Talk:Names of the days of the week

Maori

As of February 2019, Maori is listed both as derived from Romance languages, and from Germanic languages. Apeloverage (talk) 08:36, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Why is this in the "Germanic" section ? (question unsigned)

Because one of the two entries under each day in "Maori" was borrowed/derived from English—pretty understandable, given how long Maoris and Anglo New Zealanders have lived together. I gather the other entry under each day is more truly native Maori. I suppose the question of "where" Maori should live depends on which set of those names is really the more common one in Maori as spoken. Which I, for one, don't know. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:32, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Greek Planetary Names

We really need the Greek planetary week names, and their earliest date of attestation. Anyone know? kwami (talk) 10:55, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

They are in the Anthologiarum (Libri IX.1.10) (c. 170) of Vettius Valens mentioned in the astrological section and discussed in his article. Although the entire Greek version is available (though its edition is not given in his article), only small portions of it have been translated into English. This is the earliest attestation of the Greek planetary names to my knowledge. Chris Bennett sent me his translation of the applicable paragraph wherein Valens states that their order is Sun, Moon, Ares, Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite, Cronos. — Joe Kress (talk) 19:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! The order is right, but do you have the Greek names? kwami (talk) 19:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I assume that Sun and Moon should be Helios and Selene. I copied their modern Greek names from their Wikipedia articles:

Ἥλιος, Σελήνη, Άρης, Ἑρμῆς, Ζεύς, Ἀφροδίτη, Κρόνος. — Joe Kress (talk) 01:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I know the names of the planets. I was wondering if there were specific day names. Latin is just 'day of Jove' etc., so maybe that's all they had in Greek too, but it would be nice to get the exact phrasing. kwami (talk) 05:45, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, the English translation only gives the planets. — Joe Kress (talk) 06:11, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Do we know if the Hindu attestation predates Valens and the Manicheans? kwami (talk) 19:55, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Navagraha (nine planets) is probably within the oldest Sanskrit astrological text, Yavanajataka (Sayings of the Greeks), which was translated 149/150 by Yavanesvara from an Alexandrian Greek text written about 120 according to Yavanesvara and versified 269/270. Although its source is probably the same source used by Valens, it cannot be said to predate Valens. Manichaeism was founded a century later by Mani who lived 210–276. — Joe Kress (talk) 03:30, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Great, Joe, that helps. We already have cn tags up for the early history, so I think we should put this in, and if someone comes along who knows of anything older, they can add it. But so far it shows a huge time gap from any supposed Sumerian origins. kwami (talk) 05:45, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The Yavanajataka of Sphujidhvaja lists the seven planets in the classical order of the weekdays (in translation) in chapter 79 verse 52 on page 177: "The lords of the nychthemera are, in order, the Sun, the Moon, Man [Mars], Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn" and verse 55 gives the classical reason: "The lords of the hours in the nychthemera are the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, and Man [Mars]; (if they are put in groups of) 24, (the first ones) are in the order of the lords of the days." Although Vettius Valens states that the order of the planets in the celestial zones are Cronos, Zeus, Ares, Sun, Venus, Hermes, Moon (the classical order from slowest to fastest), he gives two different orders for the hours—for the hours of the night he gives Hermes, Moon, Cronos, Zeus, Ares, Sun, Venus, whereas for the hours of the day he gives the Sanskrit order: Sun, Venus, Hermes, Moon, Cronos, Zeus, Mars, which is also the modern astrological order given by William Lilly in Christian Astrology (1647), chapter XCVII. — Joe Kress (talk) 06:11, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, you obviously know about this, so you should probably be the one writing the article. Meanwhile, I've removed the following section, pending comment:

"Hindu civilization, which used a seven-day week, mentioned in the Ramayana, a sacred epic written in Sanskrit about 500 BC, used names such as Bhanu-vaar meaning Sunday, Soma-vaar meaning Moon-day and so forth."

kwami (talk) 06:23, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

209.212.5.67 (talk) 17:11, 15 December 2010 (UTC)Within this section of discussion I read that Anthologiarum was written c. 170 and that there was an Alexandrian Greek text written about 120 that was the source for Navagraha. I also read that it (the Alexandrian Greek text) cannot be said to predate Valens (Anthologarum). Can someone explain to me why 120 can't be said predate 170? My name is Jimmy Snyder.

The dates given, I beliege, are B.C. If so, 170 B.C. would predate 120 B.C. No? rags (talk) 15:24, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Week-day names in Indonesian and other local dialects

User:Anak_bapak added a list of days under Javanese in Week-day_names#Starting_Sunday (Was first added as Indonesian, then changed shortly afterwards).

