July is named after Julius Caesar but before that the Romans called it Quintus… if Julius hadn’t been so honoured would we now call it Qintember, from its original name of Quintus? Or supposing the Roman influence had completely died away and we had taken on the Anglo-Saxon months; would July now be called a modern version of Æftera-Liþa, Afterlith or something? Would today be Afterlith 1st? Or would Viking influence become more widespread and the language of the Danelaw spread across the whole of the country so we would be Solmanuthur or Heyannir depending on what part of the Julian month it was.
I don’t know but maybe Afterlith and Solmanthur were widely used and it was the Normans imposing Norman French upon us (even though the Normans themselves were originally Vikings, (Northman=Norman) they adopted the local French language )Is there any way of telling what pre-Roman months were called? I’m sure someone has the answer… but I don’t!
Here are a few more non-Julian ways to say July in different languages:
- Albanian korrik
- Basque uztailean
- Czech červenec
- Finnish heinäkuu
- Welsh Gorffennaf
- Vietnamese Tháng bảy
- Turkish Temmuz
- Maori Hōngongoi
