Re: Conlang Calendars (was: I Should've Been Asleep Two Hours Ago...)

On Apr 24, 2004, at 9:05 PM, Mark P. Line wrote:
> David went:
>> Imbedded in this e-mail, of course, is a possible thread about conlang
>> calendars.  I whole-
>> heartedly encourage such a thread.
>
> I did this one a long time ago; the links to external pages are
> probably
> all broken...
>      http://www36.pair.com/waldzell/Forum/time.html
> -- Mark

I tried to find an old posting to Conlang or Conculture that i could
just repeat about the Rokbeigalmki calendar, but i couldn't find one in
the archives.  Maybe i was just searching wrong.
Anyway...


The Rokbeigalmki calendar is soli-lunar, containing 13 months in normal
years and 14 months in leap years.
Each month begins when about 1% of the moon re-appears after the New
Moon.
Years are counted from the day after the Southern Hemisphere Winter
Equinox.  This day is ^Dzuwaurg^Dafal^Dari.hlao^Semoz-a (Dzu''Fa''Ri
for short), "the Festival of the Widening of the Circle of the Sun",
i.e. New Year's Day.
The lunar cycle containing Dzu''Fa''Ri is split up into two months -
one until New Year's Day, the other from New Year's Day until the end
of the cycle.
The extra month is intercalated before the lunar cycle that contains
Dzu''Fa''Ri, making it the 13th month and the usual 13th (half) month,
the 14th month.

The months:
Ghalúb (half-month)
Gííyal
Abí~r
Rónewár
Dázoom
Méíyabat
Bélihzar
Yihtáth
Kéwu
Máánáúr
Valnírva
Sháánih (my birthday: 13th of Sháánih, year -16)
(Yápleg) (intercalated extra month)
Jalág (half-month)

Days begin at sunrise.
Since the Rokbeigalm live in Tolkien's World, which has only an
ambiguous connection to ours, i had to invent a separate year-numbering
system for use *here*:
nga'Aole-ad-a tza'Lesna-a Rokbeigalmki-a (Ao''Le''Ro for short)
"from the Creation of the Rokbeigalmki Language"
which is how my birthday is a negative number ;) .
The year in which i began Rokbeigalmki is considered year 0.

For *here*, everything is calculated according to astronomy programs.
I set the location as New York City, and check to see when the Moon
begins to be seen after the New Moon.

Today (sunrise-sunrise, April 24-25, 2004) is:
sudkhamsa-a tza'valnírva, shaastuh nga'ao''le''ro
(or in a shorter form used when i date webpages: 5 Valnírva, 7AoLeRo)


Most of the month names don't mean anything (yet).
The exceptions are:

Ghalúb: short for ^Ghalub^Semoz, "sun-rise"
Jalág: short for ^Jalag^Semoz, "sun-descent"
Yapleg: seemingly related to the root |plek|, '(to) fall'


The other months of the Rokbeigalmki calendar are actually based off of
the months for a concalendar me and my brother made a long time ago for
our short-lived role playing game.  In it, the calendar was completely
decimal, so there were 10 months.  8 of them were named somehow after
the 8 sentient races of the RPG setting, and the other two represented
the earth and the sky.  Sháánih is named after the sun of the RPG
world's solar system, Shaana.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "the main purpose of the pyramid is to say
   'my unique pyramid is sky high and made of white marble.
   i do not share it with anyone'."
      ~ andrew nowicki