The calendar is one of humankind's most insidious instruments of power. The map draws borders, the judiciary distributes authority, money measures value; the calendar, meanwhile, sets the daily rhythm of all these. Whichever month names a Budun uses, whichever new year it celebrates, whichever threshold days it commemorates, and in whichever language it narrates celestial correction, the Budun constructs its memory along that same line. For this reason the calendar carries a meaning far broader than a chart pinned to the wall; it makes visible how a community hears time, around which knots it recalls its past, and with what flow it walks into the future.
Today the most widespread civil calendar worldwide is the Gregorian calendar. This breadth opens a powerful and overwhelming field of use; alongside this, it keeps a very specific civilizational past at the heart of daily life. The Gregorian reform — enacted in 1582 at the initiative of Pope Gregory XIII — was established to correct the drift that had accumulated in the Julian calendar, to fix the spring equinox around 21 March, and to make the calculation of Easter consistent. Library of Congress and U.S. Naval Observatory sources, for instance, show clearly that this reform was born at a knot where the calculation of sacred time intersected with judicial power. The question of who determines the calendar is here tied directly to the question of power; because sacred time, judicial decisions, state decisions, and church decisions all meet at the same knot.
The consequence of this situation, reaching into today, is very clear: the month names most widely used on earth today come from within Roman state religion, Roman power, the cult of rulers, and the calendar reforms inherited by Western Christianity. The sequence January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December carries, on one side, Rome's gods; on another, its rulers; and on yet another, the old Roman numerical sequence. At the simplest level, the British Museum's explanation of the month names together with Britannica's entries on the calendar and the months lays this out clearly; the line that begins with early Roman arrangements attributed to Romulus and Numa takes on the stamp of power with Caesar and Augustus, and with Gregory XIII it is bound to a new standard that will enter worldwide circulation. The historical record here is clear and leaves no room for debate.
At precisely this point, a question arises from the Turk's own past. Why should a Budun that possesses its own historical depth, its own steppe and Eurasian experience, its own inscriptional memory, its own web of töre, and its own understanding of the sky, carry Rome's dictionary of months as if it were the only valid language of time?
When the past is this clear, a problem emerges here that is far harsher and more rooted than any sentimental search. For this reason the question must also be tied to the most vital field of today's power struggle: the war of standards, the war of narratives, the war of memory, the war of selfhood. Because in our age, power is not constructed only by drawing borders, moving armies, or writing judicial texts. Power is also constructed by deciding which standard will be considered universal, which narrative will be accepted as the focal point, which memory will be turned into the valid past, and which self will feel itself primary and which will feel itself secondary.
Let us now explain these four sub-sections under the heading of four separate kinds of irregular warfare waged upon the Turk.
The war of standards determines whether a Budun will keep alive its own measures or live within measures produced by another center. The calendar, the alphabet, the ordering of terminology, the language of education, the language of the judiciary, and the flow of culture are all among the instruments of this war. Whichever standard becomes widespread, the civilization that founded it gains an invisible superiority alongside it. Others begin to think, calculate, and sense time within the frame it established.
The Turkish Budun has long carried the effects of this siege as well. Having grown accustomed to living within measures that came from outside — rather than building its own past flow, its own seasonal memory, its own communal thresholds, and its own vocabulary — the Budun gradually comes to regard its own measure as deficient, scattered, or secondary.
The war of narratives deepens this siege further. Whichever story a Budun reads its past within, it also builds its future within the limits of that story. Rome, Greece, Christian Europe, and today's West managed to present their own histories as the main spine of humankind's past. Thus their own historical fractures came to appear as the natural axis of the world's past. Turkish history, meanwhile, was most often written as a peripheral story along the edges of that grand narrative — one appended later, one influenced by it, one that gained meaning through it.
Such an approach does not read Turkish history through its own inner reason; it arranges it according to the gaze of an external center. At the simplest level, Britannica's framework on the Turkic peoples and the Orhon inscriptions emphasizes that the Turks, in Central Asia, were a founding subject who left their own written trace, built broad state organizations, and created a field of movement stretching from the borders of China to the borders of Byzantium [7][8]. The problem here is not limited to correcting a few historical sentences. Every habit of thought that places Turkish history in the background of Rome narrows the Turk's own historical axis; it shifts the focal point outward and leads to the Turk pruning his own roots with his own hands.
The war of memory, in turn, constitutes the form taken by the war of narratives once it has taken lasting hold inside the communal mind. Narrative determines how the past is written; memory governs how much of the past is remembered, how much is suppressed, and how much is transmitted in fragmented form. Turkish memory has long been processed within a fragmented order. On one side, the religious and political fractures of the last thousand years are pushed into the foreground; on the other, the lost Turk-Mu past, the steppe memory that follows great upheavals, the Tengrist understanding of the universe, ancestral culture, seasonal flows, and far deeper historical strata are pushed behind the mist. Thus the Budun begins to live as the child of an incomplete story, rather than looking at its past in its wholeness. An incomplete story, in turn, more easily validates concepts that come from outside. A Budun that forgets its own sacred threshold, that does not carry its own fabric of time, that does not keep alive its own yearly flow, settles another's memory into its daily life while using another's calendar.
The war of selfhood establishes the final link where these three fronts knot together within the human soul. When the standard is produced elsewhere, when the narrative is written from another center, and when memory is distributed selectively, selfhood too is pulled toward a defensive, fragile, approval-seeking line. The frequent tension of Turkish selfhood today, stretched between two extremes, arises from this. On one side, a rootless desire for imitation appears; on the other, a superficial language of reaction rises. A strong selfhood, by contrast, knows its own historical depth with a serene clarity and carries this knowledge down into the instruments of daily life. The calendar therefore regains importance. Selfhood is not built only through anthems, monuments, and textbooks; it is built also through the day one looks at each morning, through the name of the month, through the new year, and through the seasonal threshold. Whichever dictionary of time you live by, in the end you begin to read yourself too through the terms of that dictionary.
These four fields can crush the Turk with particular ease, because the pressure does not wear the appearance of brute force. A Budun produces resistance against open occupation. By contrast, when measures, terms, calendars, educational frameworks, and historical starting points settle in under a veil of invisible naturalness, the eroding force works far deeper. Telling the Turkish Budun "you too have a past" is one thing; bounding the Turk's time, memory, and points of origin with the frameworks of others is quite another. In the second case the Budun is ostensibly given room, yet that room always lies in the shadow of another center. This is why the approach that begins Turkish history with 1071, that at its broadest extends back only to the Orhon Inscriptions and halts there, that ignores or — even when it sees them — treats deeper layers as a secondary footnote, does not merely offer an incomplete reading of the past; it also narrows the civilizational comprehension.
And yet, as data accumulate, the starting line of the Turkish past is drawn further back with each passing day. Archaeology, linguistic history, the cultural continuities of the steppe, and the vast memory of Eurasia make this depth ever more visible. Within such a picture, treating the distorted or fractured section of a more recent civilizational field as the focal point can only find a response in a consciousness estranged from its own roots. The mind that carries the breadth of its own past, by contrast, does not place another at the focus of time; it rebuilds its own sky, its own rhythm, and its own vocabulary.
Here it is necessary to draw the distinction more finely still. Using the Gregorian calendar as a civil standard offers a serviceable necessity within the world-scale workings of today. This field functions for purposes of diplomacy, commerce, transportation, and state order. Adopting the Gregorian month names as one's sole cultural fate, on the other hand, narrows historical memory. A Budun can use the world-scale civil calendar; alongside this, it can build its own customary calendar, its own educational calendar, its own communal days, and its own dictionary of months.
The Chinese calendar, the Hindu calendar, the Jewish calendar, and the Islamic calendar show precisely this layered life. There is no single timeline in the world; multiple calendars live side by side. The Chinese calendar continues to live alongside the Gregorian calendar in China and Taiwan; the Hindu calendar constructs the histories of the religious year in India; the Jewish calendar operates with intercalary months within a 19-year cycle; the Islamic calendar organizes religious time while preserving the lunar year cycle.