There is a different list of Javanese days in section Week-day_names#Hindu_Gods. And also a different list Indonesian of days in section Week-day_names#Starting_Sunday. I'm hoping you could you clarify the difference. I wonder if one of them is a different Indonesian dialect like Minangkabau or Sundanese?

• Do you think that Thursday relates to Brihaspati for Javanese and Balinese? (listed under Week-day_names#Hindu_Gods)

• Indonesian Saturday is Tumpek, I cannot see a similarity with Shani, I wonder if day relates in someway to Jumu'ah due to the Islamic influences? Do you know the translation for Tumpek?

• Javanese listing in Week-day_names#Starting_Sunday has Ngaat / Akad for Sunday. I assume Akad relates to 'one' or 'first'? What does Ngatt translate to?

I hope this can be clarified. --Pnb73 (talk) 11:53, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Urdu

I believe they are;
Itwaar (Sun)
Peer (Mon)
Mangal (Tue)
Budh (Wed)
Jumaaraat (Thu)
Jumaah (Fri)
Haftah (Sat)

Two appear to be the same in Hindi and originate from Hindi gods;
Mangal : Mangalavār : Mangala
Budh : Budhavār : Budha

And Friday being the Islamic gathering day originates from Arabic;

Jumaah : yaum al-jum‘ah : Jumu'ah

But I cannot find where the names originate for;

Itwaar ?
Peer =?
Jumaaraat =?
Haftah = Week?

Can anyone help? --Pnb73 (talk) 12:28, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Swahili

It looks inappropriate that the text before Swahili names quotes the Old Testament while the Swahili words are clearly derived from the Muslim practice which is shown in the footnotes relating the names to Arabic words. Can anybody clear this issue and relate the names to the proper religious tradition? Mockingbird86 (talk) 23:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The preface wasn't intended as preface to Swahili, just the week beginning on Saturday. I do not know why Swahili begins on Saturday. But Islamic creationism suggest Islam acknowledges Genesis or Tawrat although not literally. --Pnb73 (talk) 18:53, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Sanskrit

I'm wondering why the romanized versions of the day names are truncated in comparison to the devanagari. Specifically, each name omits a common ending of vāsaram. Thus, a fully romanized version of each day name would be as follows: Induvāsaram, Bhaumavāsaram, Saumyavāsaram, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sun da sheng (talk • contribs) 16:38, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Hebrew

I don't want to mess with the careful footnotes, but someone should make reference to the fact that Hebrew "yom rishon" (basically Sunday) is literally "Head Day", the head of the week. You might also make reference to the long tradition of calling the sixth day (Friday) the "Preparation Day" for Shabbat, as an alternate name to "shishi". Don't know that translation though. JJB 06:43, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Photo

Hmmm, a photo of a Roman centurian eh? Looks like Mr. Peabody and Sherman have been messing with the WABAC machine again - unless this is a photo of a Roman centurian reenactor (probably more likely). jmdeur 19:25 16 Mar 2009 (utc)

German

I think the omission of German is a bad oversight given the family connexion English has to it, but I wanted to open this up in discussion rather than just edit teh page to include the German names for the days of teh week. If nobody answers however I shall ammend...--Amedeo Felix (talk) 10:05, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

reasons

In many cases the names have been changed for religious or secular reasons.

If secular means 'non-religious', then religious or secular can be omitted! Perhaps it means 'political'? —Tamfang (talk) 16:21, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

m t w r f s u

could anyone add anything concerning these abbrevaitions I know from my time in Florida state universities? They seem universal to academia, but I can find no references for their origins. I bring this up because I use these in my job, and they've caught on, so now my coworkers are fielding questions "why R for thursday" I cannot answer. Thanks. Neophyte here. Hope I haven't done anything wrong. Theresavalek (talk) 14:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

A quick Google search confirms that MTWRFSU are widespread in academia. It also indicates that MTWRFSU are valid parameters for weekdays of the pmset command in the Mac OS X language. Whether Mac got them from academia or vice-versa I can't say. Of course, the initials of the weekdays MTWTFSS repeat T and S twice, so someone chose another letter from the second weekday name of each to create a unique set. Of the letters in Thursday, only H does not appear in any other weekday name, but someone chose R, maybe because its sound is more prominent than H. Of the letters in Sunday, U seems to pair with S for Saturday. — Joe Kress (talk) 00:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

What he said - R and U have the most definition in the words. --Kurtle (talk) 01:41, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

