Talk:Julian calendar

Add a link to calendar?

1. The ingress of the article does currently not link to the calendar article. I suggest adding a link to the calendar article.

2. The article starts with a brief history of the subject. I think the article should start with a short description/definition instead.

Unable to edit myself because not registered user. 2001:2020:31B:DCE2:1D11:2C6E:DC4E:7371 (talk) 22:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

1. I agree in principle, but the lead does link to the Roman calendar article, which in turn links to the calendar article, and that looks good enough to me.

2. I agree. Done. User shouldn't be forced to read through long paragraphs to get to the definition. Arminden (talk) 09:52, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, fair point. How about this as first two paras:

The Julian calendar is a solar calendar of 365 days in every year with an additional leap day every fourth year (without exception). The Julian calendar is still used in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and in parts of Oriental Orthodoxy as well as by the Berbers.

This calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the earlier Roman calendar. It took effect on 1 January 45 BC, by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandria.

Better? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:59, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

References

Modern usage. Eastern Orthodox

In Ukraine, the two largest churches (OCU and UGCC) decided to celebrate Christmas on December 25 according to the new style (Gregorian and Revised Julian calendars), so it is worth removing Ukraine from the list of countries that celebrate religious holidays according to the Julian calendar. 92.253.239.82 (talk) 13:32, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I've seen some of the news articles about this. It isn't clear if they will observe Easter according to the new style. If they observe fixed-date feasts like Christmas new style but Easter old style, they wouldn't really fit into any existing Wikipedia list (I mean lists within an article, not free-standing list articles). Jc3s5h (talk) 13:53, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Edit 'Table of months'

'Table of months' needs a capital for months; eg: 'Table of Months' as it is a title.

The table is incorrectly formatted. There is a section under the names of English months for the total number of days, it shouldn't be there. I also think either two separate tables should be made, one for the Roman side and one for the English side, or change the positioning of the English side to be between the Roman number of days and the English number of days. 122.199.2.194 (talk) 02:29, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Table also has the wrong date for Julian lengths. These values came into effect after Augustus reformed the Julian calendar. Between 45BCE (Julius's reform) and Augustus's reform, Feb was 29 days in common years (30dys in leap years by doubling Feb 24th), and Sextilus (soon, future August) through December lengths were opposite (Sextilus was 30, Sept was 31, Oct was 30, Nov was 31, and Dec was 30). An additional column could be inserted before the current one for actual 45BCE, and the current column could be renamed to reflect the Augustus reform a few decades later. — al-Shimoni (talk) 17:48, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Please read Sacrobosco's incorrect theory on month lengths. AstroLynx (talk) 21:48, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

AstroLynx (talk · contribs), Didn't they just find something from the 30s BCE that upended that a couple years ago? — al-Shimoni (talk) 01:33, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

If you can find a reliable source for this claim then you can add this to the section on Sacrobosco's error. WP is, however, not based on hearsay. AstroLynx (talk) 13:39, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure what piece of evidence al-Shimoni is referring to, but Lamont in 1919 mentions a calendar from the 30s BCE with the modern month lengths. Modern research is clear-cut on the matter, though the theory still gets trotted out every now and then (Nothaft 2018 mentions a couple of examples).

Incidentally, the section discussing the theory was much larger until this edit by JMF in September 2023, leaving a remnant that needs cleanup. Arcorann (talk) 08:03, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I deleted it because it was grossly wp:undue. It is certainly wp:due to say that there was a notable but incorrect theory and but it was a disservice to users to clutter this article with its details. They belong in the article about Sacrobosco, not here. (If there is a loose end, I will clean it up now.) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:14, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

@Arcorann: Sorry but I can't see any obvious "remnant that needs cleanup"? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:17, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

After reading it back again it wasn't as bad as I thought so I've struck the comment. Having said that, it does seem a bit strange to me to talk about the evidence that contradicts the model without a description of the model. Arcorann (talk) 10:22, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I can understand that. Would it help if I copied to Sacrobosco the material I deleted? That way you can refer to it but it doesn't need to be spelt out in detail in the same article. Perhaps you could add a very brief summary of Sacrobosco's theory here, or perhaps better still move the analysis that disproved it to the Sacrobosco article? For comparison, it might be worth looking at oxygen#Phlogiston theory article, where an erroneous theory is mentioned but readers who want to know more about it are referred to another article. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:40, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Outright deletion

@Jbening:, you have just deleted all mention of Sacrobosco from the article. Did you take into account the discussion above or the one in Talk:Julian calendar/Archive 3#Sacrobosco's theory on month lengths? I also considered it undue but stopped short of outright deletion. If otherwise reliable sources are still citing his theory then at least some reference should be made? I won't revert: if anyone else considers it significant, then they should do so – and say that they are writing a section about it at Sacrobosco. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:55, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

@JMF:, I noticed after my edits that it was you who (late last year) deleted the explanation of Sacrobosco's theory, leaving a section that said his theory was wrong but never explained what his theory was. To me, the fact that the theory isn't even mentioned (much less explained) in his WP bio indicates that it's no big deal. So I'm fine with the article as is, notwithstanding the earlier discussion. The alternatives would I think be either to restore the explanatory text that you deleted, or to find some briefer way to explain the gist of the theory, without all those tables. And if his theory is worth mentioning in this article, you'd think it would also be worth mentioning in his bio. Jbening (talk) 18:03, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

...which was pretty much my logic too. Clearly nobody considered it notable enough to take time to transfer it to his article. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:06, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

January 15

What was January 15 called according to the Julian calendar? Ides Januari or...? 0m9Ep (talk) 14:48, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Idus Ianuarie in English is January 13. January 15 is a.d. XVIII Kalendas Februarias, that is, eighteen days before the first day of February, counted inclusively as the Romans did. See Blackburn & Holford-Strevens, The Oxford Companion to the Year (1999, reprinted with corrections 2003), pp. 33, 37. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:11, 7 December 2023 (UTC)