By Anatoly Liberman
The ancient Indo-Europeans lived in the northern hemisphere (see the previous post), but, although this conclusion is certain, it does not follow that they divided the year into four seasons. Our perception of climate is colored too strongly by Vivaldi, the French impressionists, and popular restaurants. At some time, the Indo-Europeans dominated the territory from India to Scandinavia (hence the name scholars gave them). They lived and traveled in many climate zones, and no word for “winter,” “spring,” “summer,” and “autumn” is common to the entire family; yet some cover several language groups.
It is rather probable that the worldview of the earliest Indo-Europeans was in part determined by a tripartite model of the universe. Julius Caesar must have divided Gaul into three parts almost instinctively. He grew up knowing three main gods: Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus. The terrible hell dog Cerberus had three heads. An echo of the old beliefs is still distinct in epic poetry and fairy tales. The story usually revolves around three brothers or three sisters. The protagonist performs three difficult tasks. The Scandinavian gods often travel in three’s company, and so do Russian warriors. Heaven, our earthly habitat, and the underground kingdom make up another familiar triad. At some time, the “Indo-European year” may have consisted of (1) spring and summer, (2) summer and autumn, and (3) winter.
But the speakers of Greek, Latin, Slavic, and Germanic already knew four seasons. At least some of their names are still clear to us. Gothic asans (a word recorded in the fourth century, like the rest of Gothic) glossed Greek théros and meant “harvest” and “summer; heat” (English has many therm- words from this root). Its Slavic cognate (for example, Russian osen’) means “autumn, fall.” Thanks to Gothic, the Slavic word becomes transparent: not “autumn,” but “harvest.” German Ernte “harvest” and Engl. earn are related to asans ~ osen’. Perhaps gathering a crop was called simply “work”; then from “work (in the field)” to “harvest” and “autumn.” German Herbst “autumn, fall” corresponds to Engl. harvest (see again last week’s post); here English sheds light on German. It is of course more natural to associate harvest with the fall than with summer, but all depends on when summer ends and autumn begins. According to the conventional division of the year, spring consists of March, April, and May. However, “real” spring comes to us on March 23, which pushes summer to June 23, and so on.
Été by Alphonse Mucha, 1896.