Croatian months

The Croatian months used with the Gregorian calendar by Croats differ from the original Latin month names:

No.Latin nameEnglish nameCroatian nameCroatian meaning
1IanuariusJanuarySiječanj month of cutting or hewing (wood), but there are also dialectal terms 'svečan, svičen, sičan' that have a meaning 'festive', so there is a possibility of a meaning 'festive month' (as there are several holidays celebrated in January)[1]
2FebruariusFebruaryVeljača month in which days become longer (oveljiti se = to get bigger)[2]; also, possibly from "Velja Noć" (Great Night), old Slavic pagan festival that falls in modern-day February
3MartiusMarchOžujak lying month (laž>ož; laž = a lie), because the weather is changing often
4AprilisAprilTravanj month of grass growing
5MaiusMaySvibanj month of budding (svibovina = Cornel tree)
6IuniusJuneLipanj month of the lipa (lime / linden tree)
7IuliusJulySrpanj month of reaping (with a sickle)
8AugustusAugustKolovoz month of driving the wagon (for harvest) — kolo + voziti
9SeptemberSeptemberRujan month of animal mating (from archaic verb for animal roar "rjuti", referencing mating calls)
10OctoberOctoberListopad month of falling leaves — list + padati
11NovemberNovemberStudeni cold month
12DecemberDecemberProsinac the beginning of the Sun's shining (sinuti = to dawn)[3]; probably used for January at first, as it's still often used for that month in other Slavic languages. Also, less probably month of begging (for food, f.e.), from prositi = to beg.

Some names are derived from archaic Croatian-Slavic words that are no longer found in standard Croatian dictionaries. In some cases even the meaning of those words is ambiguous.

In Macedonian, Listopad is also the (archaic) name for October but Polish/Czech listopad, Belarusian 'listapad' ('Лістапад') and Ukrainian "листопад" mean November. Likewise, Polish sierpień, Czech srpen and Ukrainian Серпень mean August rather than July, Czech říjen means October rather than September, Slovenian prosinec means January rather than December, and Polish lipiec, Belarusian Лiпень, and Ukrainian Липень mean July rather than June.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "NAZIV MJESECI U GODINI NA HRVATSKOM". hamdočamo. 2011-02-07. Retrieved 2017-05-24.
  2. ↑ "veljača | Hrvatska enciklopedija". www.enciklopedija.hr. Retrieved 2017-05-24.
  3. ↑ "prosinac | Hrvatska enciklopedija". www.enciklopedija.hr. Retrieved 2017-05-24.


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