Alternate Calendars and Calendar Proposals Thread

Pragmatic Progressive

Here, you can propose any calendars, calendar reforms, and anything else related to calendars. For example an English/German/Spanish Republican Calendar, or anything self-invented that you want to/have used in a timeline or other setting...

When I thought about calendar proposals tonight, I found out that a calendar of 17 months to 21 days each would be possible - it would have to have an eight-day "leap week" somewhere, which would have to be lengthened to nine days in some cases (in how many, actually?), but otherwise, it could preserve the seven-day week (which, to me, is not important, which is also not the case when this is introduced in the wake of a revolution).
 
Uhura's Mazda

Uhura's Mazda

Banned
Proposed British Revolutionary Calendar:

13 months of 28 days each. None of this namby-pamby triskaidekaphobia in Blighty, sah! This also comes to 364, which is closer to 365.4 than the French Revolutionary Calendar, which has 12 months of 30, or 360 days.

Each month is comprised of four seven-day weeks. Thus, every 7th August in every year will occur on the same day of the week. This will enable businesses to sell wipe-clean Calendars For Life, which will help save the rainforests. Additionally, every 1st of a month will be on the same day of the week, etc. Namely Sunday.

We still have 1.4 days left over, so we keep the Leap Year format and add in a Festival of Britain every year just before 1 March (i.e. between a Saturday and a Sunday, to ensure a Long Weekend), and make it a two-day event every four years. This is an excuse for The Regime to impose the requisite circuses to go along with all the bread. The Festival days will not have a numerical date or a day of the week - they exist in limbo. No marriages or contracts signed on this day will have any effect, while pubs are allowed to sell alcohol before the sun is over the yardarm and there will be maypoles and things. Think of a bucolic English version of Las Vegas. With Gingham.

Furthermore, Because Britain, we will go back to the old way of starting the New Year in March. However, the traditional date of 25th March (Feast of Our Lady of the Assumption) is obviously weird and stupid, so we will go for 1st March instead. This has the helpful side-effect of making September-December correlate to their order in the year again.

In a bid to reject European or Popish influences, and to standardise the suffixes, the months will be renamed as follows. There will also be a thirteenth month.

Marchember (March - it's easier just to end everything with 'ember')
Easterember (April - Easter mostly falls in April, and the Anglo-Saxons called April 'Easter-month')
Mayember (May)
Victoriember (June - references Queen Victoria and our Eternal Victory Over The Hun And Food Shortages)
Elizabember (July - references our Glorious Female Monarchs)
Britanniember (August - references Britannia, personification of Britain and Her Naval Prowess)
September (September)
Octember (October - just be thankful I didn't go with 'Octoberember')
November (November)
December (December)
Emberember (January - references the dying embers of Christmas feasts)
LGBT History Monthember (February - don't ask)
Churchillember (new month)
Festival of Britain (1 or 2 days)

Sorry, this got sillier and sillier as it went on.
 
SRBO

SRBO

Banned
There is 10 equal months. Because the amount of days no matter how you measure them won't ever add up to be a year exactly, The date of new year will change often, and doesn't care about time of day. It could be midnight, it could be midday, it could be in the dawn etc. Months are also based on years and not days so month switch times aren't fixed either.
 
Turquoise Blue

Turquoise Blue

universal_calendar_by_divinedesign.png

There's nothing better than this. :p

Thirteen months and built-in holidays! :D
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Uhura's Mazda said:
Each month is comprised of four seven-day weeks. Thus, every 7th August in every year will occur on the same day of the week. This will enable businesses to sell wipe-clean Calendars For Life, which will help save the rainforests. Additionally, every 1st of a month will be on the same day of the week, etc. Namely Sunday.
Click to expand...
Was that inspired by Tolkien's Shire Calendar or your own independent idea?
 
Uhura's Mazda

Uhura's Mazda

Banned
Thande said:
Was that inspired by Tolkien's Shire Calendar or your own independent idea?
Click to expand...
No, I could never quite bring myself to jump headlong into the Appendices. It probably isn't a massively rare idea, though: it's as close as you can get to 365.4 in whole numbers without messing about with inconsistent month lengths.
 
Gian

Gian

Banned
The British Republican Calendar

(taking place in the same universe as the France map I've been making in the last few weeks (latest update here); some of this information is vague and can easily be retconned if/when I actually make a map of Britain from the same universe)

In the years after the Stuart monarchy was driven out of Britain by the Parliamentarians, England (and New England, which had largely supported them) slowly became more autocratic, culminating with Oliver Cromwell declared as Lord Protector*. By 1780, the Cromwells had been ruling as quasi-absolute monarchs in an autocratic Protectorate that still clung to its strict Puritan orthodoxy and general hostility to most nations in Europe (including France, in spite of its religious toleration to both Protestants and Catholics), especially the Catholic nations of Spain and the Papal States. In 1789, a revolt broke out in the Tower of London, replacing the Protectorate with a republican government spanning the British Isles. Unfortunately, said republic fell to an analogue to the Reign of Terror until 1798, which lead to an Irish revolt that lead to the creation of the French-backed Kingdom of Ireland by 1801. Ultimately though, the situation had stabilized with the creation of the Directory, and Britain to this day is still proud of its republican heritage and its status as one of the preeminent republics in Europe (to say nothing of the larger Federation across the Pas de Calais).

