Having just heard for the first time that a true Indian summer has to be preceded by a freeze, I did a little googling and found this page, which contains detailed investigations of the phenomenon itself and of the possible origins of its name (which goes back at least to a letter by St. John de Crevecoeur dated “German-flats, 17 Janvier, 1778”). The consensus definition:
It is an abnormally warm and dry weather period, varying in length, that comes in the autumn time of the year, usually in October or November, and only after the first killing frost/freeze. There may be several occurrences of Indian Summer in a fall season or none at all.
My father-in-law told me the same thing a few weeks ago. I figured the difference in our usages (he required the frost; I only needed a cold spell) were due to his being a New Englander and my being from Louisiana. Thanks for the further elucidation.
Googling some some, the Glossary of Meterology compares Indian Summer with Old Wives’ summer, St. Martin’s summer, St. Luke’s summer and All-hallown summer.
Digging more, Altweigersommer appears to be the term in German, and été des Indiens in Québécois.
Flipping though a few random dictionaires, I found babie lato (Polish); Schmokdaage, Schmokwedder and Altweiwersummer (Pennsylvania German); бабье лето (Russian); brittsommar and indiansommar (Swedish).
I asked a Chilean colleague, and he saw veranillo de San Martín in a dictionary, but left a message with a friend because he couldn’t remember the term they used back home. A Brazilian colleague insisted that it is summer year round in Brazil thus no need for such a term.
Huh. Sue and I were just speculating about where the name came from two days ago. Thanks for the link!
I just thought to check the OED, which updated its entry in September 2009:
The OED does have the quote from Crèvecœur, but dated “a1813”. That means they couldn’t verify the date of the manuscript, all they can do is put it before the author’s death. What was the problem? A couple of searches in Hathitrust give the answer: the quote is from an essay called “A Snow Storm as It Affects the American Farmer”, which was not included in Crèvecœur’s famous Letters from an American Farmer, but did appear in the edition that he rewrote in French and published in 1787; the English version of this essay was not published until 1925, in a collection of his previously unpublished works. The manuscript in English was apparently undated, and the OED must have decided they couldn’t tell whether it was really written before the French version or after it.
The quote in French, here:
I would tend to think that the French quote should be included as evidence of dating, since obviously Crèvecœur was just translating a term he’d learned from his American neighbors. Of course, this strict dating policy creates much, much more confusion with Shakespeare.
Good points; thanks for doing the research!
Back in 2003…
Altweibersommer. Maybe the tiny spiders that float through the air on long silk threads are compared to old wives’ hair, or something. Just means warm & sunny period in the fall – does not occur after a frost; frost practically never happens before late November, often later still.
From 1803: “…une série de beaux jours, appelés l’été sauvage (Indian-summer): c’est que nous appelons en France l’été de la Saint-Martin; […]”
Later on the same page we learn about the very exciting “hanguign-month (mois de pendaison)”.
Eastern Yidish has at least:
שפּעטזומער (shpetzumer), literally ‘late summer’
חשװן-זומער (khezhvn-zumer), literally ‘Cheshvan summer’ (referring to the second month of the Jewish civil year and the eighth of the Jewish religious year)
װײַבערשער זומער (vaybersher zumer), literally ‘wives’ summer’ (English wives has its older sense here, as in “The Merry Wives of Windsor”)
אַלטװײַבער-זומער (altvayber-zumer), literally ‘old wives’ summer’ (a translation of New High German Altweibersommer).
Spätsommer also exists in German. It means what is says on the tin (“late summer”).
Frühherbst exists in German as well, but there is some cognitive dissonance involved:
# Frühherbst: ca. Ende August/Anfang September bis Mitte September. Die Zeigerpflanze für den Frühherbst ist die Herbstzeitlose, die den „Altweibersommer“ einleitet. #
In Vienna, summer lasted until October 5th this year. Tempora et mores et caetera.
As I said to my neighbour when was trimming the hedge and cleaning the terrace this August, it’s never too late for a good early spring.
Danish has flyvende sommer for the spider hatchlings drifting on the wind; indian summer has been imported from American English with the same meaning — the big encyclopedia still has the explanation about reddish leaves in fall, but qualified with “possibly”.
Reportedly (as in, I don’t think I ever encountered it) there is a metaphorical usage about love affairs late in life. I prefer the older Danish proverb Der går også ild i gamle huse (‘old houses can also catch fire’).
The Swedish meteorological institute has definitions of the seasons based on the 24-hour mean temperature reaching certain thresholds for 5 days running. (7 for spring, because).
This means that there are years without a winter on the south coast of Skåne, and years without a summer in the mountains of Norrland. I don’t know if there are years where both happened, though.
DMI just goes by the 3-month definition, summer is June-August and so on.
This means that there are years without a winter on the south coast of Skåne, and years without a summer in the mountains of Norrland
Vernal Catarrh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernal_keratoconjunctivitis
is very much commoner in countries where there is no Spring.
[“Self-limiting” is an odd description for a potentially blinding disease, incidentally.]
DMI just goes by the 3-month definition, summer is June-August and so on.
I go by that as well. I cock a snook at all those “official” dates.
It must be confusing for those who are told that summer begins on midsummer’s day. Or else a Teachable Moment.
Ireland’s Met Éireann is like DMI. OTOH in national school one is taught that Irish seasons start on the Celtic quarter days,* except Imbolc is renamed St Brigid’s Day. Many southern-hemisphere Neopagans rotate the quarter days, so Beltane is at Halloween and Samhain at May Day.
* The Irish names of September and October are “mid autumn” and “end of autumn”. Of course, the Latin/English names are also mismatches
The June-August summer has form in Danish, and with April and May usually being fickle and warm dry weather often lasting to a few weeks into September — or sometimes the whole month — it’s not ridiculously far from reality. But the ODS also tells of a learned use for the time from solstice to equinox.
TIL that summer is cognate with L semi — it seems that the ancients only had summer and winter.
“Spring” does seem to be reconstructible, but maybe it counted as part of summer; “fall” seems shakier.
Whether summer is cognate with semi seems to be disputed. Mallory/Adams have them as two separate, unrelated roots. Kroonen does think that summer “continues an IE word for ‘half year, season’” and is related to semi, but the OED etymology (revised 2017) does not seem to accept that:
Sanskrit samā having a meaning of half-year doesn’t necessarily prove it is cognate with the word for ‘half’. There is a lot of discussion of how Germanic and possibly also PIE may have had an older division of the year into only two seasons; on the other hand, Mallory/Adams dispute this:
Anyone know more?
That reconstruction *h₁es-en- ‘autumn’ can also be interpreted as ‘harvest, crop’; its English descendant is earn, as in money.
Altweibersommer
TIL: Hungarian also has vénassonyok nyara “old women’s summer”; likewise, Polish babie lato and Russian бабье лето were mentioned by T. Carter above. Wiktionary at Altweibersommer gives equivalents in Czech, Belarusian, and Ukrainian as well. Elsewhere at Language Hat, in the discussion of gossamer, mab commented: