i wonder which season was the first one to be given a name
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@Felthry this makes me think about the naming of colors and which are named first
-- slox
@Felthry oh no i can't find this information anymore
-- slox
@xenon i know it starts with "light" and "dark" (roughly white and black) and then you get red but i forget after that
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@Felthry If I had to guess, when Europe became prominent. Tropical climates only really have 2 seasons, wet and dry. Ancient Egypt had 3, determined by the behaviour of the Nile. I'm having trouble finding out what ancient China did.
@KamareDrache I know four seasons feature prominently in chinese poetry and literature but i don't know about *ancient* china
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@Felthry That's why I'm having trouble, yeah. All my searches just turn up modern China regardless.
@KamareDrache yeah the question is does it predate european contact with china
china's a big enough place that it covers lots of climates, and i'm sure some of them have four seasons as distinctly as europe does, so it wouldn't be too surprising
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@Felthry probably spring, lots of stuff like that was motivated by farming
@monorail i was thinking winter, because it's the one that's most clearly distinct from the rest, at least in the climates we're familiar with--and i thiiiink also the climate of the indus river valley? which gives it a good chance of being among the first to be named since that was one of the oldest civilizations we know of
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@Felthry hmm good call
@monorail but also spring being the time you plant things is reasonable! also if i'm wrong and the indus river valley gets like, monsoons or something then monsoon season (or perhaps calm-weather season) may have been the first named
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@Felthry I'd guess "dry" or "rainy". elephants communicate and move seasonally to where they can find water. they might already have a word for that? that level of vocabulary probably predates h. sapiens
also when did four seasons become the accepted standard number of seasons, i feel like that was probably relatively recent
-F