One of the changes that still endures from the First Republic¹ is the creation of a new calendar in 1792 to symbolize the break with the royalist/Protectorate past and the Old Julian calendar. Divided into 13 months of 28 days (plus a extra 1-2 days which don't belong to any month and have no weekday designation), it was designed to keep the seven-day week (with the first day at Sunday) whilst removing any trace of "Papist" influence (hence why the months are named after the seasons). The calendar spread to New England, as well as to Britain's colonial empire, and today it is still used in those areas alongside the Gregorian calendar (even in Britain, while officially using this calendar, also uses the Gregorian calendar in unofficial contexts).

*One of the PoDs being that Cromwell lives longer(-ish)
¹the other is the creation of the departments system, which I may elaborate if/when I make a map of Britain of this universe.

The first day of the year starts at 25 March, the traditional New Year in England. In addition, the calendar is set at 1649 (the year when Charles I was executed, which the republic claimed was the first stirrings of freedom and republicanism), with eras divided between AR (anno Revolūtiōnis; sometimes "after the Revolution") and BR ("before the Revolution")

The 13 months (named after the prevailing weather in and around London) are as follows:

Verneus - 25 March to 21 April (from Lat. vernus "spring/vernal")
Germaneus - 22 April to 19 May (from Lat. germen "germination")
Floreus - 20 May to 16 June (from Lat. flos "flower")
Medeore - 17 June to 14 July (from ME mede "meadow")
Thermidore - 15 July to 11 August (from Gr. thermon "summer heat")
Fructidore - 12 August to 8 September (from Lat. fructus "fruit")
Automnal - 9 September to 6 October (from Lat. autumnus "autumn/fall")
Harvestal - 7 October to 3 November (from English harvest)
Brownal - 4 November to 1 December (from English brown; ie the browning of leaves)
Brumelle - 2 December to 29 December (from Lat. bruma "winter solstice")
Snovelle - 30 December to 26 January (from English snow)
Pluvielle - 27 January to 23 February (from Lat. pluvius "rainy")
Windelle - 24 February to 24 March (from English wind)

The intercalary day (dubbed the "Day of Thanksgiving") is at the end of Windelle, whilst the leap day (dubbed the "Day of Grace") occurs on leap years at the end of Fructidore.

The days of the week were renamed as well, with the names being thus (similar to the Portuguese days of the week):

Lordsday (Sunday - "Lord's Day")
Twothsday (Monday - "twoth (archaic term for "second")+day")
Thirsday (Tuesday - "third day")
Midweek (Wednesday - "middle of the week")
Fithsday (Thursday - "fifth day")
Sixday (Friday - "sixth day")
Sabaday (Saturday - "Sabbath day")

OTL Dates under the system
20 April, 1995 (my birthday) = 27 Verneus, 346 AR
4 July, 1776 = 18 Medeore, 127 AR
21 December, 2012 = 20 Brumelle, 363 AR
8 August, 2016 (current date) = 25 Thermidore, 367 AR
 
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Witch0Winter

Witch0Winter

Banned
For a Carthage TL I've been working on recently I tried to form the fragments of what we know of the Punic calendar and its multiple varieties into a single, universal calendar that can be used by Carthage specifically.

-Years are designated with the phrase ly-sfirot hyqomot haqqart, or "according to the era of the founding of the city" (rendered without vowels since Punic did not have vowels as lspyrt hqmt hqrt)
-Abbreviated with HH, years count up our own 814 BCE, so 1 AD would be 815 HH.
-Months are as follows (new year starts in the fall, not the winter):
  • ‘tnm (October)
  • bl (November)
  • mrp' (December)
  • pgrm (January)
  • lb'lt (February)
  • hyr (March)
  • zyb (April)
  • mtn (May)
  • zbh sms (June)
  • krr (July)
  • mp' lpny (August)
  • mp' (September)
-Each month is made up of 30 days and, similar to the Egyptian calendar, there is an extra 5 days that occurs between mp' and 'tnm every year to account for the extra days.
 
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Pragmatic Progressive

ToixStory said:
For a Carthage TL I've been working on recently I tried to form the fragments of what we know of the Punic calendar and its multiple varieties into a single, universal calendar that can be used by Carthage specifically.

-Years are designated with the phrase ly-sfirot hyqomot haqqart, or "according to the era of the founding of the city" (rendered without vowels since Punic did not have vowels as lspyrt hqmt hqrt)
-Abbreviated with HH, years count up our own 814 BCE, so 1 AD would be 815 HH.
-Months are as follows (new year starts in the fall, not the winter):
  • ‘tnm (October)
  • bl (November)
  • mrp' (December)
  • pgrm (January)
  • ib'lt (February)
  • hyr (March)
  • zyb (April)
  • mtn (May)
  • zbh sms (June)
  • krr (July)
  • mp' lpny (August)
  • mp' (September)
-Each month is made up of 30 days and, similar to the Egyptian calendar, there is an extra 5 days that occurs between mp' and 'tnm every year to account for the extra days.
Click to expand...

The Carthaginian calendar is also cool! My birthday is in one of the more pronouncable months, namely ib'lt!
 
Gian

Gian

Banned
PiratePartyist said:
Cool idea! I think such a thread was just what the M&G forum lacked!

My own birthday is 2 Windelle, 344 AR.

What do you think of my proposal in the OP, by the way?
Click to expand...

Looks fine btw.

Also, what would your birthday be like under my calendar (it would be interesting to note)
 
Witch0Winter

Witch0Winter

Banned
PiratePartyist said:
The Carthaginian calendar is also cool! My birthday is in one of the more pronouncable months, namely ib'lt!
Click to expand...
Oh, oops, that was supposed to be a lower-case L not an i in lb'lt. ^^; Fixed it! But yes, I'm glad you think it's cool! It's quite accurate as far as the words themselves and the sentence structure of the year designation; got help from a professor for it. :)
 
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