These multiple examples should open an important door: a distinctive Turkish calendar does not shatter the world order; it adds a new layer to it. What is more, it may give other Buduns the courage to rebuild their own calendric memory. UNESCO's work on indigenous and community-based knowledge systems, traditional ecological calendars, and climate knowledge clearly shows that the calendar strengthens the bridge between culture, environment, memory, and sustainability. The traditional ecological calendar initiative at Naranjal and the LINKS programme's reports on climate and indigenous knowledge systems already emphasize that the calendar carries great power in decision-making, environmental education, sustainable use, and intergenerational transmission. Anyone who doubts this should examine these points further [9][10][11].
For this reason, establishing a Turkish calendar carries the meaning of responding early to the great rupture in which indigenous knowledge systems, multiple time orders, and cultural fields of power will be debated anew in the world of the future. The line laid out in the Tengrism Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow books — "indigenous flow," "open-source töre," "measure," "assembly," "distributed knowledge," "every individual's responsibility to be able to become a kam," and "advanced adaptability to high-uncertainty fields" — makes calendar design a duty arising directly from the past.
When one looks at the origins of the Roman month names one by one, the break in meaning from the Turkish standpoint becomes more visible. Because here the calendar places the sacred understanding of a particular civilization, its hierarchy of power, its language of ceremony, and its imagined universe inside daily time. Every morning, when a person looks at the calendar, they not only order the days but also come into contact with the memory codes of an ancient world. Month names therefore do not stand like neutral markers. Each one carries a legend, a language of power, a perception of season, and a historical order behind it.
Turning to Turkish month names, another layer opens. Here, names born directly from Turkish life experience stand alongside names drawn from Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Latin, and other linguistic environments. Now, if you wish, let us deepen the matter a little further on behalf of the tens of millions who have never thought about this subject.
Ocak / January
January takes its name from Janus. Janus, in the Roman world, is the god associated with doors, passages, thresholds, and beginnings. His most striking image is his double face: one face turned to the past, one to the future. The new year, in this way, is conceived not merely as the start of an ordinary sequence of time but together with themes of passage through the threshold, closure and opening, ending and birth. The Roman mind did not conceive time as a straight line; time works as a threshold-laden, ceremonial, imagined flow. The month of January is the entry gate of this conception.
The Latin form Januarius mensis — that is, "the month of Janus" — places the first month of the year directly under the oversight of Roman sacredness. The god placed at the head of the calendar gives a spirit to time itself. This naming, which seeps into daily life, also shows how Roman culture gave meaning to the sky and the year.
The Turkish word "Ocak," by contrast, opens a wholly different scene. "Ocak" carries the meanings of the place where fire is lit, the warmth of the home, the focal point where food is cooked, the core field where the family gathers. Thus the Turkish month name leans not on a celestial divine figure but on the concrete focal point of lived life. The hearth, which preserves the warmth of the home in the depth of winter, becomes the image of sustaining life. Moreover, the trace of this word reaches far back, all the way to the Divân-ı Lügati't-Türk. This depth shows that in Turkish, time is also named around the home, fire, and life.
Şubat / February
February comes from the circle of Februa, connected with rites of purification and atonement. In the Roman world, February is associated with ceremonial practices organized for cleansing, preparation, relieving oneself of burdens, and transitioning into a new period. The month's name emerges directly from within this ritual field. Thus this portion of the year passes beyond being merely a cold section of season. It gains meaning as the time of bodily and communal purification.
This naming shows that the Roman mind divided time ceremonially. Some months are loaded with war, some with fertility, some with family, and some with purification. February, within this order, works as the month of shedding burdens and preparing for the new cycle.
The Turkish word "Şubat," meanwhile, traces its root along the Syriac line. The forms used in the Syriac and Aramaic circle evoke a period that corresponds to the end of winter, when agricultural activity halts, when waiting and inward withdrawal increase. For this reason, Şubat is read in the Anatolian basin through the language of climatic conditions as well. The soil has not yet fully opened; labor, movement, and outward production slow for a while. Thus the name Şubat has borne the aim of building a bridge between the emphasis on purification in Rome and the seasonal waiting in the Near East.
Mart / March
March is the month of Mars. Mars, in Rome, is the god of war, of might displayed before the Budun, of the campaign and of the energy of power. In early Rome, the year beginning for a period in March makes this choice all the more meaningful. Because the opening of the year was placed directly alongside military power, vitality, movement, and the will of the state. The gate of spring carries not only freshness but also the call to campaign.
This connection shows that Rome ordered even its seasons with a political and military consciousness. The arrival of spring carries the reawakening of nature; alongside this, it carries the mobilization of the army, the strengthening of life before the Budun, and the making visible of order. For this reason, the name March brings season and the might of power together on the same axis.
The fact that the name March lives in many European languages with similar sounds also shows the broad geographic spread of this Roman inheritance: forms like Mars, März, Marzo, Maart are the continuation of the same root in different languages. The Turkish "Mart" too joins this broad chain of transmission. Thus a single month name has entered Turkish from the language of rulership.
Nisan / April
Two main etymological explanations stand out for April. The first explanation rests on the Latin verb aperire; this verb carries the meaning "to open." For this reason April is read as the month in which the soil opens, the bud breaks, and nature becomes visibly alive. Life, hidden throughout winter, rises to the surface with this month. What was closed opens, what was frozen thaws, the energy waiting inside bursts out. Thus April becomes the opening month of nature.
The second explanation binds the month to the Venus line; its counterpart in the Greek world is Aphrodite. Along this line, April is thought of together with beauty, attraction, abundance, and fertility. Thus the meaning of the month passes beyond vital reawakening. A world carrying the feeling of beauty and intimacy opens as well. The soil comes alive, colors multiply, life gains a visible grace.
The Turkish "Nisan" carries traces extending to Persian, Syriac, Akkadian, and older Mesopotamian layers. This name is seen to have lived with associations such as the first harvest, fresh produce, the opening of the year, and abundance. Thus Nisan has been transformed into a shared spring threshold in the Roman and Near Eastern worlds. One emphasizes the opening bud; the other foregrounds fresh produce and the renewal of the year. Both lines carry the rise of spring, the coming onto the stage of vitality, and the soil's turn toward yield.
Mayıs / May
May is connected with Maia. Maia is one of the principal figures in the Roman tradition associated with growth, multiplication, and fertility. For this reason the name May calls forth the period when spring gathers strength, the soil becomes full, and life flourishes through its spread. Here nature has already awakened, has entered growth, has gathered force, and has intensified.
The imagined atmosphere of May reflects the developmental phase that follows April's opening. Flowering becomes more visible, the soil breathes more fully, the thought of abundance is felt in a more tangible way. The name of Maia has therefore been fixed like a seal of yield and growth within the calendar.
It is also notable that the form "Mayıs" has settled in Turkish via a Latin root. Here local agricultural life unites with a month name of foreign origin. That is, the name of a Roman goddess has come to be spoken in the spring season of Anatolia.
Haziran / June
June is linked with Juno. Juno is one of the chief goddesses of Rome; she is associated with marriage, womanhood, family order, birth, and communal protection. For this reason, June carries the threshold of summer together with thoughts of family, order, and protection. The spreading of spring here gains a communal framework. Home, lineage, togetherness, and the feeling of protection settle inside the month name.
The presence of Juno also shows that in the Roman calendar, the private field and the public field before the Budun were not constructed in isolation from each other. Family order is thought of as an extension of the order of the Budun. That the themes of marriage, birth, and protection are placed in a month within the flow of the year shows that the calendar also carries communal institutions.
The Turkish "Haziran," meanwhile, is associated with the Syriac line of heat. Thus on the Roman side, Juno's protective order is joined with the seasonal sign of rising heat on the Anatolian and Near Eastern side.
Temmuz / July
With July, the transition from gods to rulers in the calendar becomes clearly visible. The old Roman name of this month was Quintilis, that is, "the fifth month." Because in the early Roman calendar the year began in March. Later the name of this month was changed in honor of Julius Caesar and became July. Thus the calendar did not merely content itself with marking the flow of nature; it also inscribed political memory and ruling power into the year.
