Das Schaltjahr – a blog post for leap years!

 Das Schaltjahr - a blog post for leap years!

This year is a leap year and as my blog post comes out on the 29th February, I thought it would be a good idea to tell you about das Schaltjahr as the leap year is called in German.

I googled ‘Schaltjahr’ and also ‘Schalttag’ to find out why the 29th February is called Schalttag in German. It took me a long time to find an explanation but I finally found it. The word Schaltjahr comes from the Old High German scaltjār, which in the Middle High German turned into schaltjār, which then developed into Schaltjahr.  The original word scaltjār meant ‘the year in which an extra day has been inserted’.

German logic as always ☺ 

You probably all know why we have leap years, but if you’d like to find out more, here are some explanations – in German, of course!

Kindernetz has a nice explanation and video: Warum gibt es Schalttage?

And here are two videos for you to watch:


And that’s it – this blog post will resurface in 4 year’s time ☺

Leave a Comment

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.

Close