Indian summer

The late 19th-century Boston lexicographer Albert Matthews made an exhaustive search of early American literature in an attempt to discover who coined the expression.[2] The earliest reference he found dated from 1851. He also found the phrase in a letter written in England in 1778, but discounted that as a coincidental use of the phrase.

Later research showed that the earliest known reference to Indian summer in its current sense occurs in an essay written in the United States circa 1778 by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. The letter was first published in French. The essay remained unavailable in the United States until the 1920s.[3]

Although the exact origins of the term are uncertain,[4] it was perhaps so-called because it was first noted in regions inhabited by American Indians, or because the Indians first described it to Europeans,[5] or it had been based on the warm and hazy conditions in autumn when American Indians hunted.[4] In addition to such conjectures, a great depth of Native American folklore is attributed to describing this phenomenon.

In literature and history, the term is sometimes used metaphorically. The title of Van Wyck Brooks' New England: Indian Summer (1940) suggests an era of inconsistency, infertility, and depleted capabilities, a period of seemingly robust strength that is only an imitation of an earlier season of actual strength.[6] William Dean Howells' 1886 novel Indian Summer uses the term to mean a time when one may recover some of the happiness of youth. The main character, jilted as a young man, leads a solitary life until he rediscovers romance in early middle age.

In British English, the term is used in the same way as in North America. In the UK, observers knew of the American usage from the mid-19th century onwards, and The Indian Summer of a Forsyte is the metaphorical title of the 1918 second volume of The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. However, early 20th-century climatologists Gordon Manley and Hubert Lamb used it only when referring to the American phenomenon, and the expression did not gain wide currency in Great Britain until the 1950s. In former times such a period was associated with the autumn feast days of St. Martin and Saint Luke.[7]

In the English translation of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, the term is used to describe the unseasonably warm weather leading up to the Great October Socialist Revolution.[8]

Similar weather conditions, with local variations also exist. A warm period in autumn is called "Altweibersommer" (de: "old women's summer") in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lithuania, Hungary (Hungarian: vénasszonyok nyara), Estonia (Estonian: vananaistesuvi), and in a number of Slavic-language countries—for example, in Czechia, Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Russia, Slovenia, Serbia, and Croatia—it is known as "old woman's summer" (Czech: babí léto, Ukrainian: бабине літо, Polish: babie lato, Slovak: babie leto, Russian: бабье лето, IPA: [ˈbabʲjə ˈlʲetə], Serbo-Croatian: bablje ljeto). In Bulgaria, it is known as "gypsy summer" or "poor man's summer". In Sweden, there's "Brittsommar" (out of "Birgitta" and "Britta", having their name days around the time, October 7). In Finland,[9] the period is today called "intiaanikesä", a direct translation, but historically a warm period in autumn was named after Bartholomew, his saint day being in late August. In Gaelic Ireland, the phenomenon is called "fómhar beag na ngéanna" (little autumn of the geese).[10]

In temperate parts of South America—such as southernmost Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay—the phenomenon is known as "Veranico", "Veranito" or "Veranillo" (literally, "little summer"), and usually occurs in early autumn between late April and mid-May, when it is known as "Veranico de Maio" ("May's little summer") or as "Veranito de San Juan" ("Saint John's little summer"). Its onset and duration are directly associated with the occurrence of El Niño.

In other countries it is associated with autumnal name days or saint days such as Teresa of Ávila (Portugal, Spain and France), St. Martin's Summer (Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Malta), St. Michael's summer (»Miholjsko leto«, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina), St. Martin's Day (Netherlands), St. Demetrius (Greece and Cyprus), Bridget of Sweden in Sweden, and Saint Michael the Archangel in Wales. In Turkey it is called pastirma yazı, meaning pastrami summer, since the month of November was considered to be the best time to make pastrami.[11]

• Blackberry winter
• Velvet season

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Look up Indian summer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• "Indian Summer" . New International Encyclopedia. 1905.