# Octo(m)ber



## Perseas

October, the 10th month of the year. In Greek, the pronunciation is [οktovrios] and the spelling <Οκτώβριος>. Some people erroneously or by choice (?) insert an *μ* *(m)* before β, i.e. Οκτώ*μ*βριος, probably by analogy with Σεπτέμβριος, Νοέμβριος, Δεκέμβριος (September, November, December).
Does this also happen to other languages? I assume yes.
I've also heard that in some languages (like in Romanian, Bulgarian, Armenian, Georgian) the pronunciation or the spelling with *m *is the norm. Is it true? How is the situation in other languages?


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## Yendred

In French, I've never heard an erroneous "m" inserted in _octobre _(whether the "_om_" would be pronounced /om/ or nasalised into /ɔ̃/).
The model of _septembre, novembre, décembre _has no influence on _octobre._


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## Stoggler

Yendred said:


> In French, I've never heard an erroneous "m" inserted in _octobre _(whether the "_om_" would be pronounced /om/ or nasalised into /ɔ̃/).
> The model of _septembre, novembre, décembre _has no influence on _octobre._



Likewise with English, I’ve never seen or heard an ‘m’ being inserted.


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## Panceltic

It is standard in Romanian (Octombrie), Bulgarian and Macedonian (both Oktomvri).


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## Perseas

Panceltic said:


> It is standard in Romanian (Octombrie), Bulgarian and Macedonian (both Oktomvri).


So it’s true what I’ve heard. Greek seems to be the party pooper of the neighbourhood. 😁


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## alfaalfa

Ciao,


Stoggler said:


> Likewise with English, I’ve never seen or heard an ‘m’ being inserted.


The same in Italian.


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## סייבר־שד

Perseas said:


> So it’s true what I’ve heard. Greek seems to be the party pooper of the neighbourhood. 😁


Looks like it , I'm not sure about Armenian, but like Romanian, Bulgarian and Macedonian, Georgian has an "m" in that month's name, as well:

• Georgian: *ოქტომბერი* [okʰtʼomberi]

[Last-minute edit: I deleted the entries for Bulgarian and Macedonian and rewrote my post, because I completely missed @Panceltic 's post where he/she already mentioned those two. Sorry for that!].


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## Welsh_Sion

Out of solidarity with Greece, I would say that, *Cymraeg/Welsh*, so far, is the only language which has no *octo-* or *octom-* connection with regard to '*October*'. You're not alone, Ellas! 

Our word is *Hydref*, identical with the word for '*autumn*' - the only difference being the month is written with a capital letter, the season, generally not: *hydref*.


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## Awwal12

Perseas said:


> Does this also happen to other languages?


In Russian a similar (but different) analogy took place as well. September and November had been loaned from Byzantine Greek into Old Church Slavonic as септѧбрь (septẽbrĭ) and ноѩбрь (nojẽbrĭ) respectively, while October had been loaned as октѫбрь (oktɔ̃brĭ) or октѫврь (oktɔ̃vrĭ)*. However, most East Slavic dialects already had lost their nazal vowels by that moment, changing them to [æ] and [u], which resulted in September and November being initially loaned as [septæbrĭ] and [nojæbrĭ] (however, [septæbrĭ] apparently caused some difficulties and confusion, so forms with [-mt-] and [-nt-] have been also attested; it's the last variant that has made it into modern Russian through all the phonetic changes). Октѫбрь [oktɔ̃brĭ] would have been initially loaned as [oktubrĭ], but that form is virtually unattested in Old East Slavic; the analogical form октѧбрь [oktæbrĭ], based on the [-æbrĭ] ending of the two other months, took its place. With the following palatalizations, the fall of the yers and South Russian akanye (plus some more small tweaks in vowel quality), we basically have the modern standard Russian forms [sʲɪnʲˈtʲab(ə)rʲ], [ɐk'tʲab(ə)rʲ] and [nɐˈjab(ə)rʲ].

*- please note that OCS [oktɔ̃vrĭ] apparently already reflexes -μβ- in the Greek source.


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## hui

Welsh_Sion said:


> Our word is *Hydref*, identical with the word for '*autumn*' - the only difference being the month is written with a capital letter, the season, generally not: *hydref*.



Finnish:
October = *lokakuu *("mud moon")

Finnish month names are written with a lower case letter.


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## Sowka

Stoggler said:


> Likewise with English, I’ve never seen or heard an ‘m’ being inserted.


It's the same in German: No "m" in October. (German spelling _Oktober_).


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## Abaye

In Hebrew no "m", it's October.
Seems that modern Hebrew has borrowed the non-Jewish month names from German, including the pronunciation of October.

BTW: Traditionally we have a mixed lunar-solar Jewish year of 12 months and sometimes 13, their names are borrowed from Akkadian. Turkish shares some of these Akkadian names: Şubat, Nisan, Temmuz, Eylül, but not the one equivalent to October.

BTW2: before (or in parallel to) the Akkadian names, we had Hebrew (or pre-Hebrew) month names, but most of them were lost (completely forgotten) in biblical or pre-biblical time, only 3 are known. We may have had yet another system in which the months or periods of 2-months were named after agricultural actions, see Gezer Calendar.


