Language on Covers/Posters

Urbano Monte's 60-Sheet Manuscript World Map

Norwegian painter Even Ulving (1863–1952)

In 1811, the antiquarian Francis Douce resigned from his position as Keeper of the Manuscripts at the British Museum, citing the following reasons:

Douce joined the Museum in 1807, and became Keeper of Manuscripts. He resigned after only four years much to the regret of the Trustees, notably Joseph Banks. Although Douce stated publicly that he was leaving because of ill health, his personal reasons are preserved in a note (Bodley MS. Douce e.28):
1. The nature of the constitution of the M[useum] altogether objectionable.
2. The coldness, and even danger, in frequenting the great house in winter.
3. The vastness of the business remaining to be done & continually flowing in.
4. The total impossibility of my individual efforts, limited, restrained & controuled as they are, to do any real. or at least much, good.
5. An apparent, & I believe real, system of espionage throughout the place & certainly a want of due respect towards & confidence in the officers.
6. The total absence of all aid in my department.
7. The apartments I reside in are dangerously cold in winter & like an oven in summer. The whole damp, especially the lower room where my books are in great jeopardy & which I never entered, even in summer time, without being sensibly affected with some kind of pain or unpleasant sensation.
8. The general unwholesomeness of the air from sinks, drains, the ill-contrived & filthy water closet; & most of all the large & excessively cold bed chamber with an opening to the back kitchen & all its damp & cellar like smells.
9. The want of society with the members, their habits wholly different & their manners far from fascinating & sometimes repulsive.
10. The want of power to do any good, & the difficulty of making the motley & often trifling committees sensible that they could do any.
11. The general pride & affected consequence of the committees.
12. Their assumption of power, that I think not vested in them.
13. Their fiddle faddle requisition of incessant reports, the greatest part of which can inform them of nothing, or, when they do, of what they are generally incapable of understanding or fairly judging of.
14. And lastly, the imperative, foolish & inconsiderate order that I should report on what Mr. Bean, no real auxiliary to me & who had no business in the house, was doing.
In 1828 he inherited a great part of Joseph Nollekens's fortune. Bequeathed his great collection of books, manuscripts, prints, drawings, coins and medals to the Bodleian Library, apart from Nollekens's bequest of prints in which he had only a life interest, including a substantial collection of Dürers, which came to the BM (reported byW.Y. Ottley to the Trustees, 10th July, 1834). His papers were transferrred to the Bodleian in 1930 and provide a great resource for the history of collecting in the early 19th century.

Strange stories from a Chinese studio by Pu, Sung-ling, 1640-1715

Images of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the British Library

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm

Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books - Georges Perec

http://monumenttotransformation.org/atlas-of-transformation/index.html




Every library answers a twofold need, which is often also a twofold obsession: that of conserving certain objects (books) and that of organizing them in certain ways.

One of my friends had the idea one day of stopping his library at 361 books. The plan was as follows: having attained, by addition or subtraction, and starting from a given number n of books, the number K = 361, deemed as corresponding to a library—if not an ideal then at least a sufficient library—he would undertake to acquire on a permanent basis a new book X only after having eliminated (by giving away, throwing out, selling, or any other appropriate means) an old book Z, so that the total number K of works should remain constant and equal to 361:

K + X > 361 > K—Z.

As it evolved, this seductive scheme came up against predictable obstacles for which the unavoidable solutions were found. First, a volume was to be seen as counting as one (1) book even if it contained three (3) novels (or collections of poems, essays, etc.); from which it was deduced that three (3) or four (4) or n (n) novels by the same author counted (implicitly) as one (1) volume by that author, as fragments not yet brought together but ineluctably bringable together in a Collected Works. Whence it was adjudged that this or that recently acquired novel by this or that English-language novelist of the second half of the 19th century could not logically count as a new work X but as a work Z belonging to a series under construction: the set T of all the novels written by the aforesaid novelist (and God knows there are some!). This did not alter the original scheme in any way at all: only instead of talking about 361 books, it was decided that the sufficient library was ideally made up of 361 authors, whether they had written a slender opuscule or enough to fill a truck.

