June is called Minazuki in lunar calendar and expressed in Chinese characters as 「水無月」. Well, how can it be interpreted?

水無月

If we take each symbol of Chinese characters used in 「水無月」one by one, it means a month with no water. However, a letter 「無」is a postpositional article in an ancient Japanese grammar whose function is to connect a noun to another noun. Therefore, 「水無月」can be interpreted as a month of water.

Then, what makes June to be called as a month of water?

Previously, I explained that a month before June, 水無月, May, 皐月 indicates the time to plant. When planting is done, filling the farm land with water comes next just like June comes after May. The name of June, a month of water is said to have named after the action of filling water. Related to planting, it is also said that planting required tremendous effort and manpower. Since the planting was what people in the community all helped each other, it was called minna-zuki, a month (tsuki or zuki) when all (minna) put their efforts.

Printed letters of minnazuki on a page of June in a solar calendar used in present days may give natural impressions that June be called as a month of water because it is the rainy season in Japan. But in fact, back in ancient times, a month called minnazuki were indicating the time frame between the end of July and the beginning of August. The lunar calendar and the solar calendar have a slight time gap, so the theory of rainy season seems quite farfetched. Moreover, the ancient minnazuki month was about the beginning of summer when literally had little water as the rainy season had just ended. The interpretation of minnazuki may be correct as a month of no water.    

Besides whether is correct or not, interpreting the Japanese names of months reveals how closely the Japanese people had led their lives with nature and how deeply they had felt the nature in their lives so as to create languages out of it. Also, I cannot help being impressed with the Japanese language that can depict ancient situations in so much details with a variety of word choices especially homonyms.