There is a principle thesis in anthropology — not my field — which basicly states that unrelated sources can solve the same problem the same way, because there are only a limited number of ways of solving the problem. The classic example is the canoe. Hiw many ways can you cross a body of water if it's too far to swim? The name of the principle doesn't come to me at the moment, but the idea is that, just because two do it the same way, that is not an indication that one copied the other. The problem has been addressed many times by many people. There is no correct answer for who was first. Another example of crowd-sourcing, before the term was coined. rags (talk) 15:00, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

convergent evolution or reinvention of knowledge --2003:C5:4F25:9A43:1180:4F9C:8630:4EC (talk) 15:07, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

East Asian Seven Luminaries = Weekdays named after stellar objects

Is there any particular reason to have a separate table for east Asian countries, since the system is the same as the one "named after stellar objects"? Shouldn't they be put together? Especially since they are obviously related: How else could it be that the same stellar objects relate to the same days? Ratfox (talk) 16:04, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

More importantly: It says that "The East Asian naming system of week-days closely parallels that of the Latin system". Closely parallels!? Heck no, it mirrors it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.225.28.203 (talk) 10:29, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Three months already... Only agreement. Done Ratfox (talk) 20:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

We still say it 'closely parallels' the European system. I would assume that both have their roots in Mesopotamia or India. It's not just that two civilizations thought to name the days of a week after the seven planets, which might be coincidental, but that they occur in the same order. kwami (talk) 21:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

likewise, I am unimpressed with this particular split. The East asian section alludes to elements, but the actual names (in those languages I know) are planets. There are zero cites or references made for this division, and it looks like someone has an agenda here. There is no doubt in my mind that those languages which call Monday 'moon-day', etc. should be grouped together. The 'why' of it may well be WP:OR, but the fact of it is indisputable. If a regular editor cannot supply references or cites, or doesn't make the obvious change, I shall be bold. (20040302 (talk) 12:41, 29 March 2015 (UTC))

Order of Days

Why is Sunday at the seventh position? Your article seems to be influenced by Christians, as are other articles on wikipedia. Sunday is the first day of the week. Erviltnec (talk) 10:51, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Is that why it's part of the WeekEND? ;) --Kurtle (talk) 01:39, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Logically, as the hours were numbered in descending order of the planets, the first day should be Saturday (since Saturn gets the first hour of the first 24hr cycle), or else maybe Wednesday (if the night and day are ruled separately, as per the original Hellenistic description of the system). Starting from Sunday or Monday makes no sense in this system. Was this numbering originally used, or was this system never put into practice prior to Christian influences on the Roman empire?

For the Jews (credited with bringing the seven day week from Babylon to the world) the sabbath has to be the last day of seven, and they'd already been keeping track of their cycle for centuries. For the early Christians it seems to have been important that the day after the Jewish sabbath, the eighth/first day, was the Lords day. There was some motivation to identify the sun with the son, it was appealing for Sunday (ruled by the bringer of daylight) to be the same day as the one honouring their new "light of the world". (I guess Saturn, god of chaos and the furtherest from Earth, doesn't match the son nearly so well.) But was it a coincidence that the Jewish and Roman cycles matched like so (Saturday with the sabbath), or was the Roman cycle deliberately aligned to suit the Christians (it makes sense for them to use the seven planets, since that was also important to their cosmology, but why would they choose that particular ordering)?

And is counting from Monday just a recent phenomena of focusing on the work days? Cesiumfrog (talk) 09:29, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

If "recent" means since 1582 then yes.

I don't follow this comment. The week has its origin in the creation week as described in the Bible. There is no other origin of the week. That is why the whole world keeps a seven day week in spite of the attempts in Russia and France to change to other lengths of the week. The week ending with Sabbath on Saturday can be traced through the name of this day as can be seen in the article. Abraham kept the seven day week about 1500 years before the return of the Israelites from Babylon. In a museum in Israel there is an object that is said to trace the Sabbath of today, kept by Jews and a few other denominations, back to the time of Abraham. I cannot find the reference right now. Moses kept the seven day week 1000 years before the return from Babylon. European countries numbered the days of the week with Sunday as day 1, and Saturday as day 7 until ISO 8601 was introduced in the 20th century. So did e.g. Germany change the numbering to start with Monday as first day of the week in 1974. The German name for Wednesday is Mittwoch (meaning "middle of the week"). PeriCH (talk) 16:59, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I fixed the ordering of the columns under the sections "Greco-Roman tradition" and "Germanic languages", where context made it obvious that the order should naturally be "Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn". I left the tables under "Numbered weekdays" alone for (hopefully) obvious reasons, as well as those under "Mixing of numbering and planetary names", as I do not want to mess things up where a numbering system may be involved. Also, under "Notes", I put Sunday at the first position, as this is where it most naturally would be, considering that this is an English article, and, as the article implies, this is the majority ordering for those nations influenced directly by the Roman Empire. 74.192.213.91 (talk) 02:13, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

English is spoken outside of america.

