Months
In the modern Thai calendar, months (Deuan, Thai: เดือน, meaning "month" or "Lunation") are defined by lunar cycles. Successive months (or lunations) are numbered from 1 to 12 within the Thai year. As in other Buddhist calendars, these months have names that derive from Sanskrit, but for the most part are only known by Thai astrologers.
Two successive lunations take slightly more than 59 days. The Thai lunar calendar approximates this interval with "normal-month" pairs (ปรกติมาสฅ ปกกะติมาด Pok-ga-ti-mat) that are alternately 29 and 30 days long. 29-day "hollow months" (เดือนขาด deuan kàat) are odd-numbered (เดือนคี่ deuan kêe); 30-day "full months" (เดือนถ้วน deuan tûan) are even-numbered (เดือนคู่ deuan kôo).
To keep the beginning of the month in sync with the new moon, from time to time either the normally "hollow" Month 7 takes an extra day, or an extra "full" Month 8 follows a normal "full" Month 8.
Months 1 and 2 are named in archaic alternate numbers, with the remainder being named in modern numbers.
Read more about this topic: Thai Lunar Calendar
Famous quotes containing the word months:
“It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively, without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; Mbut when a beginning is made—when felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt—it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days—whatever there may be for the dust—the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?
‘Tis full three months since I did see him last.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)