TIME CONCEPT, ETHIOPIAN CALENDAR

Dates, time and the Ethiopian calendar

• Ethiopians follow a solar calendar that is unique as it is almost similar to Julian and Coptic calendars.
• A year has 13 months with the first 12 months having 30 days and the last month consisting of 5 days or 6 days in a leap year.
• Christmas is celebrated on January 7th.
• New Year is celebrated on September 11 or 12th and there is a 8 year gap with the Gregorian calendar.
• Meskel celebrations that commemorates the founding of the cross are held on 26th or 27th September.
• A typical Ethiopian day begins at 6am when the sun rises and is considered as 1.
• To change the Ethiopian time to western clock, add or subtract 6 hours to the western time zone.

Time concept and punctuality

• Just like any African country, time concept in Ethiopia is not held with much importance.
• Rigidity in schedules and meetings is not part of the Ethiopian culture. Meetings here are known to start with lots of social pleasantries characterized with drinking coffee and tea.
• Satisfaction and agreement in meetings are what determine the time which a meeting ends and not during a scheduled time.
• Greetings that are quite formal and courteous happen in business meetings with government officials being referred as “Excellency” without necessarily calling out their names.

Office hours and weekend concept

• Offices here open at 8:30am to 5:30pm in the evening with lunch-breaks running from 12:30pm to1:30pm on Mondays to Thursdays.
• Fridays is an exceptional day as work starts at 11:30am to 1:30pm. With Saturdays, work begins at 8am to 12pm and offices are never open on Sundays.

Public holidays

• Ethiopian calendar has lots of public holidays running throughout the year with the most remarkable ones being on September 11th where people celebrate the Ethiopian New Year.
• On September 27th, locals here celebrate The Finding of the True Cross (Meskel), January 7th is the Ethiopian Christmas, January 19th is the Ethiopian Epiphany and January 24th is Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday (Maulid).
• Public holidays in the country are held with utmost importance and respect

The Ethiopian calendar (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ዘመን አቆጣጠር; yä’Ityoṗṗya zëmän aḳoṭaṭär) is the principal calendar used in Ethiopia and also serves as the liturgical year for Christians in Ethiopia and Eritrea belonging to the Orthodox Tewahedo Churches (Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church), Eastern Catholic Churches (Eritrean Catholic Church and Ethiopian Catholic Church), and Eastern Protestant Christian P’ent’ay (Ethiopian-Eritrean Evangelical) Churches (most Protestants in the diaspora have the option of choosing the Ethiopian calendar or the Gregorian calendar for religious holidays, with this option being used when the corresponding eastern celebration is not a public holiday in the western world).

The Ethiopian calendar is a solar calendar that has more in common with the Coptic calendar of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and Coptic Catholic Church, but like the Julian calendar, it adds a leap day every four years without exception, and begins the year on August 29 or August 30 in the Julian calendar. A gap of seven to eight years between the Ethiopian and Gregorian calendars results from an alternative calculation in determining the date of the Annunciation.

The Ethiopic calendar has twelve months of thirty days plus five or six epagomenal days, which comprise a thirteenth month. The Ethiopian months begin on the same days as those of the Coptic calendar, but their names are in Ge’ez. A sixth epagomenal day is added every four years, without exception, on August 29 of the Julian calendar, six months before the corresponding Julian leap day. Thus the first day of the Ethiopian year, 1 Mäskäräm, for years between 1900 and 2099 (inclusive), is usually September 11 (Gregorian). It falls on September 12 in years before the Gregorian leap year, however.