The names of the months.

Sometimes I hear people complain about the uselessness of learning Latin. "It's a dead language", they say, "Nobody speaks it any more"... While it's true that it has stopped being the lingua franca, that is, the language in which people from different parts of the world were able to communicate, it's a matter of fact that the Western World is hugely indebted to the culture and language of the Romans, for so much of our own culture derives from it.

The calendar is a feature that reminds us of how indebted we are to the Romans. To begin with, the very word calendar comes from Kalenda, which was the first day of the month in Latin.
The old Roman calendar used to have ten months and the priests had to add some days at the end so that it kept with the solar year. Later, King Numa changed it to a 12 month year, adding January and February, which became the last months of the year.
Let's have a look at the names of the months in Latin:

•  March. The Romans started the year with the month of Martius, devoted to Mars, the God of war. It was in this month when soldiers started their training.
• April. Aprilis was devoted to the goddess Venus, and although it is uncertain where the name comes from, the Romans thought it came from aprire, which means to open.
• May (Maius) derives its name from the goddess Maia, to whom a sow (female pig) was sacrificed on the first day of the month. Maia, mother of Mercury, was an earth goddess who promoted growth.
• June. The month of Junius is devoted to Juno, Jupiter's wife and mother of several gods and goddesses.
• July was originally called Quintilis, because it was the fifth month. (Remember that the year started in March). However, following Julius Caesar's death, it was called after him. 
• August was originally Sextillis, that is the sixth month. Later, they changed its name for that of Octavius Augustus, the first Roman Emperor.
• September is called so because it was originally the seventh month. Septem means "seven".
• October used to be the eighth month. Octo is eight.
• November comes from nove, or ninth month.
• December was the tenth month, as decem means "ten".
• January was named in honour of the god Janus, the deity related to beginnings and ends. He has two faces, one looking to the past, the other to the future.
• February was the month of the purification rituals caled Februa, which used to be carried out in the middle of this month.