The Seuna calendar

1 day

The Seuna for day is noi .

8 days

8 days make up a period of time called a swoi. The noi of the swoi are called ;-

noicaju	noibuya	noinewa	noideda	noikiwe	noigufo	noikayu	noinege
sun.day	leaf.day	river.day	sea.day	star.day	moon.day	tree.day	cloud.day

Between every swoi there is a day called noituna, which can be best translated as "gap day".

72 days

8 swoi and 8 noituna make up a period of time called a doi. The swoi of the doi are called ;-

swo@ai	swogeu	swosuna	swonela	swoki@o	swonelau	swohia	swohau
white.week	green.week	orange.week	skyblue.week	yellow.week	blue.week	red.week	black.week

The 8 noituna of the doi can be differentiated from each other by calling them ;-

tuna@ai	tunageu	tunasuna	tunanela	tunaki@o	tunanelau	tunahia	tunahau
white.gap	green.gap	orange.gap	skyblue.gap	yellow.gap	blue.gap	red.gap	black.gap

(In the Seuna calendar, the cycle of the moon is completely ignored.)

365 days

A noihitu is a special festival days. There are five of them in one year. The 5 noihitu and 5 doi make up a yia(a year).

The doi are;-

doiyigau	doipiwe	doiguya	doi@olai	doigamau'
jupiter.month	venus.month	mercury.month	mars.month	saturn.month

The festivals or festival days ( noihitu) are called;- hintuyigau hintupiwe hintuguya hintu@olai hintugamau

hintuyigau is between doiyigau and doipiwe, and so on.

1461 days

A four year period is known as a miama. This is often translated into English as "calendar".

A special day called noimima is added every miama.

The calendar (that you stick on the wall)

There are 4 years in a calendar.

There are 32 calenders in a kyutoza.

Below is the first sheet of the Seuna calendar (there are 20 sheets in all).

The first week is the top row, the last week is the bottom row.

The first day of the week is the first column, the last day of the week is the last column.

The "not completely enclosed space" at the end of the week is for the noituna.

The space beneath the grid is for the noihitu.

The day noimima' is not represented on the physical calendar. That is because this day is associated with special ceremonies associated with the passage of time. One ceremony involves the taking down of the old calendar, another ceremony involves the hanging of a new calendar. During noimima there is no calendar hanging on any wall.

128 years (or 46,751 days)

32 miama make up a kyutoza. This is often translated into English as "century", "generation", "lifetime".

One day is deleted every kyutoza.

The day dropped is tunahau from doipiwe.

The physical Seuna calendar that you hang on your wall lasts for four years. Every sheet represents a doi.

Below is the second sheet of the first miama of a kyutoza.

As can be seen, the dropped day has been torn off.

It is usual to define every day within a kyutoza.

For example you can give the date of birth of somebody as;-

noigufo swonelan doiguyan yiatigan (which means "the moon day of the sky-blue week of the month of mercury of the year of the giraffe").

To define the day over the greater range you would have to add " kyutoza -11", "kyutoza 0", "kyutoza +32" etc. etc.

The tolza

Each year of the kyutoza has an animal associated with it. These animals are ;-

wolf	weasel/ermine/stoat/mink	bullfinch	badger
whale	opossum	albatross	beautiful armadillo
giant anteater	lynx	eagle	cricket/grasshopper/locust
reindeer	springbok	dove	gnu/wildebeest
spider	Steller's sea cow	seagull	gorilla
horse	scorpion	raven/crow	python
rhino	yak	Kookaburra	porcupine ?
butterfly	triceratops	penguin	koala
polar bear	manta-ray	hornbill	raccoon
crocodile/alligator	wolverine	pelican	zebra
bee	warthog	peacock	capybara
bat	bear	crane/stork/heron	hedgehog
frog	lama	woodpecker	gemsbok
musk ox	chameleon	hawk	cheetah
lion	frill-necked lizard	toucan	okapi
dolphin	aardvark	ostrich	T-rex
kangaroo	hyena	duck	driprotodon(wombat)
shark	cobra	kingfisher	gaur
dragonfly	mole	moa	chimpanzee
turtle/tortoise	N.A. bison	black skimmer	panda
jaguar	snail	cormorant/shag	Cape buffalo
rabbit	colossal squid	vulture	glyptodon/doedicurus
beetle	seal	falcon	pangolin
megatherium	woolly mammoth	flamingo	baboon
elk/moose	squirrel	blue bird of paradise	lobster
tiger	gecko	grouse	seahorse
jackal/fox	octopus	swan	lemur
elephant	swordfish	parrot	auroch
giraffe	ant	puffin	iguana
mouse	crab	swift	mongoose/meerkat
smilodon	giant beaver	owl	mantis
camel	goat	hummingbird	walrus

Each of these animals above is a tolza, which can be translated as "token", "icon" or "totem ". kyu means a circle or cycle. So you can see where the name for the 128 year period comes from.

The precise astronomical periods on which the Seuna time system is based

Year 2000 had 365.242,192,65 days

Every year is shorter than the last by 0.000,000,061,4 days

By adding one day every calendar we get a 365.25 day year

If we then drop one day every kyutoza we get a 365.242,187,5 day year (very close to the actual year length)

Before 2084, the actual year will be bigger than the calendar year – after 2084 the actual year will be smaller than the calendar year

For this reason midnight, 22 Dec 2083 is designated the fulcrum of the whole system. That day will be time zero.

At the moment we are in negative time.

The association of planets to months and shapes

You will have noticed that the months share their names with the five visible planets. That is Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (in order of distance from the sun).