This modification proved effective over several years. But it soon became apparent that certain works, romances of chivalry, for example, had no author or else had several authors, and that certain authors—the Dadaists, for example—could not be kept separate from one another without automatically losing 90 per cent of what made them interesting. The idea was thus reached of a library restricted to 361 subjects—the term is vague but the groups it covers are also vague at times—and up until now that limitation has been strictly observed.

So then, one of the chief problems encountered by the man who keeps the books he has read or promises himself that he will one day read is that of the increase in his library. Not everyone has the good fortune to be Captain Nemo: “The world ended for me the day my Nautilus dived for the first time beneath the waves. On that day I bought my last volumes, my last pamphlets, my last newspapers, and since that time I would like to believe that mankind has neither thought nor written.”

Captain Nemo’s 12,000 volumes, uniformly bound, were thus classified once and for all—and all the more simply because the classification, as is made clear to us, was uncertain, at least from the linguistic point of view (a detail which does not at all concern the art of arranging a library but is meant simply to remind us that Captain Nemo speaks all languages indiscriminately). But for us, who continue to have to do with a human race that insists on thinking, writing, and above all publishing, the increasing size of our libraries tends to become the one real problem. For it is not too difficult, very obviously, to keep ten or 20 or let us say even a hundred books; but once you start to have 361, or a thousand, or three thousand, and especially when the total starts to increase every day or thereabouts, the problem arises, first of all of arranging all those books somewhere and then of being able to lay your hand on them one day when, for whatever reason, you either want or need to read them at last or even to reread them.

Thus the problem of a library is shown to be twofold: a problem of space first of all, then a problem of order.

1. Of Space

1.1. Generalities

Books are not dispersed but assembled. Just as we put all the pots of jam into a jam cupboard, so we put all our books into the same place, or into several same places. Even though we want to keep them, we might pile our books away into trunks, put them in the cellar or the attic, or in the bottoms of wardrobes, but we generally prefer them to be visible.

In practice, books are most often arranged one beside the other, along a wall or division, on rectilinear supports, parallel with one another, neither too deep nor too far apart. Books are arranged—usually—standing on end and in such a way that the title printed on the spine of the work can be seen (sometimes as in bookshop windows, the cover of the book is displayed, but it is unusual, proscribed, and nearly always considered shocking to have only the edge of the book on show).

In current room layouts, the library is known as a “corner” for books. This, most often, is a module belonging as a whole to the “living room,” which likewise contains a

– drop leaf drinks cabinet

– drop leaf writing desk

– two-door dresser

– hi-fi unit

– television console

– slide projector

– display cabinet

etc.

and is offered in catalogs adorned with a few false bindings. In practice books can be assembled just about anywhere.

1.2. Rooms where books may be put

– in the entrance hall

– in the sitting room

– in the bedroom(s)

– in the john

Generally speaking, only one kind of book is put in the room you cook in: the ones known as “cookbooks.”

It is extremely rare to find books in a bathroom, even though for many people this is a favorite place to read in. The surrounding humidity is unanimously considered a prime enemy of the conservation of printed texts. At the most, you may find in a bathroom a medicine cupboard and in the medicine cupboard a small work entitled What to Do before the Doctor Gets There.

1.3. Places in a room where books can be arranged

On the shelves of fireplaces or over radiators (it may be thought, even so, that heat may, in the long run, prove somewhat harmful),

between two windows,

in the embrasure of an unused door,

on the steps of a library ladder, making this unusable (very chic),

underneath a window,

on a piece of furniture set at an angle and dividing the room into two (very chic, creates an even better effect with a few potted plants).

