Chlouvānem/Calendar and time

Time expressions in the Chlouvānem language need understanding of the timekeeping system of the Chlouvānem populations. The Chlouvānem calendar (Chlouvānumi pārṇahaleṃlāṇa) is a lunisolar calendar and is one of two timekeeping systems used officially on Calémere, the other one being the standard Western calendar used by the majority of nations. Despite being used only in four countries (the Inquisition, Brono, Fathan, and iKalurilut), it is the timekeeping system for roughly a quarter of the planet's population, the vast majority in the Inquisition.

In this article Chlouvānem names will be used, but the languages of the other countries all follow the same system, often with borrowed Chlouvānem numerals for duodecimal numbers.

The Chlouvānem calendar

Solar months and seasons

The solar and sidereal year of Calémere (in Laceyiam heirah) is 418 Calemerian days long (about 609,6 days on Earth), and this period is divided, in the Chlouvānem calendar, in fourteen mostly arbitrary months (asena, pl. asenai) which are grouped by season (demibuñjñasusah).

The month names reflect climatic conditions of those particular months in the Lāmiejāya plain, the “heartlands” of the Chlouvānem civilization. Not all of the Inquisition, due to different climates and latitudes, has the same conditions — and the months are grouped in four “seasons”, corresponding to the temperate areas of the Northern hemisphere (about 90% of the population of the Inquisition is north of the Equator, and most areas in the Southern hemisphere do not have distinct seasons anyway). This is despite the Lāmiejāya plain itself having mostly two seasons (and some parts of the “heartlands” even have no seasons, most notably the area around Līlasuṃghāṇa, which has a local “equatorial” microclimate despite being nearly 15º north of the Equator).

The four seasons the Calendar is based on are autumn (kanami), winter (tandaikin), spring (tandayena) and summer (enaukam), in the order they appear in the year — these ones are defined by equinoxes and solstices and not by climate alone (even if the origins of their names, all Kans-Tsan, are related to climate). Climatic seasons are totally not uniform across the Inquisition: even in the Lāmiejāya plain, the two seasons (būṃṣoe or dry season and dašoe or rainy/monsoon season) have vastly different start/end dates and lengths in it. Some areas even define more than four seasons: in and around the metropolitan area of Cami (the most populated on the planet), five seasons are traditionally distinguished, with rain patterns being the defining factor (that area having a markedly wet humid subtropical climate).

The autumn equinox (kanampeiṃlaliā) is the first day of the year, and likewise the spring equinox (tandeyempeiṃlaliā) is on the (functional) mid-point the year, being the first day of the eighth month — it is not the true mid-point because seasons are not equal: spring is the longest with 108 days, then autumn with 107, winter with 103, and summer with 100. Thus the first part of the year has 210 days while the second one has 208.
The winter solstice (tandaikyuitehånna) is on the fifteenth day of the fourth month, while the summer solstice (enaukyuitehånna) falls on the thirteenth day of the eleventh month. The solar months of the Chlouvānem calendar are:

1. Māltapārṇāvi (of the days of storage) — 30 days long ; autumn begins on its first day
2. Kanamiprātas (autumn wind) — 29 days long
3. Pāṇḍalañši (white braid) — 30 days long
4. Kanamimaila (autumn water) — 29 days long ; winter begins on its fifteenth day
5. Murkāsena (black month) — 31 days long
6. Būṃṣprātas (dry wind) — 30 days long
7. Laliāñaiṭa (night star) — 30 days long
8. Brausāsena (sacred month) — 30 days long ; spring begins on its first day
9. Mailaheirah (“year” of water) — 30 days long
10. Ñariāyāmyah (mountain fog) — 29 days long
11. Bhaivyāvammi (of the oboes) — 30 days long ; summer begins on its thirteenth day
12. Īlāmyasena (hot month) — 29 days long
13. Hælvyāsena (fruit month) — 31 days long
14. Camimæxhliė (great green) — 30 days long

As a comparison with the Western calendar used in most of the planet, the first day of Māltapārṇāvi is the eighth day of the eleventh Western month; the first day of the Western year is the 24th day of Kanamimaila.

Lunar months and "weeks"

The lunar element of the Chlouvānem calendar is important in marking the closest equivalent to a week. It should be noted that this division, formerly purely astronomical, is now mostly bureaucratic and does not correspond to astronomical values; therefore solar days and lunar days, as far as the calendar is concerned, are both equal.

