The Ethiopian calendar ( am, የኢትዮጲያ ዘመን ኣቆጣጠር;
Oromo: Akka Lakkofsa Itoophiyaatti;
Ge'ez: ዓዉደ ወርሕ;
Tigrinya: ዓዉደ ኣዋርሕ), or Ge'ez calendar (
Ge'ez: ዓዉደ ወርሕ;
Tigrinya: ዓዉደ ኣዋርሕ;
Amharic: የኢትዮጲያ ዘመን ኣቆጣጠር), is the official calendar in
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
. It is used as both the
civil calendar (in Ethiopia) and an
ecclesiastical calendar (in Ethiopia and Eritrea). It is the
liturgical year for
Ethiopian
Ethiopians are the native inhabitants of Ethiopia, as well as the global diaspora of Ethiopia. Ethiopians constitute several component ethnic groups, many of which are closely related to ethnic groups in neighboring Eritrea and other parts of ...
and
Eritrean Christians belonging to the
Orthodox Tewahedo Churches (
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and
Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church),
Eastern Catholic Churches
The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also called the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous ('' sui iuris'') particular churches of ...
(
Eritrean Catholic Church
The Eritrean Catholic Church ( la, Ecclesia Catholica Erythraea; ti, ኤርትራዊት ቤተ ክርስቲያን, translit=Chiesa Eritrea) is a metropolitan ''sui iuris'' Eastern particular church headquartered in Asmara, Eritrea. It was esta ...
and
Ethiopian Catholic Church), and
Eastern Protestant Christian P'ent'ay (Ethiopian-Eritrean Evangelical) Churches. Most Protestants in the diaspora have the option of choosing the Ethiopian calendar or the Gregorian calendar for religious holidays, with this option being used given that the corresponding
eastern celebration is not a public holiday in the
western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. . The Ethiopian calendar is a solar calendar that has more in common with the
Coptic calendar of the
Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
The Coptic Orthodox Church ( cop, Ϯⲉⲕ̀ⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲛ̀ⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ⲛ̀ⲟⲣⲑⲟⲇⲟⲝⲟⲥ, translit=Ti.eklyseya en.remenkimi en.orthodoxos, lit=the Egyptian Orthodox Church; ar, الكنيسة القبطي� ...
and
Coptic Catholic Church, but like the
Julian calendar
The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandri ...
, it adds a leap day every four years without exception, and begins the year on 29 August or 30 August in the Julian calendar. A gap of seven to eight years between the Ethiopian and
Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years d ...
s results from an alternative calculation in determining the date of the
Annunciation.
The Ethiopian calendar has twelve months of thirty days plus five or six
epagomenal days
Intercalation or embolism in timekeeping is the insertion of a leap day, week, or month into some calendar years to make the calendar follow the seasons or moon phases. Lunisolar calendars may require intercalations of both days and months.
S ...
, which comprise a thirteenth month.
The Ethiopian months begin on the same days as those of the Coptic calendar, but their names are in
Ge'ez. A sixth epagomenal day is added every four years, without exception, on 29 August of the Julian calendar, six months before the corresponding Julian leap day. Thus the first day of the Ethiopian calendar year, 1 Mäskäräm, for years between 1900 and 2099 (inclusive), is usually 11 September (Gregorian). It falls on 12 September in years before the Gregorian leap year, however.
New Year's Day
The Ethiopian
New Year
New Year is the time or day currently at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner. In the Gregorian calendar, the most widely used calendar system ...
is called Kudus Yohannes in Ge'ez and Tigrinya, while in
Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia it is called Enkutatash meaning "Gift of jewels".
It occurs on 11 September in the Gregorian Calendar; except for the year preceding a leap year, when it occurs on 12 September. The Ethiopian Calendar Year 1998 ''Amätä Məhrät'' ("Year of Mercy") began on the Gregorian Calendar Year on 11 September 2005. The Ethiopian calendar Years 1992 and 1996, however, began on the Gregorian Dates of '12 September 1999' and '2003' respectively.
This date correspondence applies for the Gregorian years 1900 to 2099. The Ethiopian calendar leap year is every four without exception, while Gregorian centurial years are only leap years when exactly divisible by 400; thus a set of corresponding dates will most often apply for a single century. As the Gregorian year 2000 is a leap year, the current correspondence lasts two centuries instead.
The start of the Ethiopian calendar year (Feast of El-Nayrouz) falls on 29 or 30 August (in the year just before the Julian leap year). This date corresponds to the Old-Style Julian Calendar; therefore, the start of the year has been transferred forward in the currently used Gregorian Calendar to 11 or 12 September (in the year just before the Gregorian leap year).
This deviation between the Julian and the Gregorian Calendar will increase with the passing of the time.
Eras
To indicate the year, followers of the Ethiopian and Eritrean churches today use the ''Incarnation Era'', which dates from the Annunciation or
Incarnation
Incarnation literally means ''embodied in flesh'' or ''taking on flesh''. It refers to the conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or the appearance of a god as a human. If capitalized, it is the union of divinit ...
of Jesus on 25 March AD 9 (Julian), as calculated by
Annianus of Alexandria ''c.'' 400; thus its first civil year began seven months earlier on 29 August AD 8. Meanwhile, Europeans eventually adopted the calculations made by
Dionysius Exiguus
Dionysius Exiguus (Latin for "Dionysius the Humble", Greek: Διονύσιος; – ) was a 6th-century Eastern Roman monk born in Scythia Minor. He was a member of a community of Scythian monks concentrated in Tomis (present day Constanța ...
in AD 525 instead,
which placed the Annunciation eight years earlier than had Annianus. This causes the Ethiopian year number to be eight years less than the Gregorian year number from January 1 until 10 or 11 September, then seven years less for the remainder of the Gregorian year.