1.4. Things which are not books but are often encountered in libraries

Photographs in gilded brass frames, small engravings, pen and ink drawings, dried flowers in stemmed glasses, matchbox holders containing, or not, chemical matches (dangerous), lead soldiers, a photograph of Ernest Renan in his study at the Collège de France,3 postcards, dolls’ eyes, tins, packets of salt, pepper and mustard from Lufthansa, letter scales, picture books, marbles, pipe cleaners, scale models of vintage cars, multicolored pebbles and gravel, ex votos, springs.

2. About Order

A library that is not arranged becomes disarranged: this is the example I was given to try and get me to understand what entropy was and which I have verified experimentally several times.

Disorder in a library is not serious in itself; it ranks with “Which drawer did I put my socks in?” We always think we shall know instinctively where we have put such and such a book. And even if we do not know, it will never be difficult to go rapidly along all the shelves.

Opposed to this apologia for a sympathetic disorder is the small-minded temptation toward an individual bureaucracy: one thing for each place and each place for its one thing, and vice versa. Between these two tensions, one which sets a premium on letting things be, on a good-natured anarchy, the other that exalts the virtues of the tabula rasa, the cold efficiency of the great arranging, one always ends by trying to set one’s books in order. This is a trying, depressing operation, but one liable to produce pleasant surprises, such as coming upon a book you had forgotten because you could no longer see it and which, putting off until tomorrow what you will not do today, you finally redevour lying face down on your bed.

2.1. Ways of arranging books

– alphabetically

– by continent or country

– by color

– by date of acquisition

– by date of publication

– by format

– by genre

– by major periods of literary history

– by language

– by priority for future reading

– by binding

– by series

None of these classifications is satisfactory by itself. In practice, every library is ordered starting from a combination of these modes of classification, whose relative weighting, resistance to change, obsolescence, and persistence give every library a unique personality.

We should first of all distinguish stable classifications from provisional ones. Stable classifications are those which, in principle, you continue to respect; provisional classifications are those supposed to last only a few days, the time it takes for a book to discover, or rediscover, its definitive place. This may be a book recently acquired and not yet read, or else a book recently read that you do not quite know where to place and which you have promised yourself you will put away on the occasion of a forthcoming “great arranging,” or else a book whose reading has been interrupted and that you do not want to classify before taking it up again and finishing it, or else a book you have used constantly over a given period, or else a book you have taken down to look up a piece of information or a reference and which you have not yet put back in its place, or else a book that you cannot put back in its rightful place because it does not belong to you and you have promised several times to give it back, etc.

In my own case, nearly three-quarters of my books have never really been classified. Those that are not arranged in a definitively provisional way are arranged in a provisionally definitive way, as at the OuLiPo. Meanwhile, I move them from one room to another, one shelf to another, one pile to another, and may spend three hours looking for a book without finding it but sometimes having the satisfaction of coming upon six or seven others which serve my purpose just as well.

2.2. Books very easy to arrange

The big Jules Vernes in the red binding, very large books, very small ones, Baedekers, rare books or ones presumed to be so, hardbacks, volumes in the Pléiade collection, the Présence du Futur series, novels published by the Editions de Minim, collec­tions, journals of which you possess at least three issues, etc.

2.3. Books not too difficult to arrange

Books on the cinema, whether essays on directors, albums of movie stars, or shooting scripts. South American novels, ethnology, psychoanalysis, cookery books (see above), directories (next to the phone), German Romantics, books in the Que Sais-je? series (the problem being whether to arrange them all together or with the discipline they deal with), etc.

2.4. Books just about impossible to arrange

The rest: for example, journals of which you possess only a single issue, or else La Campagne de 1812 en Russie by Clausewitz, translated from the German by M. Bégouën, Captain-Commandant in the 31st Dragoons, Passed Staff College, with one map, Paris, Librairie Militaire R. Chapelot et Cie, 1900; or else fascicule 6 of Volume 91 (November 1976) of the Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America (PMLA) giving the program for the 666 working sessions of the annual congress of said Association.