In order of occurence in the year ... Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Saturn

They also share their name with the five platonic solids.

hizbuguya (mercury.shape) = a tetrahedron (4 sides)4₈

hizbu@olai(mars.shape) ... hexahedron (6 sides)6₈

hizbuguya(venus.shape) ... octahedron (8 sides)10₈

hizbupiwe(saturn.shape) ... dodecahedron (12 sides)14₈

hizbuyigau(jupiter.shape) ... icosahedron (20 sides)24₈

The festivals (noihitu)

The months each has a different festival associated with them. Which festival falls on which month depends upon which part of the world you live in. The following is the festival calendar for Northern Europe. The festivals occur at the begining of every month : always starting in the first week and sometimes extending into the following week. They all start on different days of the week.

hintuyigau (the festival of Jupiter)

In the middle of winter (the 22nd of December),the month of Jupiter or doiyigau starts. At the start of this month the fstival of Jupiter or hintuyigau is held. This festival is the most important one of the year. Officially it is about the passage of time and religeon.

Even though eating and drinking are involved in all the five festivals, the hintuyigau has the most looked-forward-to parties and feasts. It usually lasts for 4 days.

hintupiwe (the festival of Venus)

The month of Venus or doipiwe starts on the 5th of March. The festival of Venus or hintupiwe is held at the beginning of this month. The major themes are music and poetry. People gather at various regional centres to compete and spectate in various music and poetry competitions.

hintuguya (the festival of Mercury)

mercury.month starts on the 17th of May. Officially it is about indoor sports and boardgames. This festival often involves getting together with old friends again and can entail quite a bit of partying. Often journeys are undertaken to meet old acquainances. Also there is a big exchange of letters. Everybody that is condidered a friend should be sent a letter with the last years news (only friends that don't live close by of course). People gather at various regional centres to compete and spectate in various events.

hintu@olai (the festival of Mars)

mars.month starts on the 28th of July. The mars.festival is all about outdoor competitions and sporting events. It is a little like a cross between the Olympics games and the highland games. People gather at various regional centres to compete and spectate in various team and individual competitions. However care is taken that no regional centre becomes too popular and people are discouraged from competing at centres other than their local one.

hintugamau (the festival of Saturn)

saturn.month starts on the 10th of October. The saturn.festival is all about the family and relations. The preparation of good food is especially important during this festival. Often journeys are undertaken for family visits and ancestors ashboxes are visited if convenient. This is the second most important festival of the year. People tend to take a quite some time of work if travelling, three days if receiving guests and two days if not receiving any guests.

The passage ceremony

A few days before the jupiter.festival, rites are held mark and celebrate various milestones in the life of an individual. In particular people who have attained the ages of 4, 20 and 64 during the past year, publicly celebrate that fact now. Among the customs followed is the gift of new clothes to the celebrant.

Time reckoning through the day

The basic unit of time is the day (noi). So one day is equal to "1". The day begins at six o'clock in the morning.

So, for example, 6 o'clock at night would be called 0.4 (not 0.5 ... remember Seuna uses an octal system) or nyegayiwo @elai. The nyegayiwo is invariably dropped so six at night is simply @elai.

By the way @ela would be 11.2 minutes after midnight (written .004) @aba would be 2.8 minutes after midnight.

For describing approximately when something happened during the day, we have eight periods : '"noifago"', @abaia, @igaia, @odaia, @elaia, @ucaia, @aisaia and @aukaia. Each of these time periods is equivalent to three hours. They can be further defind by the prefix "early", "mid" and "late". So "mid"@odaia defines a time from 4 o'clock in the afternoon to five o'clock at night.

The word for midday is simply @igai. The word for midnight is simply noinega.

The noi is a 24 hour period.

The name for the period that the sun is up (i.e. daytime) is no@ai'" ... (white.day)

The name for the period that the sun is down (i.e. nighttime) is nohau ... (black.day)

The name for the period from 6 in the morning until 6 at night nohai ... (high.day)

The name for the period from 6 at night to 6 in the morning is no@au"' ... (low.day)

The last two terms make sense when you think of the main hand on a Seuna clock.

The clock

At midnight the ‘hour’ hand stands at the bottom and procedes anti-clockwise (at least in the northern hemishere). The ‘hour’ hand only sweeps out one revolution in 24 hours. Both the red and the black arms do not move incrementally but both move one slot (1/64 th of a revolution) at a time. The black arm moves every 22.5 minutes and the red arm moves every 21 seconds.

Every town has a clocktower and the clocktower will have four faces at the top, each face displaying a clock similar to the one below. The clocktower is surmounted by a green conic roof. Backlighting and lighting from under the roof is provided for each face. There should never be any numbering.

Actually each locality in the Seuna world breaks down the year into various "arc"s ("earth.arc"s in full). This is best translated as season. The timing, length and names of these "arc"s depend on local weather, local growing seasons, local cultural activities etc. For example acorn.arc might follow rain.arc and be followed by salmon.arc.

Index

1. Introduction to Seuna
2. Seuna : Chapter 1
3. Seuna word shape
4. The script of Seuna
5. Seuna sentence structure
6. Seuna pronouns
7. Seuna nouns
8. Seuna verbs (1)
9. Seuna adjectives
10. Seuna demonstratives
11. Seuna verbs (2)
12. Asking a question in Seuna
13. Seuna relative clauses
14. Seuna verbs (3)
15. Methods for deriving words in Seuna
16. List of all Seuna derivational affixes
17. Numbers in Seuna
18. Naming people in Seuna
19. The Seuna calendar
20. Seuna units