Re: Hebrew calendar direction

>From: Tim May <butsuri@...>
>
>Mark J. Reed wrote at 2005-02-12 10:27:21 (-0500)
>  > On Sat, Feb 12, 2005 at 10:09:37PM +1300, Wesley Parish wrote:
>  > > The Islamic calendar is lunar, not solar.  Its seasonal swings
>  > > are quite predictable, though not "ordinary" to anyone using the
>  > > solar calendar.
>  >
>  > Yes, they're predictable (within the one-day-per-month variation
>  > caused by atmospheric vagaries due to the observational basis of
>  > the calendar), but that doesn't change my point, which is that it
>  > doesn't make any sense to have a month named e.g. "first spring"
>  > when that month only falls *in* the spring for about 9 years at a
>  > time 35 years apart, and is just as likely to fall in any other
>  > season. :)
>  >
>
>My understanding of this matter is that the lunar Islamic calendar
>represents a reform of the pre-Islamic lunisolar Arabic calendar, in
>which the month names made sense.
That's correct.  As in most parts of the world, the oldest calendar
consisted of twelve named observational lunar months with a thirteenth month
inserted locally as needed (once every two or three years) without any
regular rule.  Each pre-Islamic Arab tribe would determine for itself
whether a given year had an intercalary month.

Athey

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