About This Release This is the first release of Date::Ethiopic submitted to CPAN. The package was originally intended to be a part of Convert::Ethiopic::Lite but has inflated to the point where maintenance will be easier in its own package. The package will be a work in progress for quite a while. It is fully functional for basic date conversions and should work with any version of Perl. About This Package Date::Ethiopic offers services for the Ethiopic calendar system that are language and culturally neutral. In addition to Date::ICal the class adds methods for obtaining fasting (Tsome), astrological, and other info unique to the Ethiopic reckoning of time. The Ethiopic context is always assumed, a Gregorian context can be specified when an object is instantiated by adding the "calscale" argument. See examples/dates.pl for a demonstration. The package contains additional classes under the Date::Ethiopic name space that are named under locale conventions. For example, Date::Ethiopic::ET::am, Date::Ethiopic::ER::ti, etc. These classes provide localized day and month names as well as formatting.