Names of the months of different calendar systems in the ethiopian manuscript tradition

Abstract

The Ethiopians up to nowadays use their own calendar, traditional for the Christians of the country. It consists of twelve months and the additional, intercalary, days (epagomen). Names of the months are normally used in historical and hagiographical texts in the Geez language (and later in Amharic) to indicate the dates. Wherein names of months of other traditions can also be found in Ethiopian manuscripts. Normally they were not an integral part of a compilation, but were rather presented as a separate list inserted in codices of reference content. In the frame of the present research particular characteristics of the idea of the Medieval Ethiopian Christians calendars of a number of Middle Eastern peoples regarding the names of months. As a basis for the present research two manuscript books were taken. Particular attention has been paid to order of the months used by their authors and also to the way of transliteration of the foreign months’ names in Ethiopian script. This makes it possible to get a view about awareness of calendars of different peoples and cultures by late medieval Ethiopian scribes.

Keywords

• calendar
• names of the months
• calendars of the oriental christians
• months of oriental calendars
• ethiopian calendar
• ethiopian church
• ethiopian manuscript tradition
• transliteration of foreign words in ge’ez
• календарь
• названия месяцев
• календари восточных христиан
• месяцы восточных календарей
• эфиопский календарь
• эфиопская церковь
• эфиопская рукописная традиция
• транслитерация иностранных слов в геэзе