Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Dictionary: Months, days and so on

Czech names of months and days are quite different from the English or German version. And sometimes you'll see old German names in the registries. I have prepared a "time" dictionary which will help you to orientate yourself in the registries (and not only them).

Months 
CzechLatin German Old German Abbrev. English
LedenJanuarius Januar
Jänner
Eismond --- January
ÚnorFebruarius Februar Hornung --- February
BřezenMartius März Lenzmond --- March
DubenAprilis April Ostermond --- April
KvětenMaius Mai
May
Wonnemond
May
ČervenJunius Juni Brachmond --- June
ČervenecJulius Juli Heumond --- July
SrpenAugustus August Erntemond --- August
ZáříSeptembris September Herbstmond 7ber September
ŘíjenOctobris Oktober Weinmond 8ber October
ListopadNovembris November Windmond 9ber November
ProsinecDecembris Dezember Wintermond 10ber December

Abbreviations were created from Latin names of months - "septem" means seventh, "octo" eighth, "novem" stands for ninth and "decem" for tenth. Why September was the 7th month? Because in old Roman Empire the year started in March, not in January.

Rarely you can meet also old Czech names of months:
May - máj or traven, June - růžen, July - lipen, August - klasen, September - ovocen, October - vínovec, November - mlhavec, December - sněžen, prasinec or vlčenec.

Days
Czech Latin German English
Pondělí dies Lunae Montag Monday
Úterý dies Martis Dienstag Tuesday
Středa dies Mercurii Mittwoch Wednesday
Čtvrtek dies Iovis Donnerstag Thursday
Pátek dies Veneris Freitag Friday
Sobota dies Saturni Samstag Saturday
Neděle dies Solis Sonntag Sunday

As you can see, months and days have totally different names in Czech.

Parts of days and weeks
It's also important to know how was written that something happed today, yesterday etc.
Czech Latin German English
dnes hodie heute today
včera pridie
heri die
gestern yesterday
zítra cras morgen tomorrow
ráno mane früh in the morning
(early morning)
dopoledne ante meridiem vormittags in the morning
v poledne meridies mittags at noon
odpoledne post-meridianus nachmittags in the afternoon
večer vesper abends in the evening
v noci nocte nachts at night

2 comments:

  1. čvn in ceska republika please translate to english it is month name

    ReplyDelete
  2. Probably an abbreviation for červen. See the first table in this page.

    ReplyDelete