A lunar month (huliāsena) is a fixed 34-day division parallel to the fourteen solar months described above. Every lunar month is divided in lānicunih (pl. lānicunīye), which is the "fixed" 30-hour (26₁₂) bureaucratic lunar day (as opposed to ilėmpārṇam, the astronomical lunar day of variable length, which varies between 30 ½ and 33 Calemerian hours), which is equivalent to the solar day, and lānicunīye are grouped in two periods called lānimpeʔila (pl. lānimpeʔilai), each one of 17 days, half of the lunar month. The lānimpeʔilai are the closest equivalent of a "week" in the Chlegdarim calendar; they are astronomically based on lunar phases, and are called respectively chlærlīltāvi (from new to full moon) and līleñchlæriāvi.

These divisions - the lānimpeʔilai - take the place of “weeks” for event schedules: the fifth and eleventh days of each lunar phase are half-rest days, while the sixth, twelfth, and seventeenth are full rest days; the first day of the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth lunar months are also full rest days.

[names of lunar months and days to be added hopefully soon]

There are two strategies used in the Chlouvānem-timekeeping countries in order to realign both the true and bureaucratical lunar days and also the lunar year (408 days) with the solar one (418): In the first case, every four lunar years an additional lunar day (which is always a rest day) is added after the last day of the last līleñchlæriāvi; this day is called līlešlān (or, formally, līleskaih lānicunih - both meaning “new lānicunih”). This procedure, however, gets in the way of the following realignment:
In the second case, every 42 years in even cycles (see below) the last lunar phase skips its twelfth and thirteenth days (as this causes a full rest day to be erased, the eleventh day, normally a half-rest one, becomes a lone full rest day). This has the effect of making the last day of that lunar phase also the last day of both the lunar and the solar years — the exact difference between the lunar and solar year being of 9.7142 days, making a 408-day difference every 42 years. Even cycles are those where the additional lunar day is added 10 times starting from the fourth year; odd cycles those where it is added 11 times starting from the second year. The last time both years ended on the same day was in 4E 9A (118₁₀), fifteen years ago.

Days, hours, and shorter times

The (solar) day (pārṇam) is the base measure of time, which is divided in 28₁₂ (32₁₀) hours (garaṇa) — note that there is a separate term for “day” as the part of the 28-hour day with daylight, namely chlærdhūs. One Calemerian day lasts about 35 hours on Earth.
These hours are divided in four groups called garaṃlāṇa, each one made of eight hours and corresponding to different times of the day. They are yartām (morning), bembīh (afternoon), and prājamnā (evening), and laliā (night) — they may be referred to either with these simple names or genitive + garaṇai (lalei garaṇai, yartāmi garaṇai, …).

The first hour of yartām - the morning - is the first one of the whole day (a stark contrast to the Western calendar, where the day begins at midnight and - traditionally - at dusk); every last hour of each garaṃlāṇa has a specific name, respectively lalla hånna (high[est] sun — colloquially just lalla), lėlið (sunset), kutīkṣaseh hånna (lowest sun — colloquially just kutīkṣaseh), and ājva (dawn). For lalla and kutīkṣaseh there are also the older terms - still used in some areas - chlærdaniāmita (halfpoint of the day) and laliādaniāmita (halfpoint of the night) respectively.

The four garaṃlānai work roughly like the AM/PM system, thus e.g. hour 17 (19₁₀) is normally called hour 3 of the evening.
Time zones, in all areas with the Chlouvānem timekeeping system, depend on the Eastern/Chlouvānem standard for longitudinal measure, which uses as its prime meridian the one of Līlasuṃghāṇa, capital of the Inquisition. It should be noted that, as the Western system uses the meridian of Mánébodin, capital of Ceria, as its prime one, in the case of two cities on the same meridian but using the two different standards, the one using the Eastern system is (in Calemerian time) 11 minutes and 4 seconds ahead (a single time zone ideally spans 11º15’).

Every hour is then divided in 160 (216₁₀) timeframes called tetacunih (pl. tetacunīye), each one of about 18.2292 seconds of Earth; they are grouped in twelve tetacuṃlāṇa, each one of 16 (18₁₀) tetacunīye.

Tetacunīye then follow the normal duodecimal subdivisions: 12 (tetacunīyi) māmendvāṭ (pl. -vaḍai - about 1.5191 seconds of Earth), divided in 12 (tetacunīyi) nihælendvāṭ (about 0.1266 seconds), divided in 12 (tetacunīyi) tildhaindvāṭ (about 10.5493 milliseconds), and so on.

