Have you ever been asked before, “What is a calendar?” or have you ever been in a situation where you had to answer the question of what a calendar is or to define a calendar? Finding yourself in this kind of situation can be surprisingly weird at first, as you might realise that you are finding it difficult to come up with a definition, not because you do not know it, but because you know it and have never thought of defining it before, moreover, you might want it to sound like a scholarly definition defined with intentionality. Not that you do not know or understand what a calendar is, but it has not yet occurred to you before that a question like “What is a calendar?” might actually exist. The interesting thing about it is this: for some people, it will be easy to just define it as something that tells the date, while for some, they will not be satisfied with whatever definition that is being arrived at until a scholarly touch is being applied to the definition. Although this piece will also attempt to define what a calendar is, however, Google search engine’s dictionary defines a calendar as “a chart or series of pages showing the days, weeks, and months of a particular year, or giving particular seasonal information”, looking at this definition already given, the writer of this piece is already feeling quite reluctant to go ahead with what a calendar is. Nevertheless, plying a simple route, a calendar is a system created to keep track of times and seasons by measuring days, weeks, months and years in which a reference to it is referred to as a date. Well, that is basically what the calendar does, right? So, it can also be seen as a dating system.

Now, as a child, what was your thought about the calendar if and when that thought struck your mind? Somehow, the calendar as a subject in a discussion is one of those rare subjects of discourse that would not easily spring up among students. It seems as though everyone keeps away from discussing, arguing, or debating about it. It looks like a delicate “too-sacred” subject of discussion to discuss and to not be in danger of a grievous sacrilege is not to discuss it at all in the first place. But it is okay to discuss calendars, it is okay to argue and debate over them, to question and do research about how the concept of calendar really works. So, it will not be a sacrilege to ask these questions; what is a calendar? Is the calendar a natural phenomenon or man-designed? If the calendar is a natural phenomenon, how did man discover it, who discovered it, who were the first people to use it, and what was in use before it was discovered? If the calendar phenomenon is a man-designed concept, when and how did man create the first calendar? Are there other types of calendars? If there are other types of calendar, how many types do we have, and what type of calendar is the most commonly used? And many more questions that will not be considered sacrilegious. 

Furthermore, what must have become quite very confusing during your earlier childhood developmental stages, and transitioning from one level of understanding to another, is dating systems. When references are being made to history, you might mindlessly cram the dates as, 450-500 AD, 450-400 BC. However, the chances are high that the first time you saw AD and BC, you did not really give them a thought, while some people might be spontaneously curious as to what they meant further, it might also take a little longer for you to begin to wonder the alternate ascending and descending order when AD or BC is written behind the numbers marking the years. But as you progress to the next higher class, you begin to get a firmer grip on understanding how these things are being applied and what they mean at any given, particular time. At some point, you even see some dates written as 450-400 BCE and 450-500CE, of course until you try to look up what these things stand for or mean, you might guess good, possibly not correct. The BC in dates refers to “Before Christ”, and the AD stands for “Anno Domini” which means “In the year of our Lord”, and when you look this up, one striking note is that these annotations are marked as “in the Christian calendar”. While on the other hand, the CE stands for “Common Era” and the BCE stands for “Before Common Era”, you must have realised how very wrong you were by now if this was not your guess. So “they” felt, that using AD and BC would be insensitive to non-Christians and therefore the CE and BCE were introduced. 

The above is just an aspect of the whole calendar saga. So, another aspect you might also want to know and understand is not that you might have this before but possibly you have not consciously realised it. There are many calendars currently in use, and the one you know, or better still, the one you use, is just one out of many more that other people in different parts of the world use and live by. However, the most commonly, and widely used of them, that is, calendars, is the Gregorian calendar. So, if you shouted, Happy New Year so convincingly and appreciatively some few days back, then it means you are an adherent of the Gregorian calendar. Interestingly, as at this present time on earth, there are about 40 calendars in use, yes, you heard that right, 1 2 3 4… 40 calendars. However, there are just 6 of them that are more popular than the rest; The Gregorian calendar, the most popular of them, the Jewish calendar, the Islamic calendar, the Indian calendar, the Chinese Calendar, and the Julian Calendar. However, the one widely used all the time today, is the Gregorian Calendar, which was authorised by Pope Gregory XIII of the Roman Catholic Order in 1582. So, the calendar you are using to celebrate your birthday today will be 443 years old by sometime around October. The Gregorian calendar is a result of the reformation of the Julian calendar, which had been in use since around 46 BC until 1582; the Julian calendar itself is also a replacement for the Roman Republican calendar. Julius Caesar himself established the Julian calendar, which was based on the Egyptian solar calendar, as against the lunar phase cycle the Roman calendar was based on. Some Orthodox churches and the Amazigh people still use the Julian calendar to date, the Amazigh people are aboriginals (first or earliest known, Indigenous people) of Morroco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya in North Africa, they are found in other parts of Africa and African countries today like Egypt, Mauritania, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. If you guessed that the Orthodox churches still making use of the Julian calendar are Protestant Christian, then your guess is correct, as Protestant Christians in Europe rejected the adoption of the Gregorian calendar at that time, until 17** when it was finally adopted. 

Okay, so for a bit more clarity’s sake, how are these calendars created or determined? There are about three common ways calendars are being designed around the world. One way is by observing the earth’s orbit (that is, rotation of the earth) around the sun; this type of calendar is referred to as a solar calendar; the Gregorian calendar is a good example. The second common way is the observation of the moon’s orbit around the Earth; calendars created on this base are referred to as lunar calendars; the Muslim calendar is a good example. The third way is by observing the combination of the observations of the solar calendars and lunar calendars; these calendars are referred to as lunisolar calendars; the Jewish calendar is a perfect example. 

However, you must bear in mind that when you bring it down to Africa, it takes another different dimension of calculations, measurements and observation that are quite different from other parts of the world. For example, before the missionaries introduced the “Ose-Igbalode” calendar system to the Yorubas in 1842, the Yoruba calendar system, amongst other things, also relied on crop planting and harvesting seasons, yam, being the king crop, was what their observations revolved around, especially in determining the new year. The same thing applies to the Igbo culture. The Yoruba calendar known as “Kojoda” has 13 months, made up of 28 days, and 4 days in a week. The new year celebration in the Yoruba’s “Kojoda” calendar falls around August/September, marked by the end of the rainy season, and the beginning of the second yam harvest. While in the Igbo calendar system, it is based on four days; Eke, Orie, Ahio, and Nkwo, which contribute to the seven weeks making a native month in the Igbo calendar system. However, the New Year’s celebration is usually marked with the beginning of the New Yam Harvest. 

Having read the above, the writer of this piece wants to believe, that you must have begun having a mental and paradigm shift about the whole concept and idea of “Happy New Year”. The day is as special as you make it so, it is just the same day as any other day, there are no days earmarked for you to get developed or improve yourself, or to make it big. Just as people have been deciding from time immemorial on how these various calendars should operate based on certain calculations and observations that can be dynamic, you can also decide to do what you ought to do at the right time, as and when due, and with diligence. As you are celebrating a “New Year”, it is just an ordinary day for another person, maybe the middle of the month for that person. Noting happens if you are not intentional about anything, things do not just start jumping into place because you simply “made a confession”, either a bold one or a timid one, in the early hours of the day, or at “strategic-divine/supernatural” hours and time of the day. In as much as this might have it role to play in your being effective, it is very far from being the only thing you need to be the kind of person you really want to be, It takes effort, and deliberate willingness to be decisive, to apologise when you are wrong or perhaps even when you just need to apologise although you cannot see how you are wrong. Making the year count, indeed, goes a very long way beyond the “New Year, New Me” mantra, it is beyond just Happy New Year!

From everyone in the NASELS Press Organisation to all students of the Department of English, the Faculty of Arts, the whole University community, and the world at large, we say a Happy New Year, and heartily wish you all a fruitful year ahead.