Are you looking forward to summer? In Saint Petersburg, where this article was written, a day can be less than less six hours long in the middle of winter and nearly 19 hours in summer.At this time of year, you can easily see in people’s faces that they are ready for brighter, sunnier days to come round again.
你正期盼著夏天的到來(lái)嗎？這篇文章的撰寫(xiě)之地圣彼得堡，隆冬的一天比少于6個(gè)小時(shí)還少，夏天的一天卻將近19個(gè)小時(shí)。一年中的這個(gè)時(shí)候，你能很容易地從人們的臉上看到他們已經(jīng)準(zhǔn)備好迎接更明媚，更陽(yáng)光充足的日子了。

Months from the moon and years from the sun.To the first people it was obvious that time went in circles. The sun rises (comes up in the morning) and sets (goes down in the evening). The moon waxes (gets fatter or wider) and wanes (gets thinner or narrower). The seasons follow each other in order. These things happen because we are all going round in circles…the earth spins round in 24 hours, the moon goes around the Earth, and the Earth goes round the Sun in about 365 and a quarter days. The most natural kind of calendar comes from the sun and the moon.You can count the number of days and nights in the moon’s cycle from New Moon (when it is all dark) to Full Moon (a bright disk), and back again: 29 and a half.
月份源自月亮，年份源自太陽(yáng)。對(duì)于最早的人來(lái)說(shuō)，時(shí)間明顯是循環(huán)的。旭日東升（在早晨上升），夕陽(yáng)西下（在晚上落下）。月亮有圓滿（變得更飽滿或更寬）和虧缺（變得更瘦扁或更窄）。四季循環(huán)交替。這些事情發(fā)生的原因是我們都一直在原地打轉(zhuǎn)。 地球自轉(zhuǎn)24小時(shí)，月球繞著地球轉(zhuǎn)，地球繞著太陽(yáng)公轉(zhuǎn)約365天6小時(shí)。最原始的日歷源自太陽(yáng)和月亮。你可以數(shù)一下月亮從新月（全黑時(shí)）到滿月（一個(gè)明亮的光盤(pán)）的循環(huán)需要經(jīng)過(guò)的白天和黑夜的天數(shù)。

The basic problem for calendar makers is how to get the months (which come from the moon) to stay in synch with the years. The years all have a bit more than 12 New Moons in them. Maybe you read about the Chinese New Year in Claire Powell’s article in January. If you did, you already know that some years, the Chinese calendar has an extra month, so they have exactly 235 months in every period of 19 years.This article is about how the western world solved the same problem by adding an extra day in leap years (and having longer months the rest of the time.)
日歷制定者面臨的基本問(wèn)題是如何使得月份（源自月亮）和年份同步。年份的時(shí)間都是比12次新月發(fā)生的時(shí)間要多一點(diǎn)。也許，一月時(shí)您讀過(guò)克萊爾?鮑威爾有關(guān)中國(guó)新年的文章。如果您已經(jīng)讀過(guò)，那您就知道中國(guó)日歷在某些年份中有一個(gè)多出來(lái)的月份，所以準(zhǔn)確來(lái)說(shuō)他們每個(gè)19年就有235個(gè)月。這篇文章就是關(guān)于西方世界是如何通過(guò)在閏年增加額外的一天來(lái)解決同樣的問(wèn)題（在其它時(shí)間有更長(zhǎng)的月份。）

Days and weeks from the planets 天和星期源自行星

You can’t find any cycles of seven days by looking at the sky. However, the ancient world knew five planets apart from the sun and moon: Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. They probably made the week seven days long to give one day for each. In English, the first days of the week clearly come from The Sun (Sunday) and The Moon (Monday). The last day comes from Saturn (Saturday). Just like the rest of our language, an English week is a mixture of Latin and words from other places … Germanic gods: Tiw (an Anglo-Saxon god of the sun and war) and Wodin (the head of Anglo-Saxon gods) for Tuesday and Wednesday and Scandinavian gods Thor (another god of war) and Frigg (goddess of love) for Thursday and Friday.
你無(wú)法通過(guò)看天空就發(fā)現(xiàn)七天循環(huán)的規(guī)律。但是，古代世界知道除了太陽(yáng)和月亮以外的五大行星：水星，金星，火星，木星和土星。他們規(guī)定一個(gè)星期有七天那么長(zhǎng)，可能是給每個(gè)行星分一天。英語(yǔ)中，一個(gè)星期的頭幾天顯然是源自太陽(yáng)（星期天Sunday源自月亮Sun）和月亮（星期一Monday源自月亮Moon)。最后一天源自土星（星期六Saturday源自土星Saturn)。就像我們其他的語(yǔ)言一樣，英語(yǔ)中的星期混合了拉丁語(yǔ)和其他地方的詞匯。日耳曼神：Tiw(盎格魯-撒克遜的太陽(yáng)之神和戰(zhàn)神）代表星期二，沃登（諸神之父）代表星期三，斯堪的納維亞之神托爾（另一戰(zhàn)神），代表星期四，弗麗嘉（愛(ài)神）代表星期五。

