French, but because my teacher tried to teach all of the days of the week at the same time, they still give me trouble.
They’re named as the planets: Sun-day, Moon-day, Mars-day, Mercury-day, Jupiter-day, Venus-day, and Saturn-day.
It’s easy to remember when you realize that the English names are just the equivalent Norse gods: Saturday, Sunday and Monday are obvious. Tyr’s-day (god of combat, like Mars), Odin’s-day (eloquent traveler god, like Mercury), Thor’s-day (god of thunder and lightning, like Jupiter), and Freyja’s-day (goddess of love, like Venus) are how we get the names Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
In Old English Wednesday was “Wōdnesdæg”, but yeah. Woden is the Anglo-Saxon version of Odin. Also Friday was “Frīġedæġ”. It’s not actually clear from the record if Fríge and Freyja are the same goddess or not, but they’re so similar that it’s a matter of some debate among scholars. The Norse pantheon apparently had no equivalent for Saturn, so Saturday kept the Roman name.
The weekdays were named for the seven “naked-eye” planets known to Hellenistic astrology. (The Sun and Moon counted as planets in that system.) The seven planetary gods were said to watch over the Earth in hourly shifts in order of (geocentric) distance: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. Because a 24-hour day is 3 in arithmetic modulo 7, a different god opened each day of the week, and so the day was named for its opening god. Counting by 24′s (or 3′s) in this cycle ordered by distance gives us the familiar order of days of the week.
Names for days of the week are similarly derived from the planets in other languages, often from the local pantheon. Knowing which Chinese element was associated with which planet from watching the Sailor Moon anime was how I learned the weekday names and associated kanji in Japanese.
Interesting. In Mandarin, at least nowadays, they’re just numbered. Week is “星期” or “star period.” Sunday is “星期 day” but the others are just 星期 one, 星期 two, and so on. I wonder when that happened.
In Japanese, the days are written with 日 and 月, and then the five elements corresponding to each planet: 火, 水, 木, 金, and 土, followed by -曜日. It was spelled the same in Classical Chinese (where the Japanese got it from), until 1911. The Chinese had apparently learned of Hellenistic astrology by the 4th century. In Classical Chinese, I suppose e.g. Wednesday would be literally “Water-Luminary day”.
They’re named as the planets: Sun-day, Moon-day, Mars-day, Mercury-day, Jupiter-day, Venus-day, and Saturn-day.
It’s easy to remember when you realize that the English names are just the equivalent Norse gods: Saturday, Sunday and Monday are obvious. Tyr’s-day (god of combat, like Mars), Odin’s-day (eloquent traveler god, like Mercury), Thor’s-day (god of thunder and lightning, like Jupiter), and Freyja’s-day (goddess of love, like Venus) are how we get the names Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Note also Odin was “Woden” in Old English
In Old English Wednesday was “Wōdnesdæg”, but yeah. Woden is the Anglo-Saxon version of Odin. Also Friday was “Frīġedæġ”. It’s not actually clear from the record if Fríge and Freyja are the same goddess or not, but they’re so similar that it’s a matter of some debate among scholars. The Norse pantheon apparently had no equivalent for Saturn, so Saturday kept the Roman name.
The weekdays were named for the seven “naked-eye” planets known to Hellenistic astrology. (The Sun and Moon counted as planets in that system.) The seven planetary gods were said to watch over the Earth in hourly shifts in order of (geocentric) distance: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. Because a 24-hour day is 3 in arithmetic modulo 7, a different god opened each day of the week, and so the day was named for its opening god. Counting by 24′s (or 3′s) in this cycle ordered by distance gives us the familiar order of days of the week.
Je vous remercie du fond du coeur :)
That is so cool, I can’t believe I’d never heard it before!
Names for days of the week are similarly derived from the planets in other languages, often from the local pantheon. Knowing which Chinese element was associated with which planet from watching the Sailor Moon anime was how I learned the weekday names and associated kanji in Japanese.
Interesting. In Mandarin, at least nowadays, they’re just numbered. Week is “星期” or “star period.” Sunday is “星期 day” but the others are just 星期 one, 星期 two, and so on. I wonder when that happened.
In Japanese, the days are written with 日 and 月, and then the five elements corresponding to each planet: 火, 水, 木, 金, and 土, followed by -曜日. It was spelled the same in Classical Chinese (where the Japanese got it from), until 1911. The Chinese had apparently learned of Hellenistic astrology by the 4th century. In Classical Chinese, I suppose e.g. Wednesday would be literally “Water-Luminary day”.