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For further details on the week, see week. For further details on the history of the seven-day week in particular, see seven-day week. The names of the days of the week have various sources in various languages; the most widespread are religious and numeric. In many cases the names have been changed for religious or secular reasons.
[edit] Astrological originsFurther information: Seven-day week [edit] Heptagram The order of the week days can be derived "geometrically" from an acute heptagram, the {7/3} star polygon (as 24 mod 7 = 3). The luminaries are arranged in the same Ptolemaic/Stoic order around the points of the heptagram. Tracing the unicursal line from one planet to the next gives the order of the weekdays. According to some sources, the weekday heptagram is considerably old:
[edit] First Hour of the DayFurther information: Planetary hours Between the 1st and 3rd centuries the Roman Empire gradually replaced the eight day Roman nundinal cycle with the seven-day week. The astrological order of the days was explained by Vettius Valens and Dio Cassius (and Chaucer gave the same explanation in his Treatise on the Astrolabe). According to these authors, it was a principle of astrology that the heavenly bodies presided, in succession, over the hours of the day. The Ptolemaic system asserts that the order of the heavenly bodies, from the farthest to the closest to the Earth, is: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. (This order was first established by the Greek Stoics.) In astrological theory, not only the days of the week, but the hours of the day are dominated by the seven luminaries. If the first hour of a day is dominated by Saturn ( According to Vettius Valens, the first hour of the day began at sunset, which follows Greek and Babylonian convention. He also states that the light and dark halves of the day were presided over by the heavenly bodies of the first hour of each half. This is confirmed by a Pompeian graffito which calls 6 February 60 a Sunday, even though by modern reckoning it is a Wednesday. Thus this graffito used the daylight naming convention of Valens whereas the nighttime naming convention of Valens agrees with the modern astrological reckoning, which names the day after the ruler of the first daylight hour. These two overlapping weeks continued to be used by Alexandrian Christians during the fourth century, but the days in both were simply numbered 1–7. Although names of gods were not used, the week beginning on Wednesday was named in Greek ton theon ([day] of the gods), as used by the late fourth-century editor of the Easter letters of Bishop Athanasius, and in a table of Easter dates for 311–369 that survives in an Ethiopic copy. These overlapping weeks are still used in the Ethiopic computus. Each of the days of the week beginning on Sunday is called a "Day of John" whereas each of the days of the week beginning on Wednesday is called a "tentyon", a simple transcription of the Greek ton theon.
[edit] Weekdays named after stellar objects[edit] Middle East, Mediterranean, and western EuropeThe seven stellar objects visible to the naked eye, moving in the heavens like living objects, were attributed to gods by the ancients. The planet gods are similar between Sumerians and the Romans.
The oldest Greek attestation of a seven day week associated with heavenly luminaries are from Vettius Valens, an astrologer writing ca 170 CE in his Anthologiarum. The order was Sun, Moon, Ares, Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Cronos; the similarity of Cronos with Chronos was remarked as early as Ptolemy. Valens had studied Egyptian astrology in Alexandria and there had probably also been exposed to Babylonian astrology. From Greece the planetary week names passed to the Romans, and from Latin to other languages of southern and western Europe, and to other languages later influenced by them. [edit] Northern EuropeThe Germanic peoples adapted the system introduced by the Romans but glossed their indigenous gods over the Roman deities (with the exception of Saturday) in a process known as Interpretatio germanica:
[edit] East Asian Seven LuminariesThe East Asian naming system of week-days closely parallels that of the Latin system and is ordered after the "Seven Luminaries" (七曜), which consists of the Sun, Moon and the five planets visible to the naked eye. The five planets are named after the five elements in traditional East Asian philosophy: Fire (Mars), Water (Mercury), Wood (Jupiter), Gold (Venus), and Earth (Saturn).[citation needed] The earliest known reference in East Asia to the seven-day week in its current order and name is the writings attributed to the Chinese astrologer Fan Ning, who lived in the late 4th century of Jin Dynasty. Later diffusions from the Manichaeans are documented with the writings of the Chinese Buddhist monk Yi Jing and the Ceylonese Buddhist monk Bu Kong of the 8th century under the Tang Dynasty. 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 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 era. In China, with the founding of the Republic of China in 1911, Monday through Saturday in China are now numbered one through six, with the reference to the Sun remaining for Sunday （星期日）. For more information on the Chinese ten-day week, see Week#China. For more information on the five elements and their relation to the planets, see Chinese astrology#Wu Xing and Wu Xing.
