Names of seasons – A linguistically dynamic spectrum

 

[pomegranates and grapefruits*]

All civilizations and, therefore, all languages label their seasons in one way or another. In practice, there are multiple approaches to this nomenclature, which can change over time and distance. To illustrate the spectrum of views on the seasons, I will present how English, French and Hebrew have related to the times of the year. Agriculture is often the key factor in this process.

In English, as in many languages, the spring is literally the beginning, whether of water or plants. It is the time they spring up, the start of the year for farmers. By contrast, summer is derived from the ancient word for year. I can postulate that the summer defines the year in terms of crops, i.e., if the fields produced in plenty, there was plenty to eat. By contrast, the autumn, a term more often used in the UK, signified the passing the year at which end the fields were bare, more or less. The American fall emphasizes the obvious physical aspect of the season, specifically the falling of the leaves. As for the winter, it was the wet season, literally.

As typical of Franco-British relations, the French view this situation differently. Le printemps literally means “first time”, which would imply that the world is born anew. L’été relates to burning, presumably to the effects of the sun. L’automne is the time for enriching, especially for the farmers as it harvest time for many crops. Finally, l’hiver is the rainy season, a variation of the wet theme.

Hebrew, a far more ancient language evolving in a far drier region, has a long and complicated story in regard to the seasons. Originally, there were two seasons, the fig harvesting season קיץ [keitz] and the wet, סתיו [stav], a bit like the same nomenclature in many countries in the equatorial regions but without the figs. At some point, writers referred to the season in terms of the name of their first month, i.e., תשרי [tishrei], טבת [tivet], ניסן [nisan] and תמוז [tamuz], starting from the autumn. The terms eventually evolved to identify  a separate spring season, אביב [aviv], which relates to young plants. Furthermore, Hebrew speakers began to use the word חורף [horef], which refers to picking fruit, for winter, another sign of how moderate the climate is in the eastern Mediterranean. The previously mentioned סתיו [stav], the rainy season, now was limited to the fall. On another level, the year was once defined from the spring to spring but the new year changed to the month of  תשרי [tishrei] in the fall. In Hebrew, the seasons do also change linguistically.

These are just a small sample of how cultures and languages relate to seasons. It is clear that weather and agriculture, the most basic of all industries, strongly influence the specific choice of words but climate also has an effect. In any case, there is no unilateral way to describe a season. Seasons" greetings.

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