Wikipedia is international, and because of that should use international standards. The only countries that start the week by sunday are the USA and Canada. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_week_date for the standard that everybody uses. If we have to use the particularisms of some random part of the world, the Islamic Calendar is as relevant as the American calendar. Or any of these for that matter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_calendars .

Order of Days in the Persian culture

I would like to point out that the actual terms for Persian weekdays are somewhat misleading. Tuesday for instance is in fact the fourth day of the week and not the third (even though the term suggests it). The week starts on Saturday in Persian culture. Hence, the table with the Persian weekday numberings is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.130.4.243 (talk) 15:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I do realise it's been fourteen years, but I think this is worth a revisit if anyone's around this talk page. I think Persian days of the week should be moved to the section "Days numbered from Saturday" as the week starts on Saturday with šanbe, then yekšanbe (yek meaning one), došanbe (do meaning two), etc etc. Would love to hear more thoughts before I make this edit, as I think there is probably a good argument against this.

DuckinaHoodie (talk) 02:05, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Only 1 syntax throughout the whole article?

Is it "week-day" or "weekday"? --Alien4 (talk) 14:21, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Weekday; though week-day is possibly the "correct" way. --Kurtle (talk) 01:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Estonian

Hey I was just wondering if Estonian is the only one (of those mentioned in the week-day names#Weekdays numbered from Monday subsection) without fully numbered weekday names. Because Estonian seems to be a mixture of Northern European and numbered system. The first four days are numbered, but similarly to Northern European style, reede is named after Freya, or at least is derived from any of the Nordic languages. Also an alternative to kolmapäev - "third day", a term kesknädal - "mid week" is used. Saturday is laupäev - similar to the Finnish lauantai. And Sunday is pühapäev - either "feast day" or "holy day".

So my question is, whether other languages in this subgroup have fully numbered days, like from 1st to 7th day, or do they have just some days numbered. Actually in any case, Estonian is a mixture of the forementioned two and should be added to both subsections. My proposition is to add only the days that correspond to either system and add a note that it belongs to both groups. H2ppyme (talk) 13:02, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Saturday in northern Europe

In Week-day_names#Northern_Europe, it says about Saturday, that it's "the only day of the week to retain its Roman origin in English", whilst failing to mention that it is almost the only northern European language to do so. E.g. as one can see in the Saturday article, the Scandinavian names for Saturday mean bath-day and the German Samstag means sabbath day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.225.28.203 (talk) 10:26, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

In Northern Germany, they usually say "Sonnabend" ("Sunday eve") for Saturday, though its usage is in decline. Bostoner (talk) 02:09, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Also how come no one mentions the mild resemblance to surtur?77.138.224.125 (talk) 01:20, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Swahili continued

"== Alhamis ==

the name of a family and means in swahille thursday it is most used in africa Tanzaniya there are not many people named Alhamis the name sounds like islam"

This appears to be on the wrong page altogether.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 16:33, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Estonia

in this edit, an editor has split the Estonian day names between two tables with arrows pointing down from one table and up to the other table. Each table now has some of the day names but not all. ~ Is it just me or is this more confusing than just repeating the names. noq (talk) 13:04, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

The thing is that in Estonian, the days from Monday to Thursday are named after their numbering, being 1st Day - 4th Day. But the days from Fryday to Sunday are similar to the Germanic naming system. Therefore, Estonian has been in two groups. However, why should we keep the days from Monday to Thursday in the Germanic group, when they have nothing to do with this group and vice versa for other days?

However, I do think that leaving blank spaces would be a little confusing, so I added arrows. If you know a better way to link the arrows or replace the arrows with some other signs, do whatever you think is best. H2ppyme (talk) 18:16, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, now Estonian is simply inexplicably repeated. I found this confusing enough to search the talk page whether this was a mistake. It makes sense now, but you really need a footnote or some explanation. I would do it myself, but I'm not sure what kind of footnote or weird looking note one should use. Vesal (talk) 15:08, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Georgian

Why is Georgian in the "numbered from Sunday" section? It seems more like it's numbered from Saturday to me. "Šabati" is Saturday, "Oršabati" (lit. "Two [after] Saturday") is "Monday", "Samšabati" (lit. "Three [after] Saturday") is Tuesday, "Otxšabati" ("Four [after] Saturday") is Wednesday, and "Xutšabati" ("Five [after] Saturday") is Thursday. That sure looks like counting from Saturday to me. 128.135.222.164 (talk) 03:01, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Portuguese

Portuguese has no reason to be under Greco-Roman tradition. 213.22.51.145 (talk) 13:52, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Exactly, none of the Portuguese names seems to be derived from a planet/god —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.73.34.192 (talk) 20:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I wrote the Old Portuguese weekday names which came from the Greco-Roman tradition (lues, martes, mércores, joves e vernes) but they have been deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.27.210.35 (talk) 14:39, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Heptagram origin? Really?

The article begins "The order of the week days can be derived "geometrically" from an acute heptagram," and gives as source a book on symbols. That book itself (or the website) gives no source. It looks suspiciously to me like someone has discovered what they think is a pattern and has simply asserted this but I can't see any historical citations that the pattern is really the reason for the names. It seems very unlikely to me that names were assigned to days depending on a geometric scheme. This is troubling since it's the first and most prominent part of the article and reads like an endorsement of an astrological tract. Barsoomian (talk) 02:31, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

This article asserts "The order of the week days can be derived 'geometrically' from an acute heptagram". This doesn't seem to be supported by reliable citations. Questions re this on the talk page have had no response. Barsoomian (talk) 16:30, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Delete or reword - The key problem is the use of the word "derived" in the article. I dont see any mention of "derived" in the sources. I recommend that the sentence be reworded to something like: "In the ancient world, the seven days were often represented by a regular heptagram...." or something similar. There is a question of which came first: did people create 7 day weeks, then represent it with a heptagram? Or was the heptagram commonly used, and it was the source of the number of days in the week? If sources assert the latter, then "derived" might make some sense, but even then the sentence should be reworded. Bottom line: WP:Verifiabilty policy requires that a source make the statement. Without a source, it must be removed. --Noleander (talk) 18:11, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete The references to astrology are extremely dubious. There are reliable sources pointing to a 7-day week in Babylon, named after the sun, moon and planets. There may well have been astrology going on back then, but the only sources for that have almost certainly been invented in the last few centuries. The word "heptagram" doesn't even appear in my copy of the OED and I'm pretty sure it doesn't get used outside astrology or magic. Mathematicians would call it a star heptagon. The Britannica article on the days of the week has no mention of astrology or "heptagrams". Dingo1729 (talk) 19:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete Elaborated and absurdly rationalized coincidences are not significant. siafu (talk) 22:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

• • Following this discussion I have removed the the heptagram origin statements and removed the RFC tag. Thanks for your input. Barsoomian (talk) 03:45, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The Origin of the sequence is in my view a Hexagram. This produces an immediately meaningful arrangement:-

If you put the first day, Sunday, aside for a moment (and I will explain why below) and arrange the days of the week around the six-pointed hexagram, you find that the second day, Monday, is opposite the fifth day, Thursday. While Monday represents the Moon, the Mother, Thursday represents the Father, the Nordic Thor or Roman Jove. Similarly the third day, Mars, god of war, is opposite the sixth day, Venus, goddess of love. And finally the fourth day, Mercury, is opposite Saturn, the seventh day. The relationship between the Mother and Father (Monday and Thursday), and Son and Daughter (Mars and Venus) is immediately recognisable, and while the third pair (Wednesday and Saturday) takes a bit more explaining, it too is a meaning 'coincidence'.

The reason that the First day, Sunday 'stands outside' this arrangement is because the hexagram is comprised of discriminated opposites. As the psychologist Carl Jung puts it, One is not a number. The world as we know it begins with the creation of a second, when One becomes Two and with it multiplicity and reality begin. Sunday represents the undiscriminated Deity, the Egyptian 'One of One' who creates and contains all the other (male and female) gods. There is an ancient hermetic symbol for this Oneness, which is the snake that bites its own tail, the Uroboros.

I have written an ebook on this subject, though I'm not sure I should plug it here! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.115.169.222 (talk) 20:06, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

What you've done is derive a hexagram from the weekday sequence. Not proved the sequence derived from a hexagram in actual history. In any case, it's WP:OR. Barsoomian (talk) 02:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Heptagram: Because The Ordering Is Actually By The Hour

That's why it skips by 3 every day, as seen in the heptagram. It was actually the individual hours that were associated with the orbs; with one of the hours' orbs being designated the day's orb. This was as described by Roman historian Cassius_Dio. I'll leave it to others to find the details, make the addition and fill in the references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.29.226.169 (talk) 19:25, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

In modern Europe Monday is the fist day of the week

Hi, I'd just like to point out that on European calendars Monday is typically the first and Sunday the last day of the week. This is in line with Monday#Position_in_the_week. Not sure how this information fits into this