Expressing time in Chlouvānem

Time expressions in Chlouvānem are categorized as either continuous time (flunavyāṣa) or punctual time (tatimvyāṣa); continuous expressions are expressed with accusative or translative case, while punctual time with either locative or ablative plus particles.

Continuous time is expressed with accusative singular in most cases, as there usually is a cardinal number, e.g. fūlmāmei tetacunīyu yųlauça — I ate for sixty (50₁₂) tetacunīye. The main exception is where there's no specific time quantity, e.g. garaṇānu yųlauça — I ate for hours.

Punctual time uses the locative case where the intended meaning is "in a given moment", e.g. 4V B0-e Galiākine mitь — (s)he/it was in Galiākina in 4E B0 (132₁₀). The locative form is thus used for:

• years — 4V B1-ie (in 4E B1 (133₁₀))
• solar and lunar months — Māltapārṇāvie, ...
• lānimpeʔilai — Chlærlīltāvie / Līleñchlæriāvie
• days — 9-e Brausāseni (on the 9th of Brausāsena)
• hours — 3-e bembiė (at 3 in the afternoon)
• seasons — enaukamñe (in summer)

Seasons are a partial exception, because if the meaning is "throughout the season", then the accusative is used, e.g. enaukamu throughout the summer", "all summer long".

The following particles are also time expressions:

• flut with ablative case: “... ago” — pāmvių heirų flut “three years ago”
• flut with accusative case: “... from/for/since” — pāmviu heiru flut "for three years (now)"
• natte with ablative case: “in” — pāmvių heirų natte “in three years", "three years from now"
• natte with translative case: ”until" — pāmvin heiran natte "for the coming three years"
• ānat with ablative case: "after" — pāmvių heirų ānat “after three years"
• šut with ablative case: "before" — pāmvių heirų šut “three years before"

Adverbs of time

TBA

Telling the time

Telling the time in Chlouvānem needs knowledge of the hour system described above. A hour is expressed as either e.g. Y 3:24 or Y 3.2:04, where:

• Y stands for yartām (morning);
• 3:24 stands for 3 hours and 24 (28₁₀) tetacunīye (g:yy format);
• 3.2:04 stands for 3 hours, 2 tetacuṃlāṇai (20 (24₁₀) tetacunīye), and 3 tetacunīye (g.l:yy format).

The question for asking the time is either yanūḍat garaṇa (vælthā)? (*how many hour is it?) or garaṇa mæn yananū (vælthā)? (talking about the hour, which [one] is it?).

When using the g:yy format, numbers are commonly read as they are written, except for 90, which is the half hour. Examples (note that, as it often happens in Chlouvānem, væl can be omitted):

• L 1:10 — leil māmei lalei væl (it's one and twelve of the night)
• L 1:B0 — leil māmimīram lalei væl (it's one and 132 of the night)
• L 1:90 — either leil daniāmita no lalei væl (it's half and one of the night) or leili daniāmita lalei væl (it’s half one of the night).

In this last case, the reading “leil mojemāmei lalei væl" is possible, but very rare (usually in formal communications only).

However, the g:yy format is rarely used colloquially, as the spoken form always tells tetacuṃlāṇai and always tells how much time remains until the next hour (or tetacuṃlāṇa):

• L 1.1:00 (L 1:10) — vælden daniui lalei væl (it's eleven [tetacuṃlāṇai] to two of the night)
• L 1.B:00 (L 1:148) — leil daniui lalei væl (it's one to two of the night)

If tetacuṃlāṇai are not complete, then there are two possible forms: one used in one of the first eight tetacunīye that says "it's the Xth tetacuṃlāṇa with Y tetacunīye”, and another one used in the latter eight that uses "it's X tetacunīye to the Yth tetacuṃlāṇa”:

• L 1.2:4 (L 1:34) — hælinaikah yårṣen lapi leili lalei væl (it's the second [tetacuṃlāṇa] with four [tetacunīye] of one of the night)
• L 1.2:A (L 1:40) — chīka pāmvendiui leili lalei væl (it's seven [tetacunīye] to the third [tetacuṃlāṇa] of one of the night)

When hours are inside a punctual time expression, they are read in the locative case, e.g. B 2.9:6-e yakṣusah mitь "at 2.9:6 (2:120) of the afternoon, (s)he was reading”: mojendeh tulūʔan lapi danīyi bembiė yakṣusah mitь “at the ninth [tetacuṃlāṇa] with six [tetacunīye] of two of the afternoon, (s)he was reading”.