Product Code Database
In a vast number of languages, the names given to the seven days of the week are derived from the names of the in Hellenistic astronomy, which were in turn named after contemporary deities, a system introduced by the and later adopted by the from whom the Roman Empire adopted the system during late antiquity. In some other languages, the days are named after corresponding deities of the regional culture, beginning either with Sunday or with Monday. The seven-day week was adopted in early Christianity from the Hebrew calendar, and gradually replaced the Roman internundinum.
Sunday remained the first day of the week, being considered the day of the sun god Sol Invictus and the Lord's Day, while the Jewish Sabbath remained the seventh. The Babylonians invented the actual seven-day week in 600 BCE, with Emperor Constantine making the Day of the Sun (dies Solis, "Sunday") a legal holiday centuries later.
In the international standard ISO 8601, Monday is treated as the first day of the week, but in many countries it is counted as the second day of the week.
The Ptolemaic system of planetary spheres asserts that the order of the heavenly bodies from the farthest to the closest to the Earth is Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon; objectively, the planets are ordered from slowest to fastest moving as they appear in the night sky.
The days were named after the classical planets of Hellenistic astrology, in the order: Sun ( Helios), Moon ( Selene), Mars ( Ares), Mercury ( Hermes), Jupiter ( Zeus), Venus ( Aphrodite), and Saturn ( Cronus).
The seven-day week spread throughout the Roman Empire in late antiquity. By the fourth century CE, it was in wide use throughout the Empire.
The Greek and Latin names are as follows:
!text-align:right;" | Day (see Irregularities) !Sunday Sōl ( Sun) ! Monday Luna ( Moon) ! Tuesday Mars ( Mars) !Wednesday Mercurius ( Mercury) !Thursday Iuppiter !Friday Venus ( Venus) !Saturday Saturnus (Saturn ) |
With the exception of sabato, the Esperanto names are all from French, cf. French dimanche, lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi.
The Chinese had apparently adopted the seven-day week from the Hellenistic system by the 4th century AD, although by which route is not entirely clear. It was again transmitted to China in the 8th century AD by Manichaeans, via the country of Kangju (a Central Asian polity near Samarkand).The Chinese encyclopaedia Cihai (辭海) under the entry for "seven luminaries calendar" (七曜曆, ) has: "method of recording days according to the seven luminaries 七曜. China normally observes the following order: Sun, Mon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Seven days make one week, which is repeated in a cycle. Originated in ancient Babylon (or ancient Egypt according to one theory). Used by the Romans at the time of the 1st century AD, later transmitted to other countries. This method existed in China in the 4th century AD. It was also transmitted to China by Manichaeans in the 8th century AD from the country of Kang (康) in Central Asia" (translation after Bathrobe's Days of the Week in Chinese, Japanese & Vietnamese, plus Mongolian and Buryat (cjvlang.com) The 4th-century AD date, according to the Cihai encyclopedia, is due to a reference to Fan Ning (范寧), an astrologer of the Jin dynasty. The renewed adoption from Manichaeans in the 8th century AD (Tang dynasty) is documented with the writings of the Chinese Buddhist monk Yijing and the Ceylonese Buddhist monk Amoghavajra.
The Chinese transliteration of the planetary system was soon brought to Japan by the Japanese monk Kobo Daishi; surviving diaries of the Japanese statesman Fujiwara no Michinaga show the seven-day system in use in Heian Period Japan as early as 1007. In Japan, the seven-day system was kept in use (for astrological purposes) until its promotion to a full-fledged (Western-style) calendrical basis during the Meiji period era. In China, with the founding of the Republic of China in 1911, Monday through Saturday in China are now named after the luminaries implicitly with the numbers.
The Slavic languages, Baltic languages and Uralic languages (except Finnish and partially Estonian and Võro) adopted numbering but took Monday rather than Sunday as the "first day". This convention is also found in some Austronesian languages whose speakers were converted to Christianity by European missionaries.Gray, 2012. The Languages of Pentecost Island.
In Slavic languages, some of the names correspond to numerals after Sunday: compare Russian vtornik (вторник) "Tuesday" and vtoroj (второй) "the second", chetverg (четверг) "Thursday" and chetvjortyj (четвёртый) "the fourth", pyatnitsa (пятница) "Friday" and pyatyj (пятый) "the fifth"; see also the Notes.
| понедељак, ponedeljak | среда, sreda | недеља, nedelja |
A number of Bantu languages have days numbered from Monday as an influence from Western missionaries. They brought along with them working days, e.g. in Setswana: Labobedi (the second working day - Tuesday), Laboraro (the third working day), Labone (the fourth working day), Labotlhano (the fifth working day). Sunday became known as the day of going to church when the iron ( tshipi) bell rings, thus Latshipi.
In Chinese language, the week is referred to as the "Stellar Period" (p=Xīngqī) or "Cycle" (t=週).
The modern Chinese names for the days of the week are based on a simple numerical sequence. The word for "week" is followed by a number indicating the day: "Monday" is literally the "Stellar Period One"/"Cycle One", that is, the "First day of the Stellar Period/Cycle", etc. The exception is Sunday, where 日 ( rì), "day" or "Sun", is used instead of a number. A slightly informal and colloquial variant to 日 is 天 ( tiān) "day", "sky" or "heaven". However, the term 週天 is rarely used compared to 星期天.