Months of the Year 一年的月份

Our names of months all come from Latin. Janus a god with two faces, the god of doors and gates gives us January; and February comes from a Roman festival of spring cleaning.Mars, who didn’t get a day of the week in English, got the whole month of March. Jupiter , well his wife was Juno – which makes the month of June.Most of the later months just come from the Latin words for numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10 septem, octo, nove, decem. But why isn’t September month number seven? It was for the Romans, because they started the year with March.
所有月份的名字都來(lái)自拉丁語(yǔ)。賈納斯，兩面神和門(mén)神，給了我們星期一；星期二來(lái)自羅馬春天清掃節(jié)。馬爾斯沒(méi)有獲得英語(yǔ)中的一天，獲得了整個(gè)三月。丘比特的妻子朱諾規(guī)定了六月。后來(lái)的大多數(shù)月份來(lái)自拉丁語(yǔ)中的數(shù)字7（septem）,8（octo）,9（nove）,10（decem）。為什么九月不是英文中的數(shù)字7(seven)。這是贈(zèng)給羅馬人的，因?yàn)樗麄冮_(kāi)創(chuàng)了有三月的那一年。

The Emperors’ calendars 帝王的日歷

July is occupied by Julius Caesar, who also occupied part of Britain.And August by Augustus Caesar who was the next Roman emperor. These two men both played an important role in creating the modern calendar. The Julian calendar (which Julius introduced in 46 BC) had a leap year every four years, when one day was added onto the end of the year (as it was then) on February 29th. Julius’ calendar was much simpler than the old one, and it was pretty accurate, although not as good as the Chinese one. It was only 11 minutes and 14 seconds a year too slow. Somehow, the people in charge of the calendars in Rome didn’t understand their instructions and added an extra day every three years.Augustus, the next emperor, corrected that mistake but left the leap years as they were, so the calendar went on being 11 minutes a year too slow for centuries. Russia only introduced the Julian calendar in 1700 and changed to the Gregorian one after the revolution.
占領(lǐng)了不列顛部分地區(qū)的尤里烏斯?凱撒占領(lǐng)了七月。下一位羅馬大帝奧古斯都?凱撒占領(lǐng)了八月。這兩個(gè)人在創(chuàng)造現(xiàn)代日歷中都扮演著重要角色。朱利安日歷（尤里烏斯在公元前46年引進(jìn)。）每四年就有一個(gè)閏年，2月29日那天一年的末尾會(huì)增加一天。尤里烏斯日歷比之前的要簡(jiǎn)單得多，也很準(zhǔn)確，盡管沒(méi)有中國(guó)日歷那么好。 一年只慢了11分14秒。 要不知怎么的，掌管日歷的羅馬人不明白他們的用法，每三年增加了額外的一天。下一位帝王奧古斯丁更正了錯(cuò)誤，但是保留了原來(lái)的閏年，所以幾個(gè)世紀(jì)以來(lái)日歷每年都慢了11分鐘。 俄羅斯只在1700年引進(jìn)尤里烏斯日歷，革命之后就改成格雷戈里安日歷。

Behind the times 落后于時(shí)間

Over the centuries those 11 extra minutes in the Julian calendar added up to quite a lot.Our modern "Gregorian" calendar goes more quickly because we don’t have leap years at the end of most centuries – only 1600 and 2000.When Pope Gregory brought it in in 1582, they had to take out 10 days to catch up. The year jumped directly from 4th to 15th October. In the same year, William Shakespeare got married in Stratford-upon-Avon, but Britain went on for another 180 years with the old calendar.By 1752, when Britain changed to the new Gregorian calendar, they needed to miss 11 days to catch up. This caused violent protests…people thought the government was making their lives 11 days shorter, or even worse, stealing their wages for the 11 missing days. Here in Russia, the years carried on being a bit too long right into the twentieth century.On the 25th October 1917, when the Bolsheviks pushed their way into the Winter Palace it was already 7th November across the rest of Europe…a difference of 13 days. As a result, in 1918 Russia missed the whole first half of February: going directly from 31st January to 14th February. Maybe they were pleased to get closer to the summer.
幾世紀(jì)以來(lái)，尤里烏斯日歷的額外11分鐘累積了很多。我們現(xiàn)代的格雷戈里安日歷過(guò)得更快，因?yàn)榇蠖鄶?shù)世紀(jì)之末都沒(méi)有閏年-除了17世紀(jì)和21世紀(jì)。 當(dāng)格雷戈里安教皇在1582年引進(jìn)該日歷時(shí)，他們需要拿出十天來(lái)趕上。一下子直接從10月4日跳到10月15日。同一年，威廉?莎士比亞在埃文河畔的斯特拉特福結(jié)婚，但是大不列顛繼續(xù)使用了180年的舊日歷。1752年，大不列顛改用新的格雷戈里安日歷，他們需要減掉11天來(lái)趕上。人們認(rèn)為政府讓他們活少了11天，或更糟糕的，偷走了他們?cè)谶@減少了的11天的工資。在俄羅斯，年份繼續(xù)保持較長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間，一直到二十世紀(jì)。 1917年10月25日，布爾什維克主義者進(jìn)入冬宮時(shí)，已經(jīng)是歐洲其它地區(qū)的11月7日。 結(jié)果，1918年俄羅斯錯(cuò)過(guò)了整個(gè)二月的上半月：直接從1月31日進(jìn)入到2月14日。也許，他們很高興他們離夏天更近了。