Berber calendar

The Berber calendar is the annual calendar used by Berber people in North Africa. This calendar is also known in Arabic under the name of فلاحي fellāḥī "agricultural" or عجمي ajamī "not Arabic". It is employed to regulate the seasonal agricultural work. It corresponds exactly to the Julian Calendar which was used in Europe before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar and is still in use in the Eastern churches. The names of the months in the modern Berber calendar are derived from the ancient Roman names used with the Julian calendar.

Months

Page from a Tunisian calendar giving in red Islamic (top: 26 Ramadan 1419), Gregorian (middle: 14 January 1999), and Berber dates (bottom: Berber New Year of Yennayer 1).

There are no standard forms for the names of the Berber calendar, below are given names as used in Algeria^[  ] and after the slash, the orthography used in Moroccan household calendars^[1] as transcribed from Arabic script (which in Morocco was traditionally used to write Berber texts). Pronunciation, however, differs according to the region. The corresponding forms in English (the Gregorian calendar uses the same month names) are noted in parentheses:

1. Yennayer / Yennayer (January) : from January 14 to February 13;
2. Furar / Febrair (February) : from February 14 to March 13.
3. Meghres / Maris (March) : from March 14 to April 13;
4. Ibrir / Ibril (April) : from April 14 to May 13;
5. Mayyu / Mayyu (May) : from May 14 to June 13.
6. Yunyu / Yunih (June) : from June 14 to July 13;
7. Yulyu / Yuliuz (July) : from July 14 to August 13;
8. Ghust or Awussu / Ghusht (August) : from August 14 to September 13.
9. Shtember / Shutanbir (September) : from September 14 to October 13;
10. Tuber / Aktubir (October) : from October 14 to November 13;
11. Wamber / Nuwanbir (November) : from November 14 to December 13.
12. Jember / Dujanbir (December) : from December 14 to January 13 ;

The Berber calendar includes four seasons with three months for each season: Tagrst (Winter), which includes Jember, Yennayer and Furar, Tafsut (Spring), from Meghres to Mayyu), Anbdu or Iwilen (Summer), from Yunyu to Ghust, and Amwan (Autumn / Fall), which includes Sthember, Tuber and Wamber.

New Year

Yennayer 1, commonly called "Yennayer", is celebrated as the Berber New Year. This day corresponds today to January 14 in the Gregorian Calendar and will do so until 2100. From 1800 to 1900 it corresponded to January 13 (because the Berber Calendar, following the Julian rule, did not omit the leap day in 1900) and from 1700 to 1800, to January 12. In Algeria, many people who don't use this calendar in daily life still celebrate Yennayer on January 13 or at the evening of January 12. The Berber New Year is known as "Agricultural New Year" to Maghrebins. It is therefore also celebrated by some Arabic-speaking tribes in the Maghreb. They would have maintained some Berber traditions without maintaining their Berber tongue. Today, the celebration of the Berber new year is encouraged for cultural and politic reasons. In 2008, Libya officially celebrated the Berber new year. The Libyan Berber activists claim that El Qaddafi has manipulated the celebration of the Berber New Year.

Era

In 1968, the Paris-based Berberist group the Berber Academy (also responsible for the Neo-Tifinagh alphabet) affirmed a calendar era for the Berber calendar fixed to the accession year of the 10th century BC Egyptian Pharaoh Shoshenq I, who they identified as the first prominent Berber in history (he is recorded as being of Libyan origin).^[2] This Berber Academy set the zero year at 950 BC (a common estimate of the accession year of Shoshenq), which allows a convenient conversion of AD years by the addition of 950—thus 2000 AD was the year 2950 in this system.

See also

• Berbers
• Ancient Libya
• Shoshenq I

References

External links

• Number Systems and Calendars of the Berber Populations of Grand Canaray and Tenerife, by Jose Barrios Garca