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Almanac
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.

A calendar, which is a system for time keeping, in written form is usually produced as a most simple almanac: it
includes additional information about the day of the week on which a particular day falls, major holidays, the phases of
the moon, earthquake hazard levels etc. The set of events noted in an almanac are selected in view of a more or less
specific group of readers e.g. farmers, sailors, astronomers or others.

Contents
Etymology
History
Hemerologies and parapegmata
Ephemerides, zijs and tables
Medieval examples
Early modern era
Contemporary use
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Etymology
The etymology of the word is unclear. It is suggested 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, al­manakh,
but this is not an Arabic word....The word remains a puzzle."[3] The OED similarly says "the word has no etymon in
Arabic" but indirect circumstantial evidence "points to a Spanish Arabic al­manākh".[4]

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The reason why the proposed Arabic word is speculatively spelled al­manākh 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 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]

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Medieval examples
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
MS. 8932. Medieval folding almanac modern almanacs. Copies of
(15th century)[14] 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 A page from the Almanac for the

Hindu year 1871-72.
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 (http://estc.bl.uk/F/?func=file&file_name=login-bl-estc)). 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.

In British America, William Pierce of Harvard College published the first American almanac entitled, An Almanac for
New England for the year 1639 Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard became the first center for the annual publication
of almanacs with various editors including Samuel Danforth, Oakes, Cheever, Chauncey, Dudley, Foster, et alia. An
almanac maker going under the pseudonym of Poor Richard, Knight of the Burnt Island began to publish Poor Robin's
Almanack one of the first comic almanacs that parodied these horoscopes in its 1664 issue, saying "This month we may
expect to hear of the Death of some Man, Woman, or Child, either in Kent or Christendom." Other noteworthy comic
almanacs include those published from 1687-1702 by John Tully of Saybrook, Connecticut.

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The most important early American almanacs were made from 1726-1775
by Nathaniel Ames of Dedham, Massachusetts. A few years later James
Franklin began publishing the Rhode-Island Almanack beginning in 1728.
Five years later his brother Benjamin Franklin began publishing Poor
Richard's  Almanack from 1733-1758. Benjamin Banneker, a free African
American, composed a series of almanacs from 1792-1797.

Contemporary use
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 [1] (http://www.invernessal
An English Prophetic Almanack, manac.com)," an almanac/literary journal, was published in West Marin,
1825 California, from 2015 to 2016. In 2007, Harrowsmith Country Life
Magazine launched a Canadian Almanac, written in Canada, with all-
Canadian content. The nonprofit agrarian organization the Greenhorns [2]
(http://www.thegreenhorns.net/) currently publishes The New Farmer's Almanac as a resource for young farmers.

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, and The Almanac of British Politics.

From 1985 to 1990, approximately 53% 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

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Kalnirnay

References
1. Oxford English Dictionary
2. "Word Origins" by John Ayto (2005)
3. Quote from An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, by Ernest Weekley (1921) (https://archive.org/details/et
ymologicaldict00weekuoft/). Similarly, An Etymological Dictionary by Walter W. Skeat (1888) (https://archive.org/de
tails/etymologicaldict00skeauoft) concludes that the construction of an Arabic source for almanac "is not
satisfactory".
4. "Almanac" in New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (https://archive.org/stream/oed01arch#page/244/mod
e/1up) (which has an extra "note as to the origin and history of the word almanac").
5. Livingstone, A. (1998) "The use of magic in the Assyrian and Babylonian hemerologies and menolgies." Studi
epigrafici e linguistici sul Vicino Oriente antico 15 (1998) 59.
6. Porceddu, S., Jetsu, L., Lyytinen, J., Kajatkari, P., Lehtinen, J., Markkanen, T, Toivari-Viitala, J. (2008). "Evidence
of Periodicity in Ancient Egyptian Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days" (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/disp
layAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2374180). Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 18 (3): 327–339.
Bibcode:2008CArcJ..18..327P (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008CArcJ..18..327P).
doi:10.1017/S0959774308000395 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0959774308000395).
7. Jetsu, L., Porceddu, S., Lyytinen, J., Kajatkari, P., Lehtinen, J., Markkanen, T, Toivari-Viitala, J. (2013). "Did the
Ancient Egyptians Record the Period of the Eclipsing Binary Algol — The Raging One?". The Astrophysical
Journal. 773 (1): A1 (14pp). arXiv:1204.6206 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.6206)  . Bibcode:2013ApJ...773....1J (htt
p://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013ApJ...773....1J). doi:10.1088/0004-637X/773/1/1 (https://doi.org/10.1088%2F000
4-637X%2F773%2F1%2F1).
8. Jetsu, L.; Porceddu, S. (2015). "Shifting Milestones of Natural Sciences: The Ancient Egyptian Discovery of Algol's
Period Confirmed" (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0144140). PLOS ONE. 10
(12): e.0144140 (23pp). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0144140 (https://doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0144140).
9. The new year coincides with the summer solstice once in 1441 years, which is known as the sothic period.
10. Lehoux D., Parapegmata, Astrolgy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World, (thesis), National Library of
Canada, 2000; includes a list of surviving parapegmata (plural of 'parapegma') and bibliography
11. "Ptolemy's Astronomical Works (other than the Almagest)" (http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajones/ptolgeog/astrow
orks.html). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20070208073111/http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~ajones/ptolgeo
g/astroworks.html) from the original on 2007-02-08. Retrieved 2007-04-16.
12. Glick, Livesey & Wallis 2005, p. 29
13. Glick, Livesey & Wallis 2005, p. 30
14. "MS. 8932. Medieval folding almanac (15th century)", Wellcome Images, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.
wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MS._8932._Medieval_folding_almanac_(15th_century)_Wellcome_L0075681.jpg)
15. Lyons, Martyn. (2011). Books: A living history. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications. pp. 123

Further reading
T.J. Tomlin, A Divinity for All Persuasions: Almanacs and Early American Religious Life. Oxford, England: Oxford
University Press, 2014.

External links
American Almanacs collection (http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm4/collection.php?CISOROOT=/AmrcnAmncs), Ball State
University Digital Media Repository, includes representative samples for almanacs published in the United States
primarily during the 18th century.
Time, Tide and Tonics: The Patent Medicine Almanac in America (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/almanac/heyday.ht
ml). United States National Library of Medicine.
The World almanac and encyclopedia (1917) - Typical 20th century almanac, in times before Internet, TV, and
widely usage of radio, however covering the world from American point of view (https://archive.org/details/worldal
manacency1917newy)
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Sunpreview The Modern Almanac Project (http://www.sunpreview.com/)

The Old Farmer's Almanac (https://www.almanac.com/)
The Farmers' Almanac (http://www.farmersalmanac.com/)
Lindsey Eckert (May 2015). "Reading Against the Interface: British Almanacs and Hacking Practices, 1750-1850"
(https://soundcloud.com/chssedinburgh/lindsey-eckert-reading-against-the-interface-british-almanacs-and-hacking
-practices-1750-1850). Soundcloud (Podcast). The University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 3 February 2016.

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