Like the librarians of Babel in Borges’ story, who are looking for the book that will provide them with the key to all the others, we oscillate between the illusion of perfection and the vertigo of the unattainable. In the name of completeness, we would like to believe that a unique order exists that would enable us to accede to knowledge all in one go; in the name of the unattainable, we would like to think that order and disorder are in fact the same word, denoting pure chance.

It is also possible that both are decoys, trompe l’oeils intended to disguise the erosion of both books and systems. It is no bad thing in any case that between the two our bookshelves should serve from time to time as joggers of the memory, as cat rests and as lumber rooms.

NOTE

1 / First published in L’Humidité, 1978.

2 / A library I call a sum of books constituted by a non-professional reader for his own pleasure and daily use. This excludes the collections of bibliophiles and fine bindings by the yard, but also the majority of specialized libraries (those in universities, for example) whose particular problems match those of public libraries.

3 / A famously pompous, high-minded 19th-century scholar and writer, unlikely to have appealed to GP.

SOURCE

Georges Perec, “Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books,” Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Penguin, London 1999, p. 148–155.

Gott's Probability Calculation

A Princeton University astrophysicist named J. Richard Gott has a surprisingly precise answer to that question, which I'll get to in a second. But to understand how he arrived at it and what it means for our survival, we first need to take a brief but fascinating detour through the science of probability and astronomy, one that begins 500 years ago with the Polish mathematician Nicholas Copernicus.

You may remember Copernicus as the guy who formulated the heliocentric model of the solar system, which has the sun at the center and the Earth and the other planets orbiting around it. This was a slap in the face to the prevailing view during his time, which was that the Earth was the center of the universe and that the sun and the other planets revolved around us.

That radical notion — that we are not, in fact, at the center of the universe — gives rise to what modern scientists call the Copernican Principle: We are not privileged observers of the world around us. We don't occupy a unique place in the universe. We are profoundly ordinary. We are not special.

Over the centuries, as our understanding of the cosmos has grown, the Copernican Principle has proven to be correct time and time again. Copernicus discovered that the Earth wasn't at the center of the solar system. Later astronomers discovered that the solar system is located far from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Edwin Hubble then discovered that the universe extends well beyond the reaches of the Milky Way.

These examples show the application of the Copernican Principle with respect to our position in space. Several decades ago, Princeton's J. Richard Gott got the idea of applying the principle to our position in time.

The notion came to him in 1969, during a visit to the Berlin Wall in Germany. Back then people had no idea how long the Wall would stay standing. Some thought it would be gone quickly, a casualty of say, rapid political change or a city-destroying war. Others thought it would be around more or less forever — the Great Wall of China had stood for thousands of years, after all.

Gott decided to apply the Copernican Principle: “I'm not special,” he reasons in the book “Welcome to the Universe,” co-written with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Michael Strauss. He shouldn't assume his visit was special either — there was nothing particularly noteworthy about the time he decided to visit the Wall, he just happened to go check it out while on a post-collegiate trip to Europe.

“My visit should be located at some random point between the Wall's beginning and its end,” he wrote. If you drew a very simple timeline from the Wall's (known) beginning to its (unknown, as of 1969) end, for instance, it would look like this.



We can divide that timeline up into quarters, like so.



Gott reasoned that his visit, because it was not special in any way, could be located anywhere on that timeline. From the standpoint of probability, that meant there was a 50 percent chance that it was somewhere in the middle portion of the wall's timeline — the middle two quarters, or 50 percent, of its existence.



When Gott visited in 1969, the Wall had been standing for eight years. If his visit took place at the very beginning of that middle portion of the Wall's existence, Gott reasoned, that eight years would represent exactly one quarter of the way into its history. That would mean the Wall would exist for another 24 years, coming down in 1993.



If, on the other hand, his visit happened at the very end of the middle portion, then the eight years would represent exactly three quarters of the way into the Wall's history. Each quarter would represent just 2.66 years, meaning that the wall could fall as early as 1971.



