I'm happy to have Ilske's correction on this issue, as I had thought
(like Tamara) that "Jahrhundert" was not used in the same way as
"century" is in English. But a further source of confusion, perhaps
especially for non-native English speakers doing research in English
texts, is the fact that there are two ways of referring to a
hundred-year period in English--so that "the late seventeenth century"
and "the late sixteen hundreds" mean the same time period (1651-1699,
more or less). Note that "sixteen hundreds" means 1600-1699, so it's
almost but not exactly the same as "seventeenth century." This may
have something to do with why Americans, in particular, were so
insistent on celebrating 2000 rather than 2001 as an important year.
Do other European languages have this same double system? Come to
that, are the two methods both in regular use in Great Britain, as
they both are in the US?
I realize the lace content of this thread is minimal, but it might be
helpful to people whose linguistic skills are more limited than the
breadth of their research interests...like me <VBG>!
Best to all spiders,
Sue from Raleigh
At 7:06 PM 5/30/2007 -0400, Tamara wrote:
>But I do know the English custom (which is the same as Polish) and in
>English, 16th century means years starting with 1501 and ending with
>1600. Or, possibly, starting with 1500 and ending with 1599; I always
>get confused about that. At any rate, most of the years within the 16th
>century will have 15 at the beginning ("the better to confuse you,
>m'dear", said the big, bad wolf).
>
>German, on the other hand... As far as I know, German follows the
>logical path so, "16 Jahrhundert" are the years *starting with 16*, not
>15.
>
>Hopefully, Ilske will correct me if I'm wrong.
Susan Lambiris
Raleigh, NC
http://home.earthlink.net/~slambiris/
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