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- Why is January "Januaro" in E…
Why is January "Januaro" in Esperanto
Hello, I thought Esperanto was a language not influenced by religion. Then why is the word for the month January "januaro" named after Janus, the god of the start of things?
4 Comments
It is like that in many languages. See this link: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0002067.html In French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian (along with the other Romance languages), the months have similar names because they come from Latin, as does the mythology. You sill see not all of them are for Roman Gods and Goddesses, in fact only four of them are. The last four months are these: September: from septem, Latin for “seven” October: from octo, Latin for “eight” November: from novem, Latin for “nine” December: from decem, Latin for “ten”
It is not religion, merely comes from the Romance languages like many other parts of Esperanto. Hope this was helpful :)
So I'm guessing that January and February used to be the 11th and 12th months of the year, and March used to be the 1st? Otherwise, then why was September, October, etc, the 7th and 8th, etc months?
They used to not exist. A year used to only have 10 months. Then later they were added to the year.
To be fair, some Esperantist (I think those from east Asian countries) thinks that the month should be called something like first-month, second-month, third-month, etc..
