For the longest time I kept myself from remembering what all these abbreviations stand for. BC was the easiest to remember since it was directly connoted with Jesus Christ, but my brain couldn't clearly file the meaning of all others even after reading numerous times!
Yesterday I decided I'm going to end the confusions, and now here is the way I understand them:
AD literally means "Anno Domini" in Latin language. Anno Domini translated to The Year of the Lord or In the Year of Jesus Christ. So, if the Christ lived for 33 years, the AD means during the 33 years when Christ lived, rest of the abbreviations stand for either before the Christ time or after.
But what is confusing to me is the use of the CE and AD interchangeably. They're two very different abbreviations, why are they treated as the same?
Because, we've gotten so conscious of other religions around the world and want to avoid using a particular religious reference. So, we write CE or BCE to indicate the year something had happened.
Then, there is the "c" written in small letter. Sometime that c becomes "ca". These are also the Latin words. These words come handy when we don't know the exact date of something happened in the past.
So, the CE means "common era" in English. BCE stands for "before the common era". And, the "c" represents approximate era to indicate we don't know the exact date!
Unlike the other abbreviations (BC, BCE, AD, and CE), c is written before the year. For example, c.400 BCE means 400 years before the common era--copied from the source below.
Now the fun part:
Do you know there are more than a few different calendars that started in different times, in different parts of the world, and written in different languages? Here are a few of them:
Julian Calendar...
Hebrew Calendar. ...
Hijri Calendar. ...
Iranian Muslim Calendar. ...
Buddhist Calendar. ...
Nepal Sambat, Vikram Samvat, Shaka Samvat ...
Japanese Calendar. ...
Chinese Calendars,
and many others...
While the Gregorian Calendar is the most widely used in the Western World today, many other traditional calendars continue to be important in other regions. Some of these calendars are based the Sun (solar), some on the Moon (lunar), and some are based on both (lunisolar).
Sources: Worldatlas, Wikipedia common, and the Khan Academy (Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker.
Yesterday I decided I'm going to end the confusions, and now here is the way I understand them:
AD literally means "Anno Domini" in Latin language. Anno Domini translated to The Year of the Lord or In the Year of Jesus Christ. So, if the Christ lived for 33 years, the AD means during the 33 years when Christ lived, rest of the abbreviations stand for either before the Christ time or after.
But what is confusing to me is the use of the CE and AD interchangeably. They're two very different abbreviations, why are they treated as the same?
Because, we've gotten so conscious of other religions around the world and want to avoid using a particular religious reference. So, we write CE or BCE to indicate the year something had happened.
Then, there is the "c" written in small letter. Sometime that c becomes "ca". These are also the Latin words. These words come handy when we don't know the exact date of something happened in the past.
So, the CE means "common era" in English. BCE stands for "before the common era". And, the "c" represents approximate era to indicate we don't know the exact date!
Unlike the other abbreviations (BC, BCE, AD, and CE), c is written before the year. For example, c.400 BCE means 400 years before the common era--copied from the source below.
Now the fun part:
Do you know there are more than a few different calendars that started in different times, in different parts of the world, and written in different languages? Here are a few of them:
Julian Calendar...
Hebrew Calendar. ...
Hijri Calendar. ...
Iranian Muslim Calendar. ...
Buddhist Calendar. ...
Nepal Sambat, Vikram Samvat, Shaka Samvat ...
Japanese Calendar. ...
Chinese Calendars,
and many others...
While the Gregorian Calendar is the most widely used in the Western World today, many other traditional calendars continue to be important in other regions. Some of these calendars are based the Sun (solar), some on the Moon (lunar), and some are based on both (lunisolar).
Sources: Worldatlas, Wikipedia common, and the Khan Academy (Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker.
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