The neighborhood décor is filled with scarecrows, pumpkins, wreaths, corn . . . the list of our fall favorites goes on.
It may be clear why most of these are typical for autumn, but there are still some interesting origins for this festive time of year.
The word autumn itself has many different connections to other languages, particularly Latin.
While we’ve associated it with “Fall” (the falling of leaves) it’s origin is more closely related to “harvest,” relating to the end of summer.
Speaking of harvesting, scarecrows, a favorite method to make our harvests successful (and add to the seasonal fun) have roots to the year 712 in Japan (for a more spiritual sense to guard villagers).
For now, we’ll just use them to guard our pumpkins. Thanks to our eTutor Sakura and one of our forums, we know “pumpkin” in Japanese is かぼちゃ(kabocha).
Jack-o-lanterns earned their name from an old Irish folktale and were first used in Northern Europe as actual lanterns! How silly is that? Glad we can just have them around for fun!
And of course the beautiful colored leaves of each autumn are found in several parts of the world. Sounds like a great excuse to plan a trip. Think Asia, Japan, Germany and Italy.
