Almanac

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An almanac (also spelled almanack and almanach) is an annual publication listing a set of
events forthcoming in the next year. It includes information like weather forecasts, farmers'
planting dates, tide tables, and other tabular data often arranged according to the calendar.
Celestial figures and various statistics are found in almanacs, such as the rising and setting
times of the Sun and Moon, dates of eclipses, hours of high and low tides, and religious
festivals. The set of events noted in an almanac may be tailored for a specific group of
readers, such as farmers, sailors, or astronomers.

Contents
 1 Etymology
 2 History
o 2.1 Hemerologies and parapegmata
o 2.2 Ephemerides, zijs and tables
o 2.3 Medieval examples
o 2.4 Early modern era
 2.4.1 England
 2.4.2 British America and United States
o 2.5 Contemporary use
 3 See also
 4 Notes
 5 References
 6 Further reading
 7 External links

Etymology
The etymology of the word is unclear. It is suggested[by whom?] the word almanac derives from
a Greek word meaning calendar. However, that word appears only once in antiquity, by
Eusebius who quotes Porphyry as to the Coptic Egyptian use of astrological charts
(almenichiaká). The earliest almanacs were calendars that included agricultural,
astronomical, or meteorological data. But it is highly unlikely Roger Bacon received the word
from this etymology: "Notwithstanding the suggestive sound and use of this word (of which
however the real form is very uncertain), the difficulties of connecting it historically either
with the Spanish Arabic manākh, or with Medieval Latin almanach without Arabic
intermediation, seem insurmountable."[1]

The earliest documented use of the word in any language is in Latin in 1267 by Roger Bacon,
where it meant a set of tables detailing movements of heavenly bodies including the moon.
One etymology report says "The ultimate source of the word is obscure. Its first syllable, al-,
and its general relevance to medieval science and technology, strongly suggest an Arabic
origin, but no convincing candidate has been found".[2] Another report similarly says of
almanac: "First seen in Roger Bacon. Apparently from Spanish Arabic, al-manakh, but this is
not an Arabic word....The word remains a puzzle."[3] The Oxford English Dictionary similarly
says "the word has no etymon in Arabic" but indirect circumstantial evidence "points to a
Spanish Arabic al-manākh".[4]

The reason why the proposed Arabic word is speculatively spelled al-manākh is that the
spelling occurred as "almanach", as well as almanac (and Roger Bacon used both spellings).
The earliest use of the word was in the context of astronomy calendars.

The prestige of the Tables of Toledo and other medieval Arabic astronomy works at the time
of the word's emergence in the West, together with the absence of the word in Arabic,
suggest it may have been invented in the West and is pseudo-Arabic. At that time in the
West, it would have been prestigious to attach an Arabic appellation to a set of astronomical
tables. Also around that time, prompted by that motive, the Latin writer Pseudo-Geber wrote
under an Arabic pseudonym. (The later alchemical word alkahest is known to be pseudo-
Arabic.)

History
Hemerologies and parapegmata

The earlier texts considered to be almanacs have been found in the Near East, dating back to
the middle of the second millennium BC. They have been called generally hemerologies,
from the Greek hēmerā, meaning "day". Among them is the so-called Babylonian Almanac,
which lists favorable and unfavorable days with advice on what to do on each of them.
Successive variants and versions aimed at different readership have been found.[5] Egyptian
lists of good and bad moments, three times each day, have also been found. Many of these
prognostics were connected with celestial events.[6][7][8] The flooding of the Nile valley, a
most important event in ancient Egypt, was expected to occur at the summer solstice but as
the civil calendar had exactly 365 days, over the centuries the date was drifting in the
calendar.[9] The first heliacal rising of Sirius was used for its prediction and this practice, the
observation of some star and its connecting to some event apparently spread.

The Greek almanac, known as parapegma, has existed in the form of an inscribed stone on
which the days of the month were indicated by movable pegs inserted into bored holes, hence
the name. There were also written texts and according to Diogenes Laërtius, Parapegma was
the title of a book by Democritus.[10] Ptolemy, the Alexandrian astronomer (2nd century)
wrote a treatise, Phaseis—"phases of fixed stars and collection of weather-changes" is the
translation of its full title—the core of which is a parapegma, a list of dates of seasonally
regular weather changes, first appearances and last appearances of stars or constellations at
sunrise or sunset, and solar events such as solstices, all organized according to the solar year.
With the astronomical computations were expected weather phenomena, composed as a
digest of observations made by various authorities of the past. Parapegmata had been
composed for centuries.
Ptolemy believed that astronomical phenomena caused the changes in seasonal weather; his
explanation of why there was not an exact correlation of these events was that the physical
influences of other heavenly bodies also came into play. Hence for him, weather prediction
was a special division of astrology.[11]

Ephemerides, zijs and tables

The origins of the almanac can be connected to ancient Babylonian astronomy, when tables
of planetary periods were produced in order to predict lunar and planetary phenomena.[12]
Similar treatises called Zij were later composed in medieval Islamic astronomy.

The modern almanac differs from Babylonian, Ptolemaic and Zij tables in the sense that "the
entries found in the almanacs give directly the positions of the celestial bodies and need no
further computation", in contrast to the more common "auxiliary astronomical tables" based
on Ptolemy's Almagest. The earliest known almanac in this modern sense is the Almanac of
Azarqueil written in 1088 by Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (Latinized as Arzachel) in Toledo,
al-Andalus. The work provided the true daily positions of the sun, moon and planets for four
years from 1088 to 1092, as well as many other related tables. A Latin translation and
adaptation of the work appeared as the Tables of Toledo in the 12th century and the Alfonsine
tables in the 13th century.[13]
A page from the Almanac for the Hindu year 1871-72.

Medieval examples
MS. 8932. Medieval folding almanac (15th century)[14]

After almanacs were devised, people still saw little difference between predicting the
movements of the stars and tides, and predicting the future in the divination sense. Early
almanacs therefore contained general horoscopes, as well as the more concrete information.
In 1150 Solomon Jarchus created such an almanac considered to be among the first modern
almanacs. Copies of 12th century almanacs are found in the British Museum, and in the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In 1300, Petrus de Dacia created an almanac (Savilian
Library, Oxford). This was the same year Roger Bacon, OFM, produced his as well. In 1327
Walter de Elvendene created an almanac and later on John Somers of Oxford, in 1380. In
1386 Nicholas de Lynne, Oxford produced an almanac. In 1457 the first printed almanac was
published at Mainz, by Gutenberg (eight years before the famous Bible). Regio-Montanus
produced an almanac in 1472 (Nuremberg, 1472), which was continued in print for several
centuries in many editions. In 1497 the Sheapheard’s Kalendar, translated from French
(Richard Pynson) became the first English printed almanac.

Early modern era

An English Prophetic Almanack, 1825

England

By the second half of the 16th century, yearly almanacs were being produced in England by
men such as Anthony Askham, Thomas Buckminster, John Dade and Gabriel Frende. In the
17th century, English almanacs were bestsellers, second only to the Bible; by the middle of
the century, 400,000 almanacs were being produced annually (a complete listing can be
found in the English Short Title Catalogue). Until its deregulation in 1775, the Stationers'
Company maintained a lucrative monopoly over almanac publication in England.[15] Richard
Allestree (who is not the same as this Richard Allestree) wrote one of the more popular
English almanacs, producing yearly volumes from 1617 to 1643, but his is by no means the
earliest or the longest-running almanac.

Works that satirized this type of publication appeared in the late 1500s. During the next
century, a writer using the pseudonym of "Poor Richard, Knight of the Burnt Island" began to
publish a series of such parodies that were entitled Poor Robin's Almanack. The 1664 issue of
the series stated: "This month we may expect to hear of the Death of some Man, Woman, or
Child, either in Kent or Christendom."[16]

British America and United States

The first almanac printed in the Thirteen Colonies of British America was William Pierce's
1639 An Almanac Calculated for New England. The almanac was the first in a series of such
publications that Stephen Daye, or Day, printed each year until 1649 in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.[17] The Cambridge/Boston area in Massachusetts soon became the first center
in the colonies for the annual publication of almanacs,[18] to be followed by Philadelphia
during the first half of the eighteenth century.[19]

Title page of 1739 edition of Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack

Nathaniel Ames of Dedham, Massachusetts, issued his popular Astronomical Diary and
Almanack in 1725 and annually after c.1732.[20] James Franklin published The Rhode Island
Almanack by "Poor Robin" for each year from 1728 to 1735.[21] James' brother, Benjamin
Franklin, published his annual Poor Richard's Almanack in Philadelphia from 1732 to
1758.[22]

Samuel Stearns of Paxton, Massachusetts, issued the North-American Almanack, published

Currently published almanacs such as Whitaker's Almanack have expanded their scope and
contents beyond that of their historical counterparts. Modern almanacs include a
comprehensive presentation of statistical and descriptive data covering the entire world.
Contents also include discussions of topical developments and a summary of recent historical
events. Other currently published almanacs (ca. 2006) include TIME Almanac with
Information Please, World Almanac and Book of Facts, The Farmer's Almanac and The Old
Farmer's Almanac and The Almanac for Farmers & City Folk. The Inverness Almanac, an
almanac/literary journal, was published in West Marin, California, from 2015 to 2016.[26] In
2007, Harrowsmith Country Life Magazine launched a Canadian Almanac, written in
Canada, with all-Canadian content. The nonprofit agrarian organization the Greenhorns
currently publishes The New Farmer's Almanac as a resource for young farmers.[27]

Major topics covered by almanacs (reflected by their tables of contents) include: geography,
government, demographics, agriculture, economics and business, health and medicine,
religion, mass media, transportation, science and technology, sport, and awards/prizes.

Other examples include The Almanac of American Politics published by Columbia Books &
Information Services, The Almanac of American Literature, The Almanac of British Politics
and the Wapsipinicon Almanac.

From 1985 to 1990, approximately 53 per cent of all almanac sales sold in the United States
were sold through the "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1985)" computer game
pack that included a complimentary World Almanac and Book of Facts.

The GPS almanac, as part of the data transmitted by each GPS satellite, contains coarse orbit
and status information for all satellites in the constellation, an ionospheric model, and
information to relate GPS derived time to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Hence the
GPS almanac provide a similar goal as the ancient Babylonian almanac, to find celestial
bodies.

See also
 Calendaring software
 Encyclopedia
 List of almanacs
 Gazetteer
 Panchangam
 Panjika
 Tonalamatl
 Tung Shing
 Yearbook
 Kalnirnay