Silican calendar
Summary
The silican calendar is a calendar system in which each year has four
seasons, each of which divided into thirteen weeks, each of which has
seven days. Each week, season, and year starts on a Monday. The year
uses the year in the Holocene calendar.
Intro
A few years ago, I discovered the
New Earth Calendar, in which the year is 364 days long, split into thirteen months, each
of which has exactly four weeks. Furthermore, each week starts on a
Monday, implicating that each month starts on a Monday as well.
The primary advantages of this calendar system are the ease of
calculating the day of the week and the ability to reuse the same
calendar for every year. It also eliminates the need to calculate the
date for holidays that are determined by the day of the week (e.g. the
last Monday of November).
However, it also presents a major drawback: since thirteen is a prime
number, the year could not be divided into segments such as halves or
quarters, which are commonly used in business planning. To this end, I
introduced a slight redesign to the calendar system, which was the
inversion of the weeks and months.
The dates
Instead of having thirteen months, silican dates have four seasons,
each of which has thirteen weeks, which have seven days, as before. The
numerical format of silican dates is:
<year>/<season>/<week>/<day of week>. Thus,
today's date would be
.
The leap years are calculated by a rule similar to that of the
Gregorian calendar: a year is a leap year when it is divisible by five
or 400, but not fifty. Leap years have an extra week (the fourteenth
week) in the last quarter.
Just for my own entertainment, I've given each of the seasons, weeks,
and days of the weeks a name in my own constructed language, Naidira.
The names for the days of the week are derived from the names of
gemstones, and the names for the seasons and weeks were created
specifically for this calendar (i.e. they have no other meanings). Of
course, if this calendar system does become prevalent, I don't expect
these names to be actually used by others.
| Number |
Season |
Week |
Day of the week |
| 1 |
Nevari |
Ateluna |
Boromika (amethyst) |
| 2 |
Penari |
Beviruto |
Ferimanika (pink onyx) |
| 3 |
Sevari |
Deruna |
Lusinika (lapis lazuri) |
| 4 |
Venari |
Elito |
Navimilka (ruby) |
| 5 |
|
Feridina |
Perinatika (amber) |
| 6 |
|
Geranito |
Relikanika (emerald) |
| 7 |
|
Lunamarina |
Temiranika (obsidian) |
| 8 |
|
Miraliluto |
|
| 9 |
|
Peridina |
|
| 10 |
|
Samerito |
|
| 11 |
|
Timina |
|
| 12 |
|
Verato |
|
| 13 |
|
Wilaluna |
|
| (14) |
|
Zeroto |
|
Rationale
This adjustment stems from the fact that months no longer track the
orbital period of the moon, and presently, they are rather arbitrary
subdivisions of the year, which produce uneven quarters (the first
quarter is always the shortest due to February having the fewest days).
Eight-hour clock
Accompanying the calendar, I also created a slightly different clock to
represent the time of the day. As the name suggests, the eight-hour
clock splits the day into three eight-hour periods, which start at
midnight (0:00 or 12 AM), 8:00 (8 AM), and 16:00 (4 PM).
Like the dates, I also created names for the three periods of the day
in my now-defunct language, Menteia.
| Period name |
Corresponding time |
| Valima (night) |
0:00–7:59 (12 AM to 7:59 AM) |
| Derina (day) |
8:00–15:59 (8 AM to 3:59 PM) |
| Geluna (evening) |
16:00–23:59 (4 PM to 11:59 PM) |
The format I use for eight-hour time is
<period><hour><minutes>. Thus, 11:37 would be D337.
This division of the day also means that noon occurs at D400, which is
exactly at the middle of the day period (thus, "mid-day").
Rationale
This division reflects the different periods of everyday life, which
can be roughly split into thirds, namely, work/study, recreation, and
sleep.