[Ilugc] computerising the tamil calendar
- From: arun289@xxxxxxxxx (Arun Venkataswamy)
- Date: Mon Jul 12 12:56:17 2010
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 11:43 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves
<lawgon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
I was looking at the calendar on my wall - all the days are there and July
1st
is always Aani 17th. But in practice this is not so - from what you say and
from what I have understood. Therefore the printed tamil calendar can only
be
accurate with a margin of error of two days. Right? - only the name of the
year can be more or less accurate - but even that, for the beginning and
the
end of the year there is a two day margin of error?
The printed calendar will always be right - This is because the designers
would have referred to a Panchangam, which will give them the astronomical
data, or more simply the entire calendar to refer to. This is one of the
reasons why there will be a Panchangam printed every year. Calculations are
made (or referred to an ephemeris) for the year and then printed. There is
no perpetual calendar like the western calendar.
Regarding varying start of month, take a look at this-
The month of Aadi starts on-
16th July in 1996, 17th July in 1997, 17th July in 1998, 17th July in
1999, 16th July in 2000, 16th July in 2001, 16th July in 2002
Regarding varying number of days for the same month, take a look at this-
Month of Vaikasi had 32 days in 1996 and 31 days in 1998. Similarly, Aani
had 31 days in 1996 and 32 days in 1998.
Yes, the year names are more simple - 60 names cycled over and over. This 60
years is based on 5 Jupiter revolutions around the sun (Jovian periods).
[Off topic to this discussion] This discussion uses the term 'varying' only
because we want to "Map" the Tamil calendar to the western calendar. Most
problems in local computing is because of this, including the simple
keyboard. We are trying to "Map"/"Adapt" the English keyboard to enter
languages which have no grammatical similarity with English. FOSS software
and hardware has the power to let us create fundamental computing blocks
which can be out of the box and not an adaptation. This gives us
an opportunity to use the brilliance of our cultural/scientific heritage
(Indian calendars / languages) in computing.
Arun.
--
Arun Venkataswamy
http://arun289.wordpress.com
Other related posts: