Saturday, March 15, 2008

A.D. vs. B.C.

So in my studies today I noticed that Muslims have a calendar system whereby the designate years as "A.H." (from the Latin "anno Hegirae", or "Year of Hijra".)

So that sent me poking around, and I'm wondering, can anyone explain to me why we have "B.C." based on the English "Before Christ", but we have "A.D." based on the Latin "Anno Domini" or "Year of the Lord"?

I mean that's screwed up. They should both be Latin, or both be English.

Maybe we should stick with the more politically correct "B.C.E." and "C.E." At least they're both English, which, for the time being, is the most spoken language on earth (with 1.5 billion +) (although by no means the most spoken *first language* on earth, which as it turns out, is Mandarin, with nearly 900 million native speakers) (which is why after I get a good start on Arabic, one of my goals before I die is to learn Mandarin) (ha--good luck with that) (Hell, if Richard Wurmbrand can learn 9 or 14 languages, I don't know why I can't learn 4.)

1 comment:

byron smith said...

In Latin, B.C. is A.C. (ante Christum)