Accordingly, the notational abbreviation of the days of the week uses the numbers, for example, 一 for "M" or "Mon(.)", "Monday". The abbreviation of Sunday uses exclusively 日 and not 天. Attempted usage of 天 as such will not be understood.
Colloquially, the week is also known as the "Worship" (t=禮拜), with the names of the days of the week formed accordingly. This is also dominant in certain regional varieties of Chinese.
The following is a table of the Mandarin names of the days of the weeks. Note that standard Taiwan Mandarin pronounces 期 as qí, so 星期 is instead xīngqí. While all varieties of Mandarin may pronounce 星期 as xīngqi and 禮拜/礼拜 as lǐbai, the second syllable with the neutral tone, this is not reflected in the table either for legibility.
| 週一]] | 週二]] | 週三]] | 週四]] | 週五]] | 週六]] | 週日/週天]] (or , rarely used) |
Saint Martin of Dumio (c. 520–580), archbishop of Braga, decided not to call days by pagan gods and to use ecclesiastic terminology to designate them. While the custom of numbering the days of the week was mostly prevalent in the Eastern Church, Portuguese and Mirandese, due to Martin's influence, are the only Romance languages in which the names of the days come from numbers rather than planetary names.
Members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) historically objected to the pagan etymologies of days and months and substituted numbering, beginning with First Day for Sunday.
Icelandic is a special case within the Germanic languages, maintaining only the Sun and Moon ( sunnudagur and mánudagur respectively), while dispensing with the names of the explicitly heathen gods in favour of a combination of numbered days and days whose names are linked to pious or domestic routine ( föstudagur, "Fasting Day" and laugardagur, "Washing Day"). The "washing day" is also used in other North Germanic languages, but otherwise the names correspond to those of English.
Etymologically speaking, Swahili has two "fifth" days. The words for Saturday through Wednesday contain the Bantu-derived Swahili words for "one" through "five". The word for Thursday, Alhamisi, is of Arabic origin and means "the fifth" (day). The word for Friday, Ijumaa, is also Arabic and means (day of) "gathering" for the Friday noon prayers in Islam.
There are several systems in the different Basque dialects. Astronomy and Basque Language, Henrike Knörr, Oxford VI and SEAC 99 "Astronomy and Cultural Diversity", La Laguna, June 1999. It references Alessandro Bausani, 1982, The prehistoric Basque week of three days: archaeoastronomical notes, The Bulletin of the Center for Archaeoastronomy (Maryland), v. 2, 16–22.
In Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino), which is mainly based on a medieval version of Spanish, the five days of Monday–Friday closely follow the Spanish names. For Sunday is used the Arabic name, which is based on numbering (meaning "Day one" or "First day"), because a Jewish language was not likely to adapt a name based on "Lord's Day" for Sunday. As in Spanish, the Ladino name for Saturday is based on Sabbath. However, as a Jewish languages—and with Saturday being the actual day of rest in the Jewish community—Ladino directly adapted the Hebrew name, Shabbat.See the image in The Ladino names are in the right-hand column, written in Hebrew characters.
Lord's Day – From Latin Dominicus (Dominica) or Greek Κυριακή ()
Holy Day and First-Day of the Week (Day of the Sun -> Light -> Resurrection -> Born again) ([[Christianity]])
[[Resurrection]] ([[Christianity]])
[[Bazaar]] Day
Market Day
No Work
Full good day
Borrowed from English ''week''
From an [[Old Burmese]] word, not of Indic origin.
Prayer day
After No Work
After [[Bazaar]]
Head of Week
Master (as in Pir, because [[Muhammad]] was born on a Monday)
From an [[Old Burmese]] word, not of Indic origin.
First day of the week
Thing (Assembly), of which god [[Tyr]]/Ziu was the patron.
Second day of the week (cf. Hungarian kettő 'two')
Third day of the week.
From [[Arabic]] 'third day'
From Proto-Slavic 'second'
Mid-week ''or'' Middle
The First Fast ([[Christianity]])
Third day of the week
The day between two fasts (''An Dé idir dhá aoin'', contracted to ''An Déardaoin'') ([[Christianity]])
Five (Arabic)
Fifth day of the week.
Fourth day of the week.
The Fast (Celtic) or Fasting Day (Icelandic) ([[Christianity]])
Jumu'ah ([[Friday Prayer]])
Gathering/Assembly/Meeting ([[Islam]]) – in Malta with no Islamic connotations
Fifth day of the week
Borrowed from Germanic languages
Or canàbara, cenàbara, cenàbera, cenàbura, cenarba, chenàbara, chenabra, chenapra, chenàpura, chenarpa, chenàura, cianàbara, chenabura; meaning holy supper as preparation to the sabbathday(Saturday)
''[[Shabbat]]'' ([[Jewish and Christian Sabbath|Sabbath]])
Wash ''or'' Bath day
Sun-eve (Eve of Sunday)
After the Gathering ([[Islam]])
End of the Week ([[Arabic]] Sabt 'rest')
Week
Half good day
Half day
|
|