So by that logic, there was a 50 percent chance that the Wall would come down between 1971 (2.66, or 8/3 years into the future) and 1993 (24, or 8 x 3 years into the future). In reality, the Wall fell in 1989, well within his predicted range.



The great thing about Gott's prediction is that it relied solely on statistics. He didn't have to try to make assumptions about human behavior, which is wildly unpredictable. No need to take the pulse of East German politics, or calculate the odds of war between West Germany and the Soviet Union. He just ran the numbers.

Of course, there was an element of sheer luck that his prediction turned out to be correct — he was only aiming for an accuracy of 50 percent, after all. In scientific research the usual standard for accuracy is 95 percent or greater. After the Wall fell in 1989, Gott wrote a paper for the journal Nature modifying his formula to achieve that level of precision.

As it turns out, all that requires is a broadening of the initial assumption: Instead of a 50 percent chance that you are observing something in the middle 50 percent of its lifetime, you could say you have a 95 percent chance of observing that thing in the middle 95 percent of its lifetime. According to the Copernican Principle, this is a very safe bet: You'd have to be incredibly fortunate to be observing something either at its inception (the first 2.5 percent of its timespan) or at its end (the last 2.5 percent).



The 95 percent assumption broadens the predicted timespan considerably. In the case of Gott's visit to the Berlin Wall, to achieve 95 percent confidence on his prediction he'd have to say the Wall's future life span was somewhere between 0.2 and 320 years, instead of the 2.66 to 24 years predicted at the 50 percent accuracy threshold. To improve your confidence in a measure like this, in other words, you have to sacrifice some of its precision.

World Poetry Day

DEADWOOD

Comrade

Inaka Project

Rule the Waves II

Xian 仙/仚/僊; pinyin: xiān; Wade–Giles: hsien

They are immune to heat and cold, untouched by the elements, and can fly, mounting upward with a fluttering motion. They dwell apart from the chaotic world of man, subsist on air and dew, are not anxious like ordinary people, and have the smooth skin and innocent faces of children. The transcendents live an effortless existence that is best described as spontaneous. They recall the ancient Indian ascetics and holy men known as ṛṣi who possessed similar traits. (1994:376)

Pegasus

Bob Layzell

The Lord of Rain: Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858)

Dungan (хуэйзў йүян / huejzw jyian)

Dungan is a variety of Chinese spoken in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. There are approximately 90,000 speakers. The native name for the language is Хуэйзў йүян, which means 'language of the Hui'. In Chinese it is known as 东干语 (dōnggānyǔ).

Dungan is a variety of Guan (官话) and is quite closely related to Mandarin (普通话/國語). Speakers of Dungan can understand varieties of Mandarin spoken in Shaanxi (陕西) and Gansu (甘肃), but tend to find other varieties of Mandarin more difficult to understand. Apparently speakers of Beijing Mandarin can understand Dungan, but Dungan speakers cannot understand them.

There are two main dialects of Dungan: one with four tones which originates in Shaanxi province in China, and one with three tones, which serves as the standard form of the language and comes from the Chinese province of Gansu. Speakers of Dungan fled from Manchu and Chinese persecution over a hundred years ago after an abortive rebellion.

Dungan was originally written with a version of the Arabic alphabet. Between 1928 and 1953 it was written with the Latin alphabet. Since 1953 it has been written with a version of the Cyrillic alphabet. The method of writing Dungan with the Cyrillic alphabet was devised at a conference on 27 May 1953 in Frunze in Kyrgyzstan.

Japan’s 72 Microseasons

The traditional Japanese calendar marks the passing of the seasons and changes in the natural world through the names given to different times of year. There are 24 major divisions, or sekki, from Risshun (Beginning of spring) in early February until Daikan(Greater cold). Originally taken from Chinese sources, these are still well-known around East Asia.

