OT: Months and Lunar Cycles (was: [CONLANG] META: messages (was: Re: Religious Development WAS: Re: OT: Socialism (WAS: Re: Saving endangered langs (was Re: Extrapolating languages)))

On Wednesday, December 24, 2003, at 09:22  AM, Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 23, 2003 at 02:20:54PM +0200, Steg Belsky wrote:
>> Anyway, since the original message had some kind of question about
>> conculture holidays, here i'll repost something i sent to ConCulture
>> last Rokbeigalmki New Year, about half a year ago:
>
> Thanks!  So what's ConCulture?  Another mailing list?
Yup, but unlike this one (and like most of the 'workshop' lists) it's
at Yahoogroups.

>> This year is somewhat interesting in that it's got 14 months.
>
> !  14 lunations is over 413 days.  That's a darn long year!
They're not all full lunar cycles, as you'll see farther down this
email :) .

>> which includes Dzu"Fa"Ri
>
> What do the double-quotes signify?
That it's an abbreviation.  Dzu"Fa"Ri is short for:
^Dzuwaurg^Dafal^Dari.hlao^Semoz-a
"the Festival of the Widening of the Circle of the Sun"
Before you ask ;) the ^ marks are the binders for the whole 'construct'
compound; in the actual Rokbeigalmki alphabet, they're written over the
first letter of each word in the compound.  The abbreviation is made by
taking the beginning of each word's *root* (that's why the |da|s are
dropped) up until its first vowel, and stringing them together.  Each
vowel of the abbreviation, like the final vowel in construct compounds,
is stressed, so this Dzu"Fa"Ri is pronounced /d(@)zu:Pa:ri:/, with
bilabial fricative /P/ and tap/flap /r/.

>> month of the year (Jalág) before New Years Day and the first of the
>> new
>> year (Ghalúb) afterwards. The Ghalúb we are in now (Dzu"Fa"Ri is the
>> 1st day of Ghalúb) is only about a week long, so when you count the
>> months until next Dzu"Fa"Ri you find that there are 14 months.
>>
> Oh, I see.  Dzu"Fa"Ri splits the lunation containing it into two
> "months".
> That should still only add one month, though, taking the total to 13;
> does the 14-month count include the intercalated Yápleg, meaning that
> common years have only 13 months?
> -Mark
Exactly!
Incidentally, right now we're coming up on the end of the 7th month,
Bélihzar /bE:l1zar/.

The months are:
1.  Ghalúb /Galu:b/
2.  Gííyal /ga:jjal/
3.  Abí~r /abi::r/
4.  Rónewar /ro:nEwar/
5.  Dázoom /da:zUm/ (/U/ = rounded /1/, central high)
6.  Méíyabat /me:jjabat/
7.  Bélihzar /bE:l1zar/
8.  Yihtáth /j1ta:T/
9.  Kéwu /kE:wu/
10. Maanáúr /m&nO:r/
11. Valnírva /valni:rva/
12. Sháánih /S&:n1/ (i was born on the 13th of Sháánih, year -16)
(13. Yápleg /ja:plEg/)
13. (14.) Jalág /dZala:g/


-Stephen (Steg)
  "Presumably, Sauron gave up carnal pleasures when he became an
all-seeing eye at the top of a tower, but it’s hard to say for certain.
Maybe he gets a kick out of the all-seeing bit."
      ~ alex ross, The New Yorker

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