Days and months

← Overview

bdate prints weekday and month names in a romanised form of Byzantine Greek.

Weekdays

The Christian Greek week counts the days from the Lord’s Day. Only Friday (Preparation) and Saturday (the Sabbath) have their own names:

bdate	Greek	Meaning	English
Kyriakē	Κυριακή	the Lord’s (day)	Sunday
Deutera	Δευτέρα	second	Monday
Tritē	Τρίτη	third	Tuesday
Tetartē	Τετάρτη	fourth	Wednesday
Pemptē	Πέμπτη	fifth	Thursday
Paraskeuē	Παρασκευή	preparation (for the Sabbath)	Friday
Sabbaton	Σάββατον	Sabbath	Saturday

These are the church names. Modern Greek still uses them. The earlier pagan planetary names (“day of the Sun”, “day of the Moon”, …) were dropped from Christian usage, and bdate does not support them.

Months

The Byzantines took over the Latin month names in Greek form:

bdate	Greek	Month
Ianouarios	Ἰανουάριος	January
Phebrouarios	Φεβρουάριος	February
Martios	Μάρτιος	March
Aprilios	Ἀπρίλιος	April
Maios	Μάϊος	May
Iounios	Ἰούνιος	June
Ioulios	Ἰούλιος	July
Augoustos	Αὔγουστος	August
Septembrios	Σεπτέμβριος	September
Oktōbrios	Ὀκτώβριος	October
Noembrios	Νοέμβριος	November
Dekembrios	Δεκέμβριος	December

The official year started in September, so Byzantine lists (for example the Menologion) usually begin with Septembrios. bdate follows the Julian calendar month numbering (1 = January) internally. Only the year number changes in September.

Romanisation

The spellings are a plain transliteration with macrons for η (ē) and ω (ō). They have no diacritics beyond those, so they display in any terminal.