This transformation is highly significant. Because here the month name amounts to the writing of a ruler's name atop cosmic time. A portion of the year now directly carries the glory of a political figure. Time turns into the memory field of power. Every recurring July calls forth the turning of the season and the name of Caesar.
The Turkish "Temmuz," meanwhile, comes via the Syriac Tammuz, and its roots extend to the Babylonian-Assyrian-Sumerian tradition of Dumuzi/Tammuz. Along this line, Temmuz is associated with fertility, withering, heat, and the dramatic movements of the natural cycle. The survival in Anatolian folk language of usages such as "orak ayı" (the month of the sickle) and "ot ayı" (the month of grass) is consistent with this. Here the Roman ruler and the Mesopotamian fertility god have overlaid one another around a single month as two distinct civilizational memories and have endured as a month name.
Ağustos / August
August likewise carries a ruler's name. Its old name was Sextilis, that is, "the sixth month." Later it received the name August in honor of Augustus. Thus when July and August are placed side by side, it becomes visible that in the Roman calendar two consecutive months are sealed with the names of rulers. This shows the power-inflection of the calendar very clearly.
The name Augustus in Latin carries associations of exaltation, increase, greatness, and dignity. Thus this month is recounted as the memory of a ruler and, at the same time, as the time loaded with the sense of majesty and sublimity of hot weather. This period, which coincides with the peak of summer, was naturalized as a month name because it gained a stage fitting for ruling majesty.
The Turkish "Ağustos" also comes via the Latin root; alongside this, folk equivalents such as "harman ayı" (the month of the threshing floor) live on in popular language. This equivalent is highly instructive. Because while along the Roman line the month is remembered by a ruler's name, in Turkish folk life the same period is lived as a time when the threshing floor is set up, the harvest is gathered, and the return on labor becomes visible. One foregrounds the majesty of power; the other foregrounds the cycle of production. Naturally, Turkish culture is more developed on the basis of both emotional method and operational method.
Eylül / September
September is connected with the Latin numerical root septem — that is, "seven." In the old Roman sequence this month stood seventh. Today it is the ninth. Here an instructive drift from the past becomes visible: the order has changed, the name has continued to live. The trace of the old calendar has remained within language even in the new order. Thus the logic of the previous order continues to live inside the word even centuries later.
This situation shows how resilient calendar names can be. Power struggles shift, calendar reforms arrive, the starting point of the year slips; nevertheless, the names most often preserve their existence. Thus the word continues, like a frozen remnant of an ancient world, to live senselessly inside present time.
The Turkish "Eylül," meanwhile, is related to Arabic eylûl, behind which stand Syriac elûl and still older Akkadian layers. Harvest season, abundance, produce, and the agricultural cycle come to the fore here. Thus Eylül, while carrying the residue of the Roman numerical system on one side, is bound on the other to the Near Eastern memory of harvest. In Turkish usage this month calls forth the entry of autumn and the time when labor meets its produce.
Ekim / October
October carries the Latin root octo — that is, "eight." It corresponds to the month that stood eighth in the old Roman sequence. Today it is the tenth. The historical drift seen in September continues here as well. The language of the old numerical order continues to live within today's sequence.
The Turkish "Ekim," meanwhile, is an exceedingly clear and earth-bound naming. In this month sowing is done; the seed enters the soil, the foundation of the coming harvest is quietly laid. Thus the Turkish name places the concrete act of production in the foreground rather than an abstract numerical root. On one side there is Rome's erroneous numerical imprint; on the other, Anatolia's agricultural practice.
Moreover, the name "Ekim" settled in modern Turkish as part of the calendric localization of language. In this respect the month name does not content itself with describing the season; it also becomes a part of the linguistic preferences of the Republican era. Thus linguistic history and agricultural history unite in the same word.
Kasım / November
November comes from the Latin root novem — that is, "nine." It indicates the month that stood ninth in the old Roman calendar. In today's sequence it is the eleventh. Thus the faulty trace of the old sequence continues here as well, and the accumulated layering of the calendar becomes more visible.
The Turkish "Kasım," meanwhile, is related to the folk calendar and the division of seasons. In Anatolia, the distinction between the warm and cold periods of the year is lived as "Hızır günleri" (Days of Hızır) and "Kasım günleri" (Days of Kasım). In this respect, Kasım is the entry gate to one of the year's two great seasonal halves. The notions of dividing, separating, and marking the threshold between two periods settle into this word.
For this reason, Kasım holds a very strong place in the Turkish seasonal memory. A time begins in which the cold settles in, nature draws inward, and the rhythm slows. The Latin numerical root and the Anatolian folk seasonal order meet here in the same month.
Aralık / December
December comes from the Latin root decem — that is, "ten." It is the name of the tenth month in the old Roman calendar. Today it stands twelfth. September, October, November, and December alike carry the linguistic residue of the old Roman yearly order into the present. These four months are the section in which the historical memory of the calendar is seen most nakedly.
The Turkish "Aralık," meanwhile, carries an exceedingly vivid native meaning: the gap between two things, the opening between two periods, a threshold, a passage void. Standing between Kasım and Ocak, this month already speaks through its own name of in-betweenness and of the gap. A sense of time is formed in which winter deepens, the closure of the year draws near, and the new threshold has just become visible.
This name is very strong, because it directly conveys the lived feeling of time. Aralık is the month of drawing near to the end of the calendar, of standing between two periods, of preparing for closure. Thus in contrast to the numerical logic of Latin, a much more intuitive, spatial, and experiential equivalent emerges in Turkish.
Incidentally, at this point — as much as a small trace from the past — there is also a winking mathematical oddity. One cannot help but smile; because the ninth month is called "seventh," the tenth "eighth," the eleventh "ninth," and the twelfth "tenth." And the world has carried this drift with great seriousness for centuries.
A civilization's old calendric order has changed, the sequence has slipped, the names have stayed in place, and the world has continued for centuries to use this with great seriousness. Thus the dictionary of months we use today carries, on one side the gods, on another side the rulers, and on yet another side this strange numerical residue left from the old Roman yearly order — all alive at the same time.
This picture clearly shows that month names cannot be read as grammatical residues or words preserved merely by habit. Each month here carries a piece of Rome's cosmic design. The beginning of the year is tied to a threshold god, the period of purification is marked by ceremonial cleansing, the opening of spring is set alongside the strength of war and the campaign, the transition to summer is left to the protective field of goddesses, and two months of the year are turned directly into monuments of rulership. The last four months live as a numerical residue carrying Rome's old calendric memory into today. Thus every calendar display used in daily life, while ostensibly offering plain temporal information, simultaneously reiterates Rome's sacred order, its power-focal point, and its historical continuity.
The real problem for the Turk begins precisely here. The problem is not confined to using a few names of foreign origin. Carrying another civilization's gods, ritual logic, rulership memory, and seasonal imagery as one's own daily language of time also constructs the sense of time around that center. For Rome these month names were exceedingly native and coherent, because those names established a natural bond within its own religious and political universe.
The bond needed for the Turkish world, however, lies elsewhere. The seasonal language of the steppe, ancestral memory, the gaze toward the sky, the cycle of production, the time of the Toy, the rhythm of migration, and the Tengrist understanding of the universe are pushed into the background within this dictionary. Thus the Turk, while living time, inclines toward repeating another's sacred atlas rather than rebuilding his own sky. This repetition does not operate by harsh coercion; it settles slowly, continuously, and invisibly within daily language. One of the most effective forms of cultural dissolution emerges precisely here. A person, most often without noticing which world the dictionary they use each day carries, grows accustomed to the rhythm of that world.
For this reason, what must be done here is to see the origins of the Roman month names in full — and without belittling their historical meaning — to say clearly why they are now insufficient and unsuitable for the Turkish world. Because when these names do not carry a Budun's own natural rhythm, its own memory, and its own cosmic sense of direction, the calendar continues its function; but the carrying of meaning works for a different center. The essential force of the Tengrist calendar proposal appears precisely here: it does not merely calculate time but renames the Turk's own sky.