In the past, a number of other
eras for numbering years were also widely used in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the
Kingdom of Aksum.
Calendars of the world
The most important era – once widely used by
Eastern Christianity, and still used by the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt was the
Era of Martyrs, also known as the
Diocletian Era, or the era of Diocletian and the Martyrs, whose first year began on 29 October 328.
Respective to the Gregorian and Julian New Year's Days, 3 to 4 months later, the difference between the Era of Martyrs and the
Anno Domini
The terms (AD) and before Christ (BC) are used to label or number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The term is Medieval Latin and means 'in the year of the Lord', but is often presented using "our Lord" instead of "the Lord" ...
is 285 years (285= 15×19). This is because in AD 525,
Dionysius Exiguus
Dionysius Exiguus (Latin for "Dionysius the Humble", Greek: Διονύσιος; – ) was a 6th-century Eastern Roman monk born in Scythia Minor. He was a member of a community of Scythian monks concentrated in Tomis (present day Constanța ...
decided to add 15
Metonic cycles to the existing 13 Metonic cycles of the
Diocletian Era (15×19 + 13×19 = 532) to obtain an entire 532 year medieval
Easter
Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samue ...
cycle, whose first cycle ended with the year Era of Martyrs 247 (= 13×20) equal to year DXXXI. It is also because 532 is the product of the Metonic cycle of 20 years and the
solar cycle
The solar cycle, also known as the solar magnetic activity cycle, sunspot cycle, or Schwabe cycle, is a nearly periodic 11-year change in the Sun's activity measured in terms of variations in the number of observed sunspots on the Sun's surf ...
of 28 years. It has 13 months in a year.
Anno Mundi according to Panodoros
Around AD 400, an Alexandrine monk called
Panodoros fixed the Alexandrian Era (
Anno Mundi
(from Latin "in the year of the world"; he, לבריאת העולם, Livryat haOlam, lit=to the creation of the world), abbreviated as AM or A.M., or Year After Creation, is a calendar era based on the biblical accounts of the creation of ...
= in the year of the world), the
date of creation, on 29 August
5493 BC. After the 6th century AD, the era was used by Egyptian, Ethiopian, and Eritrean chronologists. The twelfth 532 year-cycle of this era began on 29 August AD 360, and so 4×19 years after the Era of Martyrs.
Anno Mundi according to Anianos
Bishop
Anianos preferred the Annunciation style as New Year's Day, 25 March ''(see above)''. Thus he shifted the Panodoros era by about six months, to begin on 25 March 5492 BC. In the Ethiopian calendar this was equivalent to 15 Magabit 5501 B.C. (E.C.). The Anno Mundi era remained in usage until the late 19th century.
Leap year cycle
The four-year leap-year cycle is associated with the four Evangelists: the first year after an Ethiopian leap year is named the
John-year, followed by the
Matthew
Matthew may refer to:
* Matthew (given name)
* Matthew (surname)
* ''Matthew'' (ship), the replica of the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497
* ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith
* Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the Chi ...
-year, and then the
Mark
Mark may refer to:
Currency
* Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina
* East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic
* Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927
* Finn ...
-year. The year with the sixth
epagomenal day is traditionally designated as the
Luke-year.
There are no exceptions to the four-year leap-year cycle, like the
Julian calendar
The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandri ...
but unlike the
Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years d ...
.
Unlike both the
Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years d ...
and
Julian calendar
The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandri ...
though, every 700 years, the month of Pwagme adds a 7th day, which equates to February 30, for further accuracy.
Months
These dates are valid only from March 1900 to February 2100. This is because 1900 and 2100 are not leap years in the Gregorian calendar, while they are still leap years in the Ethiopian calendar, meaning dates before 1900 and after 2100 will be offset.
See also
*
Egyptian calendar
*
Coptic calendar
*
Computus
*
Era of the Martyrs
*
Adoption of the Gregorian calendar
The adoption of the Gregorian Calendar was an event in the early modern history of most cultures and societies, marking a change from their traditional (or "old style") dating system to the modern (or "new style") dating system the Gregorian ...
References
Sources
* "The Ethiopian Calendar", Appendix IV, C.F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford, ''The Prester John of the Indies'' (Cambridge:
Hakluyt Society
The Hakluyt Society is a text publication society, founded in 1846 and based in London, England, which publishes scholarly editions of primary records of historic voyages, travels and other geographical material. In addition to its publishing r ...
, 1961).
*
Ginzel, Friedrich Karl, "Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie", Leipzig, 3 vol., 1906–1914
External links
* Abushakir
Dart/FlutterJavaScript Packages for Ethiopian Calendar, DateTime and Feast/Fasting Tracking
Interactive Ethiopian Calendar
{{Authority control
Ethiopian culture
Eritrean culture
Liturgical calendar
Liturgical calendars
Specific calendars
Time in Ethiopia
Time in Eritrea