[edit] Numbered weekdays influenced by Abrahamic religions[edit] Weekdays numbered from SundaySee also: Feria For the majority of the Abrahamic religions the first day of the week is Sunday. Biblical Sabbath (originally corresponding to Saturday), when God rested from six-day Creation, made the day following Sabbath the first day of the week (corresponding to Sunday). Seventh-day Sabbaths were sanctified for celebration and rest. After the week was adopted in early Christian Europe, Sunday remained the first day of the week, but also gradually displaced Saturday as the day of celebration and rest, being considered the Lord's Day. Saint Martin of Dumio (c. 520–580), archbishop of Braga, decided it unworthy to call days by pagan gods and decided to use ecclesiastic terminology to designate them. This was the birth of the present Portuguese numbered system. Martin also tried to replace the names of the planets, but was not successful. In the Middle Ages, Galician-Portuguese retained both systems. The Roman gods' names are still used in Galician language. In the Hebrew and Islamic calendars the days extend from sunset to sunset. Thus, Jewish Shabbat starts at sunset on Friday and extends into Saturday. The first day of the Islamic calendar, yaum al-ahad, starts on Saturday after sunset and extends to sunset on Sunday. Icelandic is notably divergent, 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, although the "pagan" names generally are retained.
[edit] Weekdays numbered from MondayThe ISO prescribes Monday as the first day of the week with ISO-8601 for software date formats. Monday nowadays is considered to be the first day of the week for business and social calendars in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, most of Europe, parts of Asia, some USA calendars, as well as several other countries.[citation needed]) On most U.S. and Japanese calendars however, Sunday is the first day of the week. The Slavic, Baltic and Uralic languages (except Finnish) adopted numbering but took Monday rather than Sunday as the "first day". [2] Nevertheless, they refer to Wednesday as the "middle", which implies numbering from Sunday. Chinese Sunday means "week day"(星期日 or 星期天). Monday is named literally "week one", Tuesday is "week two", and so on. When China adopted the Western calendar Sunday was at the beginning of the calendar week but today Monday is preferred. A second way to refer to weekdays is using the word zhou (周), meaning "cycle." Therefore Sunday is referred to as zhoumo (周末), meaning "cycle's end" and Monday through Saturday is termed accordingly zhouyi (周一） "first of cycle," zhouer (周二) "second of cycle," and etc. Another Chinese numbering system, found in spoken Mandarin and in southern dialects/languages (i.e. Cantonese and Min), refers to Sunday as the "day of worship" (礼拜日 or 礼拜天) and numbers the other days "first [day after] worship" (Monday) through to "sixth [day after] worship" (Saturday). The Chinese word used for "worship" is associated with Christian and Muslim worship. [edit] Weekdays numbered from SaturdayOriginally, when the Romans named the week-days after pagan Gods, Saturnus (Saturday) was the first day of the Week (first planet in the order explained above). The creation week according to Genesis was six-days, on the sixth and final day of creation God created man. Therefore Saturday when "God, having completed the heavens and the earth, rests from his work, and blesses and sanctifies the seventh day" Is seen by some as the first day for man and therefore beginning of the week.
[edit] In HinduismSanskrit attestations of the navagraha "nine astrological forces", seven of which are used for day names, date to the Yavanajataka "Sayings of the Greeks", a 150 CE translation of a 120 CE Greek Alexandrian text.
For more information on the Hindu Gods and their relation to the Planets, see Navagraha.
[edit] Mix of different conventions[edit] Mix of Latin and Slavic conventionsIn Žejane dialect of Istro-Romanian, lur (Monday) and virer (Friday) follow the Latin convention, while utorek (Tuesday), sredu (Wednesday), and četrtok (Thursday) follow the Slavic convention.[4]
[edit] BasqueThere are several systems in the different Basque dialects[5].
[edit] Irregularities[edit] Monday☽1 After No Work [edit] Tuesday♂1 Thing (Assembly) [edit] Wednesday☿1 Mid-week or Middle [edit] Thursday♄1 The day between two fasts (An Dé idir dhá aoin, contracted to An Déardaoin) (Christianity) [edit] Friday♀1 The Fast (Celtic) or Fasting Day (Icelandic) (Christianity) [edit] Saturday♃1 Shabbat or seventh-day Sabbath (Judeo–Christian) [edit] Sunday☉1 (Sabbath in Christianity) [edit] External links[edit] See also
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