me like this page, History of calendars, and List of calendars disproportionately cover calendars developed in Eurasia and the Near East. For example, the section mainly discusses calendars invented in Eurasia, as well as the Egyptian calendar. History of calendars has a decently sized section on Mesoamerican calendars but barely discusses African calendars. It's important for these pages to cover a representative sample of the world's calendars, especially Calendar and History of calendars, which are vital articles. Qzekrom (she/her &bull; talk) 06:51, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Moved from main article, by User:24.136.212.5
I would like an article titled AD and/or ADE and BCE if BCE exists.

The article would explain the difference between AD and ADE when placed after the number of a year. For example 2006 AD and 2006 ADE. What does the E stand for and when should or can it be used? Thanks, Marvin L Morrison
 * See Anno Domini for the BC/AD system and Common Era for the BCE/CE system. The ~E isn't a suffix. It's a different phrase, albeit just a rebranding of the exact same calendar epoch. — Llywelyn II   20:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

hello wikipedians
I have to say .... I wold liked to see a quick referents table on when each calender was known to have bin calculated and taken in to use and so on. just saying it would be easier to visualize the time frame and also easier to remember :) thank you
 * A table would quickly be too bloated, I'd imagine, and would unhelpfully present the idea that we know more about early history than we actually do. Even for the incredibly well preserved Roman culture, we have no idea when they actually began using their calendar, just their (conflicting) later legends about how they thought they set it up.


 * You're stuck using History of calendars. — Llywelyn II   20:48, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Chart of different calendars
Can a simple table be added to this article that describes different calendar systems in present and past use? It would be interesting to see at least a link to different types of calendar, and an explanation of their features (luni-solar, region first adopted, etc.) That way it would at least link to more detailed explanations. I was wondering about fixed 'switchover' dates in various calendars and the typology they use because I want to know about the reign of Urukagina in Sumer and how accurately his reign can be estimated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.165.192.163 (talk • contribs) 05:41, 17 May 2014 UTC
 * Waaay too much between now and then to do it based on recorded dates in different systems. The way a historian would actually approach that problem would be finding something that can be accurately dated like eclipses, eruptions, radiocarbon-dated ash layers in a sacked town, etc. Then you work forward or backward from that date as well as you can. — Llywelyn II   20:50, 9 August 2023 (UTC)