The 24 divisions are each split again into three for a total of 72 kō that last around five days each. The names were also originally taken from China, but they did not always match up well with the local climate. In Japan, they were eventually rewritten in 1685 by the court astronomer Shibukawa Shunkai. In their present form, they offer a poetic journey through the Japanese year in which the land awakens and blooms with life and activity before returning to slumber.

The dates in the following table are approximate and may vary by one day depending on the year. There are no standard readings in Japanese for the kanji names of the 72 kō, so other sources may give different readings.

立春 Risshun (Beginning of spring)
February 4–8	東風解凍 Harukaze kōri o toku	East wind melts the ice
February 9–13	黄鶯睍睆 Kōō kenkan su	Bush warblers start singing in the mountains
February 14–18	魚上氷 Uo kōri o izuru	Fish emerge from the ice
雨水 Usui (Rainwater)
February 19–23	土脉潤起 Tsuchi no shō uruoi okoru	Rain moistens the soil
February 24–28	霞始靆 Kasumi hajimete tanabiku	Mist starts to linger
March 1–5	草木萌動 Sōmoku mebae izuru	Grass sprouts, trees bud
啓蟄 Keichitsu (Insects awaken)
March 6–10	蟄虫啓戸 Sugomori mushito o hiraku	Hibernating insects surface
March 11–15	桃始笑 Momo hajimete saku	First peach blossoms
March 16–20	菜虫化蝶 Namushi chō to naru	Caterpillars become butterflies
春分 Shunbun (Spring equinox)
March 21–25	雀始巣 Suzume hajimete sukū	Sparrows start to nest
March 26–30	櫻始開 Sakura hajimete saku	First cherry blossoms
March 31–April 4	雷乃発声 Kaminari sunawachi koe o hassu	Distant thunder
清明 Seimei (Pure and clear)
April 5–9	玄鳥至 Tsubame kitaru	Swallows return
April 10–14	鴻雁北 Kōgan kaeru	Wild geese fly north
April 15–19	虹始見 Niji hajimete arawaru	First rainbows
穀雨 Kokuu (Grain rains)
April 20–24	葭始生 Ashi hajimete shōzu	First reeds sprout
April 25–29	霜止出苗 Shimo yamite nae izuru	Last frost, rice seedlings grow
April 30–May 4	牡丹華 Botan hana saku	Peonies bloom
立夏 Rikka (Beginning of summer)
May 5–9	蛙始鳴 Kawazu hajimete naku	Frogs start singing
May 10–14	蚯蚓出 Mimizu izuru	Worms surface
May 15–20	竹笋生 Takenoko shōzu	Bamboo shoots sprout
小満 Shōman (Lesser ripening)
May 21–25	蚕起食桑 Kaiko okite kuwa o hamu	Silkworms start feasting on mulberry leaves
May 26–30	紅花栄 Benibana sakau	Safflowers bloom
May 31–June 5	麦秋至 Mugi no toki itaru	Wheat ripens and is harvested
芒種 Bōshu (Grain beards and seeds)
June 6–10	蟷螂生 Kamakiri shōzu	Praying mantises hatch
June 11–15	腐草為螢 Kusaretaru kusa hotaru to naru	Rotten grass becomes fireflies
June 16–20	梅子黄 Ume no mi kibamu	Plums turn yellow
夏至 Geshi (Summer solstice)
June 21–26	乃東枯 Natsukarekusa karuru	Self-heal withers
June 27–July 1	菖蒲華 Ayame hana saku	Irises bloom
July 2–6	半夏生 Hange shōzu	Crow-dipper sprouts
小暑 Shōsho (Lesser heat)
July 7–11	温風至 Atsukaze itaru	Warm winds blow
July 12–16	蓮始開 Hasu hajimete hiraku	First lotus blossoms
July 17–22	鷹乃学習 Taka sunawachi waza o narau	Hawks learn to fly
