and often involved nuts and apples. In the late 19th century John Rhys and James Frazer suggested it had been the "Celtic New Year", but that is disputed. In the 9th century the Western Church endorsed 1 November as the date of All Saints' Day, possibly due to the influence of Alcuin, and 2 November later became All Souls' Day. It is believed that over time Samhain and All Saints'/All Souls' influenced each other and eventually syncretised into the modern Halloween. Most American Halloween traditions were inherited from Irish and Scottish immigrants. Folklorists have used the name 'Samhain' to refer to Gaelic 'Halloween' customs up until the 19th century. Since the later 20th century Celtic neopagans and Wiccans have observed Samhain, or something based on it, as a religious holiday. Etymology In Modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic the name is , while the traditional Manx Gaelic name is . It is usually written with the definite article (Irish), (Scottish Gaelic) and (Manx). Older forms of the word include the Scottish Gaelic spellings and . The Gaelic names for the month of November are derived from Samhain. These names all come from the Middle Irish Samain or Samuin , the name for the festival held on 1 November in medieval Ireland, which has been traditionally derived from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *semo- ('summer'). As John T. Koch notes, however, it is unclear why a festival marking the beginning of winter should include the word for 'summer'. Joseph Vendryes also contends that it is unrelated because the Celtic summer ended in August. According to linguists Xavier Delamarre and Ranko Matasović, links to Proto-Celtic *samon- ('summer') appear to be folk etymologies. According to them, Gaulish Samon- and Middle Irish Samain should rather be derived from Proto-Celtic *samoni- (< PIE *smHon- 'reunion, assembly'), whose original meaning is best explained as 'assembly, [feast of the] first month of the year' (cf. Old Irish -samain 'swarm'), perhaps referring to an 'assembly of the living and the dead'. Coligny calendar On Gaulish Coligny calendar, dating from the 1st century BCE, the month name SAMONI is likely related to the word Samain. A festival of some kind may have been held during the "three nights of Samoni" (Gaulish TRINOX SAMONI). The month name GIAMONI, six months later, likely includes the word for "winter", but the starting point of the calendar is unclear. Origins Samain or Samuin was the name of