historically, there have been many calendrical systems in the Sea of Flowers, with no single calendar being widely adopted beyond a small region. as development of the beamrail system increased and rail guilds ran into the desire to unify time observation across their service areas, there were more experiments in creating unified calendars, of which the Scientific Calendar (usually just known as the common calendar) would emerge in CC 1949 and be accepted broadly in many locations.
the first iteration of what would become the Scientific Calendar was designed in CC 1818 by an unknown figure within the Movement for Standardization1, though it would be relegated to just being a working calendar for a handful of organizations for most of the century. its major breakthrough was its adoption (as the Scientific Calendar) by the Congress of Enlightened Scientists2 in CC 1891 largely due to the efforts of Lamhar of Myeunsddoḱ, who gave the calendar alternate month names to represent various values and figures of the Congress. for a time, the Congress had decent connections with the leadership of various polities and guilds, leading to the spread of their calendar within business circles and private assemblydudes' meetings, and when business leaders started floating the idea of adopting a common calendar it was a natural pick to base it off of. the modern calendar, with names based around natural phenomena, was first put into use by the Thelexset and Memexel rail guilds, and quickly percolated out after, being adopted as an official working calendar by the Confederal Assembly and government of Loëz within a year. at present it's a fixture in most locations in the Sea of Flowers, often alongside local calendars, but some regions still haven't adopted it.
the common calendar is a solar calendar with 13 months of either 32 or 24 days, plus an additional end-of-year day outside of any given month, representing the 377 days of the lilin year. months are split into either 3 or 4 weeks (alternating symmetrically) of 8 days each, with 47 weeks in a year. the year starts on the first day of the Autumn season3, with the year-end holiday day happening at the end of the Rainy season. years are counted from the start of Autumn in what was assumed to be the year modern flower cultivation was developed, which is considered CC year 04. accordingly, the current year is CC 1996, and the year the Heavenly Schism ended was CC 1633.
the date is generally given as year-month-day, though it's not uncommon to see year-week-day, especially when using the names of the weeks. while week names are common in a lot of rural local calendars, use of the common calendar's week name doesn't directly map with them, since a lot of rural locales will use the local week name followed by the common month name, instead of two conflicting week names.
the months of the common calendar are as follows:
- Xémala /ʃə.'mæ.la/, shə-MA-lah, the month of fog - 32 days
- Tozýra /to.'zi.ɹa/, toh-ZEE-rah, the month of dust - 24 days
- Fisýra /fɪ.'si:ɹa/, fi-SEE-rah, the month of cool - 32 days
- Liägýra /lɪ.a.'gi.ɹa/, li-ah-GHEE-rah, the month of stillness - 24 days
- Týöda /ti.'o.da/, tee-O-dah, the month of frost - 32 days
- Axiqoda /a.ʃɪ.'qo.da/, ah-shi-QO-dah, the month of snow - 32 days
- Mitela /mɪ.'te.la/, mi-TE-lah, the month of mud - 24 days
- Zoroxa /zo.'ɹo.ʃa/, zo-RO-shah, the month of blooms - 32 days
- Chénalý /tʃə.'næ.li/, chə-NA-lee, the month of breezes - 32 days
- Nérilý /nə.'ɹɪ.li/, nə-RIH-lee, the month of brightness - 24 days
- Halsala /hal,'sæ.la/, hahl-SA-lah, the month of heat - 32 days
- Sqéqelý /sqə.'qe.li/, sqə-QE-lee, the month of wind - 24 days
- Séxelý /sə.'ʃe.li/, sə-SHEH-lee, the month of rain - 32 days
- Year's End