大暑 Taisho (Greater heat)
July 23–28	桐始結花 Kiri hajimete hana o musubu	Paulownia trees produce seeds
July 29–August 2	土潤溽暑 Tsuchi uruōte mushi atsushi	Earth is damp, air is humid
August 3–7	大雨時行 Taiu tokidoki furu	Great rains sometimes fall
立秋 Risshū (Beginning of autumn)
August 8–12	涼風至 Suzukaze itaru	Cool winds blow
August 13–17	寒蝉鳴 Higurashi naku	Evening cicadas sing
August 18–22	蒙霧升降 Fukaki kiri matō	Thick fog descends
処暑 Shosho (Manageable heat)
August 23–27	綿柎開 Wata no hana shibe hiraku	Cotton flowers bloom
August 28–September 1	天地始粛 Tenchi hajimete samushi	Heat starts to die down
September 2–7	禾乃登 Kokumono sunawachi minoru	Rice ripens
白露 Hakuro (White dew)
September 8–12	草露白 Kusa no tsuyu shiroshi	Dew glistens white on grass
September 13–17	鶺鴒鳴 Sekirei naku	Wagtails sing
September 18–22	玄鳥去 Tsubame saru	Swallows leave
秋分 Shūbun (Autumn equinox)
September 23–27	雷乃収声 Kaminari sunawachi koe o osamu	Thunder ceases
September 28–October 2	蟄虫坏戸 Mushi kakurete to o fusagu	Insects hole up underground
October 3–7	水始涸 Mizu hajimete karuru	Farmers drain fields
寒露 Kanro (Cold dew)
October 8–12	鴻雁来 Kōgan kitaru	Wild geese return
October 13–17	菊花開 Kiku no hana hiraku	Chrysanthemums bloom
October 18–22	蟋蟀在戸 Kirigirisu to ni ari	Crickets chirp around the door
霜降 Sōkō (Frost falls)
October 23–27	霜始降 Shimo hajimete furu	First frost
October 28–November 1	霎時施 Kosame tokidoki furu	Light rains sometimes fall
November 2–6	楓蔦黄 Momiji tsuta kibamu	Maple leaves and ivy turn yellow
立冬 Rittō (Beginning of winter)
November 7–11	山茶始開 Tsubaki hajimete hiraku	Camellias bloom
November 12–16	地始凍 Chi hajimete kōru	Land starts to freeze
November 17–21	金盞香 Kinsenka saku	Daffodils bloom
小雪 Shōsetsu (Lesser snow)
November 22–26	虹蔵不見 Niji kakurete miezu	Rainbows hide
November 27–December 1	朔風払葉 Kitakaze konoha o harau	North wind blows the leaves from the trees
December 2–6	橘始黄 Tachibana hajimete kibamu	Tachibana citrus tree leaves start to turn yellow
大雪 Taisetsu (Greater snow)
December 7–11	閉塞成冬 Sora samuku fuyu to naru	Cold sets in, winter begins
December 12–16	熊蟄穴 Kuma ana ni komoru	Bears start hibernating in their dens
December 17–21	鱖魚群 Sake no uo muragaru	Salmons gather and swim upstream
冬至 Tōji (Winter solstice)
December 22–26	乃東生 Natsukarekusa shōzu	Self-heal sprouts
December 27–31	麋角解 Sawashika no tsuno otsuru	Deer shed antlers
January 1–4	雪下出麦 Yuki watarite mugi nobiru	Wheat sprouts under snow
小寒 Shōkan (Lesser cold)
January 5–9	芹乃栄 Seri sunawachi sakau	Parsley flourishes
January 10–14	水泉動 Shimizu atataka o fukumu	Springs thaw
January 15–19	雉始雊 Kiji hajimete naku	Pheasants start to call
大寒 Daikan (Greater cold)
January 20–24	款冬華 Fuki no hana saku	Butterburs bud
January 25–29	水沢腹堅 Kiwamizu kōri tsumeru	Ice thickens on streams
January 30–February 3	鶏始乳 Niwatori hajimete toya ni tsuku	Hens start laying eggs

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