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.

* Picture captions help the blind fully navigate the Internet.

Picture credit

Sports Overdosing

Sports are part of any culture.  Organized athletics have represented an important vicarious experience in most countries, affecting their very rhythm of life.  Whether it is Olympic games in ancient Greece, hippodrome activities in the Roman world, or the ups and down of the modern football season in Europe, people feel the seasons through the existence or absence of sport.

In the United States, due to the prolonged sports seasons, an extreme situation has occurred.  At this moment, in early October, all four of the major team sports are active, specifically baseball (postseason), American football, basketball (preseason), and hockey.  On any given night now, the fan can watch a live game from morning to night or, even worse, have to make a difficult choice on which sports to watch.  For example, last Sunday, I had to choose whether to watch my Pirates (baseball) or Bengals (football). 

This is like going to the store to buy fruit and finding fresh oranges, peaches, apricots, grapes, and cherries.  Once upon a time, every season had its fruit and vegetables, for example potatoes and oranges in the winter and lettuce and strawberries in the summer.  Today, in American stores, the only marker of the season is the price – a bit higher in the offseason.

Likewise, every season had its team sport – baseball in the summer, college football in the fall, and basketball and hockey in the winter.  Today, those poor athletes seem to barely get three months off while we fans are constantly in a state of overexcitement.

So, if you are in a country that does not import fruit and vegetables from the other hemisphere and has one or two major sports played at different times, consider yourself lucky.  You feel the ebbs and flows of the passing of the year, rejoicing with every seasonal rediscovery instead of being constantly bombarded with excitement and becoming, paradoxically, blasé from overexposure to good things.  

A Time for Names

Parents have the right in most countries to name their children as they wish.   Some names are chosen for their popularity while others for their meaning.  Calling a girl Yaffa or Tova, Hebrew names, may place a burden on her because they mean pretty and good, respectively.  Of course, there is little worse than Cher calling her daughter Chastity.

A curious serious of selective names involve the seasons.  Some Israeli parents name their children Stav and Aviv, meaning autumn and spring.  By contrast, kayitz and horef, summer and winter, are unheard of.  By contrast, in English, Summer and Autumn as first names exist, but are rare where as spring and winter are basically ignored.

In terms of months, the spring months are generally preferred as sources of first names, specifically April, May, and June.  Although July and August are named after Julius Caesar and Augustus, they don’t seem to have caught on with the general public unless all those Julies and Julias are actually named after a month, which may be technically true.  The fall and winter are dead as far as names go.

The only names of days that pop in the mind are Wednesday  as a first name in the Adams Family series and Friday as a last name in the Dragnet series. 

It can be safely said in English and Hebrew that there is basically no good time for a name.