We must see one by one the ways in which this choice has become meaningless for the Turk.
First, these month names do not narrate the natural rhythm of the geography in which the Turk lives. The harsh winter of the steppe, the migration routes, the yaylak–kışlak (summer pasture–winter quarters) cycle, the phases of sowing and gathering, the thresholds of solstice and equinox, the memory of ancestors, and the times of the Toy are not present in these names. Janus, Juno, Maia, and Mars carried Rome's sacred geography. For the Eurasian breadth in which the Turkic tribes lived, these names do not produce seasonal and labor memory; they install a ready-made historical packet inside daily language.
Second, these names hinder the Turk from constructing his own sacred and customary vocabulary. A month name cannot and should not be only a name; when a child memorizes this name, he also learns which world he lives in. The mind that silently repeats Janus, Mars, Caesar, Augustus every day places Rome at the focal point of time. After a while, this habit begins to present the historical weight of Rome as "natural" and the Turk's own vocabulary of time as an "addendum." In the power struggle of our age, the true danger is born precisely here: cultural centers naturalize their own languages and time measures; peripheral Buduns begin to mistake these measures for universal ones.
Third, the internal logic of the month names is itself broken. Let us repeat it because it is both very important and comic: September, October, November, and December today denote the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth months; yet their names mean seven, eight, nine, and ten. This fracture is a remnant from the early Roman March-starting structure. Rome made its own reforms, the order of the months changed, and yet the names were carried forward. So what we have here is not a "flawless rational calendar"; historical accumulation and power-bound habit flow together. For the Turkish world, this structure makes more visible the need to pass to a calendar that builds a clear, coherent, and native rhythm.
Fourth, the example of July and August proves that month names turn into monuments of power. To give two months of a calendar to the names of two rulers is to turn the flow of the sky into the memory wall of political work. Rome did this. The French Revolution too, for a similar reason, sought to replace the Gregorian calendar with a new one "purified of religious associations" and established the Republican Calendar. This example shows that changing the calendar has been one of the strong political moves throughout history [18].
Fifth, the Roman month names render invisible the Turk's own historical experiences of time. Yet in the Turkish past, the field of the calendar and the yearly cycle carries a strong memory. The UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List entry on the Anatolian Seljuk madrasahs explicitly mentions the connection of some animal figures in Seljuk art with the Twelve-Animal Turkish Calendar; it interprets this as a sign of cultural continuity carried from Turkistan.
This data shows that the Turks ordered time not only with numbers but also with images, cycles, and living namings. As its name indicates, the Twelve-Animal Turkish Calendar is built upon twelve-year cycles; each year carries an animal name, and when the cycle is completed, the sequence begins again. The sources show that this sequence lived with the names sıçgan, ud, bars, tavışgan, lu, yılan, yund, koy, biçin, takıgu, it, and tonguz; with today's equivalents these are read along the line of mouse, ox, leopard or tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.
This calendar is a system that runs on the solar year, that codes years with animal names, and that was used for a long time among the Turkic tribes. Research indicates that this calendar was used during the Göktürk period and afterwards, and that some of its earliest written traces even appear around the early Turkic inscriptions. That is, Turkish temporal memory does not carry a void; it offers a deep-rooted accumulation that has produced its own yearly cycle, its own naming logic, and its own imagined calendric language. For this reason, to propose today a new Tengrist calendar is not to invent something from scratch in an empty field; it means to rebuild the old memory in accordance with the needs of the age.
From here we must come to today's power struggle. The political order of the twenty-first century does not run only through borders and armies. Standards, calendars, alphabets, data formats, maps, application interfaces, educational content, and media flows also build power. Whichever calendar is adopted as the universal measure, its historical narrative too rises subconsciously into the focal position.
The Turk's proposing his own calendar should therefore be read not only as an imaginative outburst but directly as a heading of power. The aim here is, while preserving the bond with world-scale functioning, to construct one's own communal time with one's own vocabulary. This construction produces a twofold competence for today's province and Budun: to relate with the outer world through a shared civil calendar, and to strengthen one's own spine of flow within the inner world.
As also addressed in the Tengrism Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow books, "töre" is not bound to a frozen commandment; it carries a living structure that operates on open source, is tested by measure, tested in the assembly, and updated with natural data and communal feedback. Such an architecture of thought takes the calendar too out of being a closed sacred package. The calendar becomes a living institution, overseen by the assembly and common reason, contributed to by each generation, able to develop its form while preserving the flow. When the thought of open-source töre is carried over into the calendar field, the month names are nourished by language, climate, production, communal habit, and ceremonial memory; the calendar, for its part, becomes the visible face of the shared measure [19][20].
Therefore the importance of the Tengrist calendar may be gathered under several headings.
In the field of theology, this calendar binds the sacred to the sky, to the rhythm of nature, to ancestral memory, and to measure. Here sacred time exits the monopoly of the clergy and opens to communal experience and observation. When month names are constructed around season, sky, production, transition, and remembrance rather than around the names of statues of gods, the sacred too settles directly within life.
In the field of power, this calendar makes the Turk's own temporal sovereignty visible. The Budun that constructs its own calendar does not inherit its historical narrative from other centers. It opens the gate of time with its own words. Turkish history already carries sufficient depth for this. The Twelve-Animal Turkish Calendar is a clear historical example showing that the Turk organized time with his own images, built the yearly cycle with his own memory, and was able to spread this across a vast geography. Today the proposal of a Tengrist calendar carries this line into our age. Thus time ceases to be a flow lived in the background of foreign centers; it is rebuilt within the Turk's own sky, his own töre, and his own historical consciousness.
In the field of freedom, this calendar helps to dissolve the external monuments placed upon time. While in the examples of July and August the names of two rulers are repeated each year, in a Turkish calendar root-Turkish names strengthen the community's own sense of direction. One does not live one's time in the memory of other rulers; one lives it with one's own memory and one's own sense of responsibility. This produces not emotive slogans but inner self-confidence and historical continuity in daily language.
In the field of ecology and sustainability, this calendar builds a structure more open to natural data. UNESCO's examples of ecological calendars show that indigenous calendars can work in direct connection with climate observation, resource use, biological cycles, and communal decisions. The Tengrist calendar likewise, with season-focused month names capable of drawing inspiration from the 30 principles of New Tengrism, strengthens this ecological sensitivity. Time, here, rather than flowing as artificial blocks detached from production, is lived as markings that co-vibrate with nature.
So what do we, as the principal core developing the theoretical framework of New Tengrism, propose? Quite simply. Let us explain it at once.
New Tengrism's calendar offers, in terms of civic order, a strong equi-measurement with a 13-month × 28-day pattern. Every month carries exactly four weeks. Accounting, wage comparison, production planning, periodic analysis, educational scheduling, and communal ceremonies benefit greatly from this equality. This is also the reason that 13 equal-month patterns persistently appear in modern calendar reform debates. 13 months, each month 28 days, one additional day at year's end, and in leap years one additional day at mid-year as well.
This calendar works by the following rules:
• There are 13 months.
This number is chosen to divide the flow of the year into more balanced portions. In the current calendar, months are distributed among 28, 30, and 31 days; this both disrupts the rhythm and makes comparison difficult. The 13-month structure divides the year into more equal portions and brings the weight of each month closer to the others. Thus time gains a measured cycle instead of flowing as scattered blocks.
• Every month is 28 days.
28 days corresponds to exactly 4 weeks. Its meaning is very great. Every month carries the same weekly spine. Whichever day of the week the 1st of the month falls on, this same order is re-established every month. The lengths of the months do not change. Work plans, educational calendars, communal meetings, the cycle of production, salary calculations, commemorative days, and ceremonial pasts become much clearer. Following time becomes easy; reading the calendar becomes intuitive.
• In total this gives 364 days.
