== D R A F T ==
The ISO 8601 standard would have us write dates like 1953-06-05, which is fine and better than much of what we see out there. However I still like names for months — but I dislike that the current names in chronological order are not in alphabetical order. Let’s fix this!
If we have new names that are also alphabetical when laid out chronologically, then they sort nicely on computers and they’re easy for humans to parse.
Below are my proposed new month names, and their three letter abbreviations. The above date could then be written 1953-Ion-05, and perhaps a single letter abbreviation of 1953-I-05.
Current New 3LA
--------- ------ ---
January Anu Anu
February Ebrem Ebr
March Farem Far
April Gaprem Gap
May Haem Hae
June Ione Ion
July July Jul
August Lugast Lug
September Membem Mem (perhaps Nembem "Nem")
October Octem Oct
November Povem Pov
December Recem Rec
Do these names have a current meaning? Is there a lexical collision?
Anu — Sanskrit: atom or molecule (good for the beginning month of the year); in Hawaiian means cold; there are other inconsequential meanings.
Ebrem – Nothing found
Farem – Nothing found
Gaprem – Nothing found
Haem – (Biochemistry) biochem a complex red organic pigment containing ferrous iron, present in haemoglobin; also British variant of “hem” as on a skirt or dress.
Ione – Greek origin, a violet flower
July – The month as today. If we alter it to follow the -em pattern, it becomes Julem (no definition found), but close to the river Jhulem
Lugast – Nothing found; but close to “lugas”, a bower, arbour, or trellis.
Membem / Nembem – Nothing found
Octem – Nothing found, but based on the “Oct-” prefix (eight)
Povem – Nothing in English, but in Turkey its a form of therapy; in slavic languages its a semi-supplative stem word.
Recem – Nothing significant; a common error word from an OCR system reading “recent”; in Brazilian it means a newborn baby.
These new month names also have little meaning in the world’s other languages, so they should find easy acceptance there as well!
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To work out:
- Is it asking for trouble to have months begin with “I” and “O”; because they could be read as the digits 1 and 0?
- Double check if the above are existing words with some present meaning.
- Should I go all-in, and make all the months end in “-em”? Anu => Anem, Ione => Ionem, July => Julem, and Lugast => Lugem? But somehow it feels more natural that there are some “adopted” names in the list… I dunno.
- Would “Mem” — the 3LA for Membem — get confused too much with “memory”, often seen in computing? I could be convinced to go with Nembem (Nem).
- Possible alternate for Ebrem (february) is Erem: from the greek meaning lonely and solitary, or desert. Also appropriate for February.
Finally, there’s the idea to just add a prefix letter to existing 3LA’s making 4LA’s like: AJan, BFeb, CMar, … FWIW.