Samhain The night of 31 October—Halloween—is "Oíche Shamhna" (Irish), "Oidhche Shamhna" (Scottish Gaelic) and "Oie Houney" (Manx), meaning "Samhain night". The day of 1 November, or the whole festival, may be called "Lá Samhna" (Irish), "Là Samhna" (Scottish Gaelic) and "Laa Houney" (Manx), meaning "Samhain day". These names all come from the Old Irish "Samain" or "Samuin" , the name for the festival held on 1 November in medieval Ireland. This comes from Proto-Indo-European "*semo-" ("summer"). One suggestion is that the name means "summer's end", from "sam" ("summer") and "fuin" ("end"), but this may be a folk etymology. In 1907, Whitley
Samhain Stokes suggested an etymology from Proto-Celtic "*samani" ("assembly"), and Joseph Vendryes suggested that it is unrelated to "*semo-" ("summer"), because the Celtic summer ended in August. The Gaulish month name "(pertaining to) Summer" on the Coligny calendar is likely related to the word "Samhain". A festival of some kind may have been held during the 'three nights of "Samonios"' (Gaulish "trinux[tion] samo[nii]"). The Gaulish calendar seems to have split the year into two-halves: the first beginning with the month and the second beginning with the month , which is related to the word for winter, PIE "*g'hei-men-" (Latin "hiems", Latvian