When we multiply 13 months by 28 days, we get 364. This result is the product of a conscious choice. Because the number 364 is exactly divisible by 52 weeks. That is, the main body of the year flows in complete weeks from start to finish. This makes the calendar's inner rhythm very strong. Each year carries 52 whole weeks. Thus no tension arises between the week system and the month system; the two work together.
• A single threshold day is added at the very end of each year.
The need here arises from the solar year. The Earth's revolution around the Sun does not take 364 days; it takes roughly 365 days and a little more. Therefore the 364-day main body does not, by itself, exactly match the solar year. To meet this difference, 1 threshold day is added at the year's end. The reason for placing this day at year's end is very clear: the 52-week main body built by the 13 months completes intact, and then the surplus is taken as a closing threshold at the end of the year.
Thus the order of months and weeks remains clean on the inside; the overflowing piece is gathered at the year's end. Alongside this, this placement carries a strong cultural meaning. The additional day at year's end forms a shared threshold for reckoning, remembrance, closure, purification, and preparation for the new cycle. That is, this day meets the astronomical difference and at the same time gathers the communal memory.
• In years matching the Gregorian leap-year rule, 1 further additional day is placed at mid-year.
In the Gregorian rule, years divisible by 4 are counted as leap years; century years divisible by 100 are excluded; those divisible by 400 are again leap years. Along this line, in the near cycle the first additional day falls in 2028; then 2032, 2036, 2040, and so on.
The reason for this is that the year does not last exactly 365 days either. The solar year carries roughly 365 days plus roughly a quarter day. That quarter day, accumulating, approaches approximately 1 full day every four years. For this reason, in certain years an additional day is needed. The reason for placing this additional day at mid-year is also clear: a threshold day already sits at year's end, regularly used every year; rather than piling the once-in-four-years surplus at the same point, placing it at the middle of the cycle divides the year into two great fields of balance.
Thus the surplus days do not cluster at a single point; the year's burden is balanced at two thresholds. Alongside this, the middle of the year is the waist of the seasonal cycle. For this reason, the additional day that arrives every four years serves as an inner balance day that realigns the calendar order with celestial motion. The year is not completed by a closing threshold alone; in some years it also meets a point of adjustment at its middle. Thus the calendar does not carry the celestial difference merely as an operational correction; it turns it into a rhythmic and meaningful emplacement.
In this spine, the yearly flow looks like this:
• Normal year: 364 + 1
Here the 364 days form the orderly body of the 13 months. The 1 threshold day added at the end provides alignment with the solar year. Thus the normal year is completed to 365 days. The calendar's order is preserved, and the astronomical correspondence of the year finds its place as well.
• Leap year: 364 + 2 (in 2028, one day is added at mid-year)
Here the 364-day main body is again the same. To this is added the threshold day at year's end. A mid-year additional day arrives as well, coming once every four years. Thus a total of 366 days is formed. 2028 is an important example in this cycle, because an additional day will appear at mid-year and the calendar will be realigned with celestial motion.
The strength of this system gathers precisely here: the main body of the year carries a flawless order, week and month support each other, the bond with the solar year is preserved, and year's end and mid-year are not left as mere operational correction points; they become two distinct thresholds carrying cultural and customary meaning.
The month names of the calendar are currently taking shape around such a core list.
1. Ocak (old name: Ocak) (other proposals: Kor, Köz, Odak, Yurt, Ateş, Zemheri, Don ayı)
The name Ocak is preserved, because in Turkish it is already rooted, settled, and the meaning it carries is multi-layered. For the first month of the year, the word "ocak" simultaneously calls forth fire, the home, and gathering at the focal point. This month is read as the period when the community draws inward and collects itself, establishes its focus for the new cycle, and gathers its direction from within. Fire here does not narrate only warming; the unity formed around the hearth, the order of the home, the continuation of lineage, and the will of beginning are all inside this name. For this reason, Ocak is a very strong choice for the first step of the calendar, both linguistically and in terms of the cultural spine.
2. Ayaz (old name: Şubat) (other proposals: Keskin, Soğuk, Kıyak, Buzak, Katı, Gücük, Gücük Ay)
Ayaz carries the face-cutting clarity of winter. The spirit of this month is not limited to cold alone; the feelings of sharpness, purification, winnowing, and endurance gather here as well. After the first ingathering at the beginning of the year, the Budun in the second step tests its will; what is superfluous falls away, the essence remains, and as the air sharpens, the inner measure of the human being also becomes more distinct. The word "Ayaz" therefore does not only describe weather; it also calls forth character, simplicity, and purification from excess. The sharp sound of the name likewise sits well with the keenness of this month.
3. Uyan (old name: Mart) (other proposals: Kıpır, Canlan, Uyanış, Devin, Kımıl)
Uyan indicates the first inner movement after long stillness. Here nature does not burst all at once; first, inside the soil, at the tip of the branch, in the water and in the air, a small stirring begins. The strength of this name lies in its selection of the first sign rather than a grand display. In calendric language this is also highly apt; because in a new cycle, the beginning of movement is first felt inside and then spills outward. "Uyan" carries this fine transition, this first noticing, and the return of life. In a communal sense it also bears the call of a shaking-off and a reorientation.
4. Tomur (old name: Nisan) (other proposals: Yeşer, Sürgün, Kabar, Özsürgün, Kökver, Abrul, Yağmur)
Tomur describes the tight force just before opening. In this month life does not hide itself; it prepares to become visible. The word "Tomur" brings the accumulation leading to the result to the foreground rather than the beauty of the result itself. The presence of such a name in the calendar is important; because growth is seen not only in its opened state but also lived in its tightly packed, ready-to-burst strength within. Tomur builds the bond between patience and swelling life. It also expresses the relation between root and surface: that which holds on below appears above.
5. Coşan (old name: Mayıs) (other proposals: Taşan, Gürleş, Cancoş, Açılan, Yürüyen, Çiçek)
Coşan describes the month in which growth turns into visible force. Here nature opens, overflows, expands, thunders, and vitality gains speed. For this reason, rather than a single-piece name like "çiçek" (flower), a word like "coşan," which grasps the whole motion, stands stronger. This month is the phase in which, together with plants, water, light, sound, and the joy of the Budun also increase. The name Coşan gives the feel of energy, thrust, and overflow to this part of the year. Alongside this, it also evokes the time in communal life when the Toy, movement, the road, and the desire for production multiply.
6. Doğuş (old name: Haziran) (other proposals: Yüksel, Tazelen, Açılış, Canver, Kiraz, Yayla)
Doğuş describes the month in which the rising vitality clearly constructs itself. Here nature leaves behind the phase of preparation; it establishes its own being, gains visible power, and the year's upward-opening line becomes distinct. The word "Doğuş" therefore narrates nature; alongside this, it narrates direction. For something to be born means to come out into the world and take its own place. Within the calendar this name constructs the first great threshold of maturation in the year. The weather-related rise is here; alongside this, culturally, the feeling of visibility, openness, and strengthening is carried.
7. Sarım (newly added month) (other proposals: Aray, Kıvrım, Dolam, Çevrim, Evreç, Uğrak)
Sarım is the focal month of this calendar and represents the new link not present in the former system. Operationally, it stands at the heart of the 13-month system; intellectually, it makes visible the spiral walk of time. Here the year is not split in two along a straight line; it wraps around itself, testing the same essence once more in a new context. For this reason Sarım does not carry a name that merely denotes place, like "middle month." It narrates the inner curve of the turn, the new coil of the cycle, and time's advance by folding into itself. This name is the focal knot that joins the calendar's mathematical order to philosophical meaning. It is also one of the most distinctive names of the calendar.
8. Alaz (old name: Temmuz) (other proposals: Közün, Yakı, Koruç, Kavur, Isı, Orak, Kotan)
Alaz carries the fire-language of summer. In this month heat does not merely rise; it hardens, strikes the surface, presses down on the soil and the body. The word "Alaz" here gives more than bare warmth; it conveys the movement of fire, the flicker of flame, and the robust severity of summer. In the calendar spine this name marks the fiery face of the year with clarity. At the same time it carries a sense of force, endurance, and energy turned outward. The rising in the month of Doğuş here turns into burning intensity.
9. Verim (old name: Ağustos) (other proposals: Dolum, Ürün, Olgun, Doyum, Bollaş, Biçim)
Verim describes the month in which labor finds its return. This word does not merely indicate the field or the tree; it makes clear the bond between labor and result. In this phase of the year nature gives an answer, the human sees the return of the work they have done, what has been awaited becomes concrete. For this reason "Verim" gathers the feelings of production, abundance, return, and completion. In calendric language it is a very functional name; it works on both the material and the imagined level. It does not limit this part of the year to fruit alone; it reads it as the ripe result of every work done.
10. Dönüm (old name: Eylül) (other proposals: Dönüş, Evril, Sapım, Kırım, Yöndeğiş, İlkgüz, Harman)
Dönüm describes the threshold at which the year changes direction. Here the emphasis is placed more on something flowing in another direction than on something ending. The presence of such a name in the calendar is important; because cyclical time is not built only on growth and multiplication but also on knowledge of changing direction and drawing back. The word "Dönüm" carries this break simply and powerfully. The order of light shifts, the air takes on a different character, the year moves into a new course inward. This month is the great gate where the character of motion itself changes.
11. Ekim (old name: Ekim) (other proposals: Ekin, Tohum, Saçım, Serpim, Toprak, Ortagüz)
The name Ekim is preserved, because in Turkish it is a word that has found its precise place and carries its meaning openly. At the heart of this month is the leaving of a word in the soil. The seed here passes beyond being a mere agricultural object; it turns into possibility, intention, and expectation entrusted to the future. Within the calendar, Ekim functions as a month that, while walking toward the closure of the year, also constructs the coming year. Thus it becomes part of autumn and at the same time carries within itself the preparation for the coming year. This dual direction makes the name all the more valuable. The existing Turkish name has already shown its strength here, and so it is preserved.
12. Boran (old name: Kasım) (other proposals: Tipi, Ayazkır, Soğruk, Sertel, Savrul, Ahargüz, Son Güz)
Boran carries the pressure of the approaching winter, the sharp wind, and the weight of the air. In this month the year now bends inward; as the outward force draws back, sharpness becomes distinct. The word "Boran" does not name only a weather event; it simultaneously conveys a pressure, a march, and a hardening. It sits very well in this portion of the calendar; because the year here still flows, but its face has hardened and its voice has deepened. Communally as well, the feelings of preparation, endurance, and pulling oneself together take shape within this month.
13. Aralık (old name: Aralık) (other proposals: Sonay, Bitim, Kapan, Sonuç, Sonluk, Karakış, Nahır)
The name Aralık is preserved, because in Turkish it is a name that carries the closing threshold very strongly. In the word "Aralık" there is the last openness, the passage, and the feeling of the void approaching the end. The year here does not burn out; it reaches its last threshold, gathers its final breath, and prepares to close itself. For this reason Aralık is highly native and highly meaningful for the last month. The gate opening to the year-end special day, Atalar Günü (Ancestors' Day), is established here as well. In calendric terms Aralık carries closure; alongside this, it also carries the orderliness of closing and the gravity of the passage.
Within this structure, the other names in parentheses should not be thought of as randomly added backups. Each one is a proposal moving around the same field of meaning, able to carry the spirit of the same month with a different word. Thus the naming does not remain closed and single-voiced; it stays open to common reason, to shared debate, and to the possibility, in time, of selecting the more correct name. This too is consistent with the spirit of the calendar: measure does not operate as if frozen at a single center; it ripens through common debate. The Budun must come together — perhaps organizing a great celebration — and finalize its choice by vote. Let us now look at all of them in a cause–effect relation.
Let us return to the inner naming logic of the new Pure Turkish calendar pattern. The transformative focus of this structure is gathered in the 7th month. For the 7th month we propose the name Sarım. This word narrates the year's entry into its new coil by wrapping around itself. The cycle here does not follow a straight advance; it changes direction from within, reexamines itself, opens the same essence to a new test. That is, it effectively recalls the Spiral Vibration Principle.
It also universally recalls the balance of opposites and the new opportunities brought by cyclicality. For this reason Sarım, rather than operating as an ordinary month name sitting precisely at the middle of the calendar, makes visible the inner curve of the year, the spiral flow of time, and the second walk of the cycle. Having such a name at the focal point of the calendar also makes it the positional and intellectual spine of the year.
Within this naming, two special days also find their operational and customary places. At the end of the year, after the month of Aralık, once every year comes Atalar Günü (Ancestors' Day) — other proposals: Ata Toyu, Kut Başı, Ulu Gün (whose name should likewise be decided by a vote of the Turkish Budun in a festive atmosphere). This day arrives after the 364-day main body built by the 13 months is completed and forms the threshold of passage to Ocak of the new year. Its operational function is clear: it collects the first portion of the difference between the orderly 364-day structure and the solar year. Its customary openness is the same: the year closes, memory is gathered, the continuity of lineage is commemorated, and the Budun, by refreshing its bond with the past, prepares for the new cycle. For this reason Atalar Günü does not stand as a random leftover piece falling outside the calendar; it takes its place as the closing gate of the year, the day of reckoning, and the threshold of remembrance.
The second special day, arriving once every four years, carries the name Ocak Toyu (other proposals: Kut gün, Gök Gün). This day is placed at the middle of the year in the leap-year cycle. The operational logic is this: the solar year does not last exactly 365 days; a surplus of roughly a quarter day approaches one full day over a four-year cycle. This accumulation takes its place as a separate day at the precise middle of the year. In the near cycle, the first clear example of this is the year 2028; then come 2032, 2036, and 2040. Ocak Toyu's standing at mid-year is a conscious choice.
The closing Atalar Günü at year's end gathers root and origin; the Ocak Toyu at mid-year brings together the living hearth, the family, the child, the generation, and communal unity. Thus two thresholds balance the year's burden at two distinct focal points: one opens to the past and the root, the other turns toward the future and living unity. It is for this reason meaningful to configure it as a holiday or as a special celebration–effort day (for instance, tree-planting activities). At the very least, the Budun pauses its work here, gathers around the family hearth, and can turn toward the children, the continuity of generations, and shared joy.
Thus the operational spine and the customary spine of the calendar unite along the same line. Sarım carries the inner turn of the year. Atalar Günü arrives once at the end of each year and establishes the closing threshold. Ocak Toyu appears once every four years, at mid-year, and integrates the surplus portion of the cycle with the family, the child, and communal unity. Time here is not bound solely to numerical measure. It gains direction, gains meaning, and is bound to memory.
Naturally, readers of this article may immediately wonder: where will state-established days such as 29 October, 30 August, 23 April, 19 May, 1 May, 15 July, and New Year’s Day sit within this new calendar? Will the 28-day month structure push some dates outside the months? By what method will celebration, holiday, and official ceremony order function?
There is a clear and solid answer to this question. First, the basic principle must be laid down. State-established days are not moved by looking at month numbers; they are met in the new system according to their place in the solar year. In the spine built in this article, every month carries 28 days; Atalar Günü (Ancestors’ Day) stands at the end of the year, and Ocak Toyu appears once every four years at mid-year. Thus the days standing outside the months are known from the start: Atalar Günü and Ocak Toyu. State days, for their part, receive their new equivalents within the months.
In the Republic of Türkiye, 29 October is the National Holiday; 23 April, 19 May, and 30 August are official holidays; 1 January, 1 May, and 15 July are also among the general holiday days. Republic Day additionally begins at 13:00 on 28 October and continues through 29 October.
The clearest working model proposed within the system built in this article is as follows: 1 January = the 1st day of Ocak is accepted. The 31 December line = closes with Atalar Günü. In leap years, Ocak Toyu is placed at the middle of Sarım, in line with the requirement of mid-year. This placement also harmonizes with the central character of Sarım.
According to this working model, the new equivalents of official days appear as follows:
1) New equivalents of state days in a normal year
1 January – New Year’s Day → Ocak 1
This equivalent is the simplest and most readily understood. The opening of the civil year and the opening of the new system enter through the same gate. Thus the learning burden for the citizen is reduced; official correspondence and everyday use meet at the same focal point.
23 April – National Sovereignty and Children’s Day → Coşan 1
Coşan is already the phase when vitality rises, overflow and visible vigor become distinct. The children’s day settling on the first day of Coşan produces a very favorable equivalent both symbolically and educationally.
1 May – Labour and Solidarity Day → Coşan 9
The emphasis on labor, production, and solidarity combines easily with the spirit of Coşan. Celebrating labor day in a period when the earth, sound, movement, and communal energy are all increasing strengthens the conceptual accord.
19 May – Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day → Coşan 27
The emphasis on youth, orientation, thrust, and bodily strength here settles near the end of Coşan. This day, approaching the final threshold of the month, may be read as the matured form of exuberant vitality.
15 July – Democracy and National Unity Day → Sarım 28
Sarım is the central cycle of the year. It carries the meaning of inner turn, testing, and re-direction. The national-unity emphasis falling on the last day of Sarım produces, at the middle axis of the year, a call to vigilance and integration.
30 August – Victory Day → Verim 18
This equivalent is very powerful. Verim is the phase when labor finds its return, when maturation becomes visible. Victory falling in Verim carries deep accord with the meanings of obtaining results, receiving returns, and gathering gains.
28 October afternoon + 29 October – Republic Day → Ekim 21 afternoon + Ekim 22
Just as in the current order Republic Day begins at 13:00 on 28 October and continues through 29 October, the same rhythm is preserved in the new system. The afternoon of Ekim 21 becomes the opening threshold; Ekim 22 becomes the main celebration day. This equivalent both preserves the official ceremony order and earns a very clear place in the new system.
Looking at this list, the clear conclusion is: high-visibility state days such as 29 October and 30 August do not spill outside the months. On the contrary, they gain strong, memorable equivalents consistent with the inner logic of the new system, such as Ekim 22 and Verim 18. The extra-month field is reserved for the system’s own internal threshold days: Atalar Günü and Ocak Toyu.
2) What issue arises in a leap year?
In a leap year, because Ocak Toyu enters at mid-year, a one-day shift appears for some fixed state days falling in the first half of the year. This is a consequence arising from the system’s operation. In the document, the placement of Ocak Toyu at mid-year is already proposed precisely to collect this difference and establish the balance.
For this reason, if pure operational conversion is applied, the table in a leap year looks like this:
1 January → Ocak 1. The opening point of the year retains its place.
23 April → Coşan 2. The normal-year equivalent of Coşan 1 advances by one day in a leap year.
1 May → Coşan 10. The same shift continues here.
19 May → Coşan 28. Youth Day settles on the last day of Coşan.
15 July → Sarım 28. Here the balance is re-established. Because Ocak Toyu has already collected the difference at mid-year.
30 August → Verim 18. This date retains its place.
29 October → Ekim 22. This date also retains its place.
That is, in a leap year two distinct clusters emerge: some days in the first half of the year advance by one day, while the major state days after the mid-year threshold retain their places.
This distinction is especially important. Because days of heavy weight in the state memory, such as 30 August and 29 October, lie in the second half of the year and therefore maintain their fixed equivalents even in a leap year. This strengthens the political and ceremonial stability of the system.
So what paths exist to resolve this issue? There is not a single path here. There are several strong paths. Each carries distinct advantages.
A. Pure conversion-table path
In this path, the legal and civil basis remains at the existing official date. At the beginning of each year a conversion table is published for Tengrist equivalents. Thus the citizen, the school, the army, the municipality, the ministry, and the press all see clearly, at the start of each year, which day corresponds to which month.
This way, full compatibility with the current legal order is maintained, no confusion is produced in international and inter-state dating, and the software, archival, calendar-application, and official-document order is easily set up. This path is especially suitable for the transitional phase.
B. Fixed Tengrist-equivalent path
In this path, the major state days are given a Tengrist equivalent once and permanently. Then that equivalent is preserved every year.
An example fixed-equivalent series may be constructed as follows:
1. 1 January → Ocak 1
2. 23 April → Coşan 1
3. 1 May → Coşan 9
4. 19 May → Coşan 27
5. 15 July → Sarım 28
6. 30 August → Verim 18
7. 29 October → Ekim 22
8. 28 October afternoon → Ekim 21 afternoon
This path settles very quickly in the communal memory, provides great clarity for children, schools, and the language of ceremony, and strengthens the inner consistency of the new calendar. This path is highly useful for those who wish to strengthen the inner memory of time.
C. Dual-display path
This path, in my view, carries the potential to be considered the most robust transitional path. For a period, each day is displayed in two forms:
1. 29 October / Ekim 22
2. 30 August / Verim 18
3. 23 April / Coşan 1
4. 19 May / Coşan 27
In this model the state’s official date is preserved; the Tengrist system also settles in the communal memory at the same time. School boards, official posters, state calendars, mobile phone calendars, public software, and ceremony schedules all follow the same order. This path provides an instructive and gentle transition.
D. Celebration-band path
For some major days, rather than remaining limited to a single day, a celebration band may also be established. Republic Day offers a ready example in this regard. In the current order, the afternoon of 28 October and the full day of 29 October are already considered together. In the new system, too, the same structure is preserved:
1. Ekim 21 afternoon: opening, torch procession, preliminary ceremony, youth march
2. Ekim 22: main ceremony, state celebration, parade, communal festivity
The same idea may be extended for 30 August:
Verim 17 evening: torch march, remembrance, historical narrative
Verim 18: main ceremony, victory celebration, communal gathering
This path both expands the ceremonial feeling and lets the day be lived more deeply in terms of hours and flow.
E. Threshold-day preservation path
Here there is one more very important principle:
Atalar Günü and Ocak Toyu must be reserved for this system’s own inner identity. Rather than piling state-established holidays onto these two days, placing them firmly in their strong equivalents within the months is sounder. Because Atalar Günü carries year-end closure, memory-gathering, lineage continuity, and preparation for the new cycle. Ocak Toyu, for its part, brings to the fore family, children, the hearth, and communal vigor at mid-year. Leaving these two days to the system’s own customary weight, rather than filling them with other state-established holidays, provides a more correct design.
As for the kinetic energy to be produced in the field, let us also complete the directly applied processes within this article, thereby dropping our note in the record of history. My recommendation is that this matter be resolved in three layers.
First layer: dual display in transition
In the first phase, dual display takes its place in all official and social usage. Example: 29 October / Ekim 22, 30 August / Verim 18.
Second layer: fixed Tengrist equivalents for the major state days
The main equivalents that will take hold in the communal memory are determined once and preserved: Coşan 1, Coşan 9, Coşan 27, Sarım 28, Verim 18, Ekim 22.
Third layer: reserving threshold days for the system’s own töre
Atalar Günü and Ocak Toyu are not mixed with state days; they are kept alive as the inner customary peaks of the Tengrist system.
When these three layers operate together, the mind of the state is at ease, the communal memory is strengthened, and the new calendar ceases to be a scattered proposal and becomes a living order.
5) How will celebrations be conducted?
This question, too, has a clear answer. Celebrations proceed with the name of the new equivalents and the legal trace of the old date, running together.
State ceremonies
The Presidency, governorships, municipalities, schools, the army, and civil institutions use the dual-display calendar. Both dates appear on ceremony posters. Thus the transitional phase is clear for everyone.
School and educational order
The child does not merely memorize 23 April as “23 Nisan”; at the same time, they learn it as Coşan 1. This is the most powerful path for the settling of a new temporal memory.
Communal language of celebration
Over time, everyday language begins to say this: “This year Republic Day will be celebrated on Ekim 22.” “Victory Day falls on Verim 18.” “Youth Day is on Coşan 27.”
Keeping the threshold days separate
Atalar Günü is lived as the threshold of closure and remembrance. Ocak Toyu is kept alive as the focal point of family, child, Budun, and shared joy at mid-year. These two days give the system its own distinctive spirit.
Digital infrastructure and software
An automatic conversion order is set up for phone calendars, state archives, official correspondence, public applications, school timetables, and press publishing. Thus this work does not remain merely an intellectual proposal but descends directly into daily use. Producing this technical process is, in today’s technology, as simple as child’s play. All that is needed is the will.
That is, there is no lack of solutions here. On the contrary, there are several clear and practicable paths. The matter here is to build the operational reason and to decide together which path to make permanent.
It is worth repeating. The names offered here are proposals. The final decision is not made by a single person; these names ripen on a broad ground of common reason. The gathering of the Tengrists here is natural. Alongside this, this call is not limited to Tengrists. Anyone of any faith who believes in the numerical clarity of Turkish, who seeks equi-measurement and openness in the calendar, and who wishes to build the full independence of their homeland in the cultural field as well may participate in this effort. Because what is being established here passes beyond being the inner calendar of a religious circle; it becomes a shared proposal that raises up again the measuring force of Turkish, the temporal memory of the Turkish past, and the daily language of cultural power.
Another fine distinction emerges here. The Roman month names were exceedingly meaningful in their own historical context; because they worked together with that Budun's theology, state order, and public ceremony. What is needed for the Turkish world is, rather than erasing these names with a blind reaction, to build its own web of meaning more strongly. When one's own seasonal language, one's own threshold rites, one's own production cycle, and one's own ancestral memory are firmly established, the Roman dictionary will recede from the focal point of its own accord. This approach produces constructive emergence rather than destructive reaction. The principles of "measure," "feedback," "assembly," "open-source töre," and "transparent record," constantly emphasized in the three New Tengrism books, keep the construction of the calendar precisely along this constructive line.
The Turk's historical responsibility becomes more visible here. Merely commemorating one's past through narratives of heroism does not suffice; time too must be built with one's own language. Because when the language of time is not built, selfhood is largely thought through the concepts of others. The broad Turkistan and indeed World-Turkic memory of the Turkish past, the written continuity made visible by the Orhon inscriptions, historical temporal organizations such as the Twelve-Animal Turkish Calendar, and the imaginative residues reaching as far as Seljuk art show that we are not dreaming up something here from scratch. What is being done here is gathering the scattered pieces onto a new spine consistent with the needs of the age.
The probability that this spine will also carry inspiration for today's world is high. Today many Buduns live having lost their own calendric memory. Colony-shaped pasts, centered religious standards, and global market flows have pushed indigenous calendars into the background. UNESCO's work on indigenous knowledge shows that this loss has not been confined to the cultural field but has generated great effects in environmental decision-making, resource use, and intergenerational transmission as well. The Turkish calendar here can be an example of courage drawing strength from the past. When a Budun rebuilds its own time, it also gives other Buduns the force to summon back their own calendric memory.
For this reason, defending the Tengrist calendar cannot be seen as a side project for Tengrists. This matter falls directly into the field of customary duty. Because the fundamental headings of the system constructed in the texts of New Tengrism hang in the air without a calendar: indigenous flow, freedom tested by measure, open-source töre, assembly-based decision, auditable structure, common production, ancestral memory, attunement with nature, and advanced adaptability to the high-uncertainty fields of the future. The calendar makes all these headings visible every day. The thought narrated in the book descends into daily life on the page of the calendar. For this reason, the defense of the Tengrist calendar is a threshold that translates theory into living.
The Turk has before him, in this field, an opportunity for emergence drawing on the past. Using Rome's dictionary of time can provide function today within a convenient world order; by contrast, the Turk's building his own calendar renders visible once again his own civilizational axis. A Budun may continue to live within another's year; the same Budun, when it builds its own sky, its own thresholds, and its own language of months, reclaims its memory. Those who say the Tengrist calendar is merely a nostalgic object must therefore understand that this is a civilizational move. And if it is not understood, the Turkish Budun must swiftly diagnose that there is ill intent. Here every month, every threshold day, and every name carries political, theological, cultural, livelihood, and environmental meaning. Time no longer flows around the statue of a foreign ruler; it begins to flow around the Budun's own memory, its own nature, and its own töre.
The operational side of this emergence is also far clearer and more manageable than commonly assumed. Combining the calendars used in the world with the new Turkish calendar is, within today's digital infrastructure, an exceedingly simple operation. Past conversions, dual-display interfaces, automatic mapping tables, state document equivalents, educational software, telephone calendars, operating systems, state records, and inter-communal historical stamps have long reached a level capable of simultaneously carrying two calendars.
The entire digital order we use today already works by mapping different time zones, different writing systems, different currencies, and different time layers. For this reason, using the Turkish calendar in a manner compatible with the world system does not produce a great engineering puzzle. On the contrary, with the right software arrangement it can be put into effect very quickly.
Indeed, the real problem here is not limited to a lack of operational possibility; the real knot is overcoming mental timidity. The Turkish Budun throughout history has been remembered as one that founded states, moved armies, and opened roads. Alongside this, it also carried a founding reason capable of connecting vast fields to one another, of opening passages between different worlds, and of managing complex systems.
For a Budun with such a historical accumulation, producing its own calendar, rendering it convertible between the old and new world orders, and turning it into a part of broad communal use is not an unreachable goal. On the contrary, this step is the natural extension of the Turk's remembering his own strength. Self-confidence here does not produce an emotional slogan; it leans on concrete power, on historical memory, and on the operational tools of the age.
Moreover, this calendar need not remain a closed dictionary used only within. Once systems, applications, software, and state instruments are established that automatically provide the equivalents between the new Turkish calendar and today's world-scale calendar, the Turkish world can become a center producing transformative standards in the field of time as well. And Korbudun will rapidly produce this too.
That is, the matter will not remain at the level of "let us use our own calendar." It will rise to the level of "we build our own calendar and present it to the world in a convertible, teachable, applicable form." This turns cultural power from a defensive closed stance into a productive, transformative, and trail-opening force.
Alongside this confidence, a larger field of opening also emerges. The calendar is the beginning of this move. In the near future, new openings will be developed, built entirely in Turkish and for the Turk, in the name of the Turk, regarding the days of the week, Turkish Toys, customary threshold days, child- and family-focused communal days, and production and commemoration cycles.
The sacred aim here is not limited to changing words. You should realize that what we are doing here is rebuilding all the segments of time. The days of the week, the names of holidays, the seasonal thresholds, and the communal Toys can all be raised back up with the Turkish language’s own sound and meaning order. Thus the entire temporal spine remaining outside the months of the year will begin to speak in a native tongue.
The potential that Turkish carries here is exceedingly great. Because Turkish, with its sound, its roots, its logic of suffixes, and its power of concept-formation, is the one language that carries numerical clarity. Although this clarity has been blurred through various influences over the centuries, weakened here and there, bent here and there under the pressure of other languages, it has preserved its essential strength. The work to be done now is to make the inner mathematics of sacred Turkish — stolen from the Turk — visible once again. The calendar is one of the most fruitful fields for this.
Because the calendar is the place where number and word, measure and meaning, sky and language converge. When month names, day names, and holiday names are rebuilt with the Turkish language’s own pattern, the language, purifying itself gradually, comes into greater harmony with the natural numerical pattern of the universe (and therefore of its creator, Tengri). The root-and-suffix order of Turkish offers an openness that can carry cyclical time very powerfully. When this openness comes alive, the calendar is not merely read; it is felt, lived, taught, carried from generation to generation.
At the end of all this, the picture that emerges is plain. The Turk can build his own calendar, can readily match it with today’s world order in operational terms, can bring it into daily life through dual-calendar or convertible systems, and can then rename the days of the week and the holidays with the same consistency. Such a step takes cultural independence from being an abstract ideal and lowers it into the calendar hanging on the wall, the day appearing on the phone, the month taught in school, and the thresholds the community celebrates. What begins there passes beyond a calendar reform. What begins there is the Turk’s taking his own time back into his own hands.
And a final word;
The intellectual rights of all works produced by Korbudun belong to the Exalted Turkish Budun.
Esen kalın.
References / Kaynakça
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