Torty

WELCOME TO SEPTEMBER: PRESERVE YOUR NAMES TOO

The word "September" comes from the old Italian/Latin word "Septem", meaning "seven". This was because September was the 7th month in the first/oldest Roman calendar (750 BC).

The first Roman calendar had only 10 months that began with March and ended with December.

Let us also not forget that "December" comes from "Decem", meaning ten, in this case, the 10th month.

The first Roman calendar didn't have the months of January and February. It was in ca. 713 BC that they were added.

The period that was later named January and February was initially not added to the ancient Roman calendar because it was the coldest part of the year when no farm work was done. As an agrarian society, the period was seen to be useless.

With the addition, September became the ninth month but retained its original name.

Lessons

Never joke with names, whether surnames, village names or individual names and the names of things given by your forebears.

Names are historical landmarks. There is a reason for every name. That is why we do not change them without serious reasons.

Do you know that your surnames are meant to reveal your ancestral identity? Strangely some of our people, especially since the last 20 years, seem to confuse surnames with fathers' names. They are not the same.

Surnames simply mean the identity of your ancestral lineage. It is that name meant to identify your roots. This is the meaning all over the world. That is why they are hardly changed.

Today many Africans have changed their family and even village names because, according to them, they do not represent their current religious beliefs or affiliation.

But they forget that the family, village and personal names carry the history of their origins, successes, failures, anxieties, tears, and joys.

If the name of the month September had been changed, who would have ever remembered that the ancient Roman calendar contained 10 months? If the European forefathers didn't retain it, many histories connected to it might have been lost today.

Many of us have changed their surnames and village names. Many do not even teach their children their native languages and dialects.

Yet the same people accuse their forefathers of not having written anything or documented any history. Histories are preserved in words, names, language and artworks too.

The more you understand these things, the more you realise that our people are far away from being literate.

N.B: The picture attached to this post is the ancient Roman/first calendar that had 10 months, from which September got its name.

Wishing you a successful month of September.

Fada Angelo Chidi Unegbu