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## Perseas

Awwal12 said:


> *- please note that OCS [oktɔ̃vrĭ] apparently already reflexes -μβ- in the Greek source.


Do you mean that the Greek source had "October" with m (i.e. Οκτώμβριος)?
(Incidentally, I've read that in some late Byzantine sources the month was spelled with μ)




Sowka said:


> It's the same in German: No "m" in October. (German spelling _Oktober_).


Not even as a mistake? I'm asking because in Greek Οκτώ*μ*βριος is a common mistake.


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## Awwal12

Perseas said:


> Do you mean that the Greek source had "October" with m (i.e. Οκτώμβριος)?


At least it's quite likely, though theoretically the same levelling could have occured already in OCS itself, since forms with the second "o" are attested as well.


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## Sowka

Perseas said:


> Not even as a mistake? I'm asking because in Greek Οκτώ*μ*βριος is a common mistake.


No, never seen or heard (or even considered, until reading this thread; it would indeed be a "logical" mistake).


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## Dymn

*Catalan & Spanish*: _octubre_ (I've never heard a m in there)

Apparently in *Neapolitan* it's _ottombre _(link). Maybe an influence from Greek or an independent development I don't know.


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## merquiades

Perseas said:


> I'm asking because in Greek Οκτώ*μ*βριος is a common mistake.


Doesn't this inserted _m _work just to change the _v_ sound to a _b_? _ Oktobrios_ rather than _Oktovrios_?
I'm just thinking of the mechanisms of the Greek alphabet which lacks a B and represents the _b _sound where existing as _mv_.


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## Perseas

merquiades said:


> Doesn't this inserted _m _work just to change the _v_ sound to a _b_? _ Oktobrios_ rather than _Oktovrios_?
> I'm just thinking of the mechanisms of the Greek alphabet which lacks a B and represents the _b _sound where existing as _mv_.


No, the inserted m doesn't change the v sound to a b.
Οκτώβριος is pronounced [oktovrios]
Οκτώμβριος is pronounced [oktomvrios] or rather [oktoɱvrios].


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## Panceltic

Welsh_Sion said:


> I would say that, *Cymraeg/Welsh*, so far, is the only language which has no *octo-* or *octom-* connection with regard to '*October*'.



Some (Balto-)Slavic languages disagree  *październik* in Polish, *listopad* in Croatian, *vinotok* in (traditional) Slovenian, *říjen* in Czech, *spalis* in Lithuanian


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## Linnets

Perseas said:


> Οκτώβριος is pronounced [oktovrios]
> Οκτώμβριος is pronounced [oktomvrios] or rather [oktoɱvrios].


That's strange, I would have guessed [okˈtobrios, -brjos].


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## Perseas

Linnets said:


> That's strange, I would have guessed [okˈtobrios, -brjos].


β is always pronounced [v]
For example, [émvrio] is the pronunciation of έμβρυο (=foetus).

μπ is pronounced [b] or sometimes [mb].


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## Welsh_Sion

Panceltic said:


> Some (Balto-)Slavic languages disagree  *październik* in Polish, *listopad* in Croatian, *vinotok* in (traditional) Slovenian, *říjen* in Czech, *spalis* in Lithuanian



I have no issue with Slavs.

Note I said, 'so far' when I typed earlier ...


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## Linnets

Perseas said:


> μπ is pronounced [b ] or sometimes [mb].


I got confused, sorry, I thought it was *Οκτώμπριος.


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## apmoy70

Linnets said:


> I got confused, sorry, I thought it was *Οκτώμπριος.


In Tsakonian it is:
*«Γενάρης»* /ʝeˈnaɾis/, *«Φλεβάρης»* /fleˈvaɾis/, *«Μάτζης»* /ˈmad͡zis/, *«Απρίλης»* /aˈprilis/, *«Αμάης»* /aˈma.is/, *«Σερικής»* /seɾiˈcis/, *«Αωνάρης»* /a.oˈnaɾis/, *«Άγουστος»* /ˈaɣustos/, *«Σετέμπρης»* /seˈteɱbris/, *«Οχτώμπρης»* /*oˈxtoɱbris*/, *«Νοέμπρης»* /noˈeɱbris/, *«Δετσέμπρης»* /ðeˈt͡seɱbris/.

Note that months in Greek are masculine.


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## Linnets

I've found occurrences of Italian *_ottombre_ in some letters written in the XIX century.


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## merquiades

I think October is resistant to gaining an -m in English because the vowel is accented -o in -ober rather than accented -e in -ember so people don't associate them. In these cases the vowel sounds are clearly articulated. Maybe a little kid could make up Octember because of September and November but very quickly virtually all naive speakers know the names of their months and wouldn't make a mistake.


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## Perseas

merquiades said:


> I think October is resistant to gaining an -m in English because the vowel is accented -o in -ober rather than accented -e in -ember so people don't associate them.


In Greek the same circumstances (just put /v/ instead of /b/) haven't proved enough to prevent this association.


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## pimlicodude

The Irish for October is "Deireadh Fómhair", literally "end of harvest". Pronounced /dʲerʲə fo:rʲ/ (with a few other pronunciations too).


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