Re: Calendar Systems

Geoff Horswood wrote:
> How do you arrange your calendar (assuming it's a non-standard one)?
> Is it solar or lunar?
My con-planet Cindu has a year of 464 days, it would be a solar year if I'm
not mistaken. (Their day is longer, 25hrs 18m Earth, so 464 corresponds to
489+ earth days). The principal calendar in use has 16 months of 29 days
each, divided into 4 seven day weeks with an extra unnumbered day in the
middle. (It's pretty much in world-wide use; some areas may use older
arrangements, but I haven't gotten that far...The Gwr people, for ex.,
originally counted in base-8.) The year officially begins on the
N.Hemisphere's Spring equinox.

If you have no moon, or multiple moons, how does
> that affect the calendar system?
There are 2 moons, which are giving me problems; the main moon orbits in
approx. 29 days, but only because I made the figures work out that way
:-(( and it's subject to change. At the moment I'm not sure what the smaller
moon does........

> What about leap years?
The actual orbital year is a bit longer than the even 464 days; it works out
that there are 3 leapyears every 19 years (at 6-7-6 yr. intervals).  Even at
that, there's still a remainder of a couple minutes per year, which if my
figures are right, will require an extra leap-day every 5000 years.

> What do you call your months?
Numbered; in Kash, various compounds of _açurak_ 'month' + number, e.g.
açumbrés '1st month' < açur- + mes and so on. There may be other/older names
in other areas, especially in the more traditional Gwr areas.

> What about days of the week?
Three are named for the sun and the two moons (1st lembrim, 4th vuruna, 7th
lalap resp.), the others names so far have no meaning. The mid-month day is
cinjurak (cini 'middle' + açurak)

> Do you have any multiple-year cycles, like the Chinese (& Central Asian)
> animal cycle?  How does that work?
Not at present, but it's a possibility.

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