{"id":22911,"date":"2023-06-01T16:46:36","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T16:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22911"},"modified":"2023-06-01T16:46:37","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T16:46:37","slug":"semesters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22911","title":{"rendered":"Semesters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While putting together a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/celtiadur\/2023\/06\/01\/hexagonal\/\">Celtiadur post<\/a> today about words for six and related things in Celtic languages, I noticed that in Cornish a semester is <strong>hweghmis<\/strong> and that it\u2019s <strong>c\u2019hwec\u2019h-miz<\/strong> in Breton. Both mean \u201csix months\u201d. This lead me to wonder about the origins of the word <strong>semester<\/strong>. Does it have anything to do with <strong>six<\/strong>?<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/anthroview\/30707198995\/in\/photolist-NMuqrr-dgLrxW-g5GPED-6fJUsR-brCNNv-KWUwV-2mg6PkY-5J9FDn-KXice-2o4EWA4-6F1vG5-2dn48Xo-6EWkKT-7viJ1C-GX62ej-efWwgj-21jSuBj-2o4dJE6-2jduJpq-9eGYy7-nqSuSU-2jhvcdW-5Y2vLi-HExW6m-9sMVVW-tNVkBm-2mfYTfr-5hJ8dN-F7UfjL-79CLPj-2mg54Ub-2kLLFdT-n1TaXZ-unou-2jhwuZX-fhRPHn-6tPdV6-2jduKNx-ayZCzs-2mfYTfb-2mfUrp7-2mfZMuZ-2mg34qy-79yU1x-2j4mATJ-2kLMgNV-pLZxob-6qhHvf-2kEQHyx-FadiXt\" title=\"public lecture, local historical personage revisited\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/5706\/30707198995_6c6814514c_z.jpg\" alt=\"public lecture, local historical personage revisited\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><\/a><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In English the word <strong>semester<\/strong> means half a school year or academic year, or a period or term of six months. It was borrowed from the German <strong>Semester<\/strong> (semester), from the New Latin <em>s\u0113mestris<\/em> (lasting six months), from <em>sex<\/em> (six) and <em>m\u0113nsis<\/em> (month) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/semester#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>In the UK, academic years used to be divided into three terms. However, these days many UK universities divide their academic years into two semesters, like in the USA.<\/p>\n<p>Another word for <strong>term<\/strong> is <strong>trimester<\/strong>, which also means a period of (about) three months, or a (financial) quarter. It was borrowed from the French <strong>trimestre<\/strong> (quarter [period of 3 months], term, trimester [of pregnancy]), from the Latin <em>trim\u0113stris<\/em> (three months), from <em>tr\u0113s<\/em> (three) and <em>m\u0113nsis<\/em> (month) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/trimester#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, the word <strong>six<\/strong> comes ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European <em>*sw\u00e9\u1e31s<\/em> (six) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/six#English\">source<\/a>]. Words from the same root include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>sixfold<\/strong> = having six component parts; times\/multiplied by six<\/li>\n<li><strong>sixsome<\/strong> = a group of six persons or things<\/li>\n<li><strong>senary<\/strong> = of sixth rank or order; of, pertaining to, or based on six.<\/li>\n<li><strong>sexennium<\/strong> = a period of six years<\/li>\n<li><strong>sextant<\/strong> = a navigational device for deriving angular distances between objects so as to determine latitude and longitude; one sixth of a circle or disc<\/li>\n<li><strong>sextet<\/strong> = a group of six people or things; a composition for six voices or instruments; a group of six singers or instrumentalists.<\/li>\n<li><strong>sextuple<\/strong> = a sixfold amount, having six parts, having six beats to a bar<\/li>\n<li><strong>sextuplet<\/strong> = a group of six objects; one of a group of six persons or animals born from the same mother during the same birth; a group of six notes played in the time of four<\/li>\n<li><strong>hexad<\/strong> = a group of six; an element or radical with the combining power of six units<\/li>\n<li><strong>hexaglot<\/strong> = in six languages<\/li>\n<li><strong>hexahex<\/strong> = a polyhex composed of six hexagons<\/li>\n<li><strong>hexahectaenneacontakaiheptagon<\/strong> = a polygon with 697 sides. Coined humorously to describe the shape of the US state of Colorado. [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/hexahectaenneacontakaiheptagon#English\">source<\/a>]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.japanesepod101.com\/member\/go.php?r=759259&amp;i=b0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/banners\/banner_japanesepod.jpg\" alt=\"The Fastest Way to Learn Japanese Guaranteed with JapanesePod101.com\" width=\"630\" height=\"83\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While putting together a Celtiadur post today about words for six and related things in Celtic languages, I noticed that in Cornish a semester is hweghmis and that it\u2019s c\u2019hwec\u2019h-miz in Breton. Both mean \u201csix months\u201d. This lead me to wonder about the origins of the word semester. Does it have anything to do with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,111,116,10,15,45,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-french","category-german","category-language","category-latin","category-proto-indo-european","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22912,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22911\/revisions\/22912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}