Armenian calendar
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The Armenian calendar is the traditional calendar of Armenia. It is a solar calendar based on the ancient Egyptian model, having an invariant 365-day year with no leap year rule. As a result, the correspondence between it and the Gregorian calendar slowly changes over time. Some references report that the first month of the year, Nawasardi, corresponds to the start of Spring in the northern hemisphere, but that was only true from the 9th through 12th centuries. The new Armenian year that begins in 2008 CE, year 1458 of the Armenian Era, falls on July 25th.
The year consists of twelve months of 30 days each, plus five extra days (epagomenê) that belong to no month. The days of each month are generally named rather than numbered.
Years are given in the Armenian alphabet by the letters ԹՎ t’v, a siglum for t’vin "in the year" followed by one to four letters of the Armenian Alphabet, each of which stands for an Armenian numeral. For example, "in the year 1455 [AD 2006]" would be written ԹՎ ՌՆԾԵ.
The Armenian month names show influence of the Zoroastrian calendar, and, as noted by Antoine Meillet, Kartvelian influence in two cases. There are different systems for transliterating the names; the forms below come from Calendrical Calculations: The Millennium Edition by Dershowitz and Reingold.
- 1. Nawasardi (Avestan *nava sarəδa "new year")
- 2. Hor̄i (from Georgian ori "two")
- 3. Sahmi (from Georgian sami "three")
- 4. Trē (Zoroastrian Tïr)
- 5. K’ałoch ("month of crops"; Zoroastrian Amerōdat̰)
- 6. Arach`
- 7. Mehekani (from Iranian *mihrakāna; Zoroastrian Mitrō)
- 8. Areg ("sun month"; Zoroastrian Āvān)
- 9. Ahekani (Zoroastrian Ātarō)
- 10. Mareri (perhaps from Avestan maiδyaīrya "mid-year"; Zoroastrian Dīn)
- 11. Margach (Zoroastrian Vohūman)
- 12. Hrotich (from Pahlavi *fravartakān "epagomenal days"; Zoroastrian Spendarmat̰)
The Armenian calendar names the days of the month instead of numbering them, a peculiarity also found in the Avestan calendars. Zoroastrian influence is evident in at least five names. The names are 1. Areg "sun", 2. Hrand, 3. Aram, 4. Margar "prophet", 5. Ahrank’ "half-burned", 6. Mazdeł, 7. Astłik "Venus", 8. Mihr (Mithra), 9. Jopaber, 10. Murç "triumph", 11. Erezhan "hermit", 12. Ani, 13. Parxar, 14. Vanat, 15. Aramazd (Ahura Mazda), 16. Mani "beginning", 17. Asak "beginningless", 18. Masis (Mount Ararat), 19. Anahit (Anahita), 20. Aragac, 21. Gorgor, 22. Kordi (a district of Ancient Armenia considered the homeland of the Kurds), 23. Cmak "east wind", 24. Lusnak "half-moon", 25. C̣rōn "dispersion", 26.Npat (Apam Napat), 27. Vahagn (Zoroastrian Vahrām, name of the 20th day), 28. Sēin "mountain", 29. Varag, 30. Gišeravar "evening star". The five epagomenal days are called Aveleac̣ "superfluous".
Prior to borrowing the Egyptian calendar, the ancient Armenians had a lunar calendar based on a lunation of 28 days.
[edit] See also
- Armenian numerals
- Calendar of Saints (Armenian Apostolic Church)
- Zoroastrian calendar
- Iranian calendar
[edit] Literature
- Jost Gippert, Old Armenian and Caucasian Calendar Systems in The Annual of The Society for The Study of Caucasia“, 1, 1989, 3-12.[1][2]
- Louis H. Gray, On Certain Persian and Armenian Month-Names as Influenced by the Avesta Calendar, Journal of the American Oriental Society (1907)
- Édouard Dulaurier, Recherches sur la chronologie arménienne technique et historique (1859), 2001 reprint ISBN 978-0543966476.
- V. Bănăţeanu, “Le calendrier arménien et les anciens noms des mois”, in: Studia et Acta Orientalia 10, 1980, pp. 33-46
- P'. Ingoroq'va, “Jvel-kartuli c'armartuli k'alendari” (“The Old Georgian pagan calendar”), in: Sakartvelos muzeumis moambe (“Messenger of the Museum of Georgia”), 6, 1929-30, pp. 373-446 and 7, 1931-32, pp. 260-336
- K'. K'ek'elije, “Jveli kartuli c'elic'adi” (“The Old Georgian year”), in: St'alinis saxelobis Tbilisis Saxelmc'ipo Universit'et'is šromebi (“Working papers of the Tbilisi State University by the name of Stalin”) 18, 1941, reprinted in the author's “Et'iudebi jveli kartuli lit'erat'uris ist'oriidan” (“Studies in the history of Old Georgian literature”) 1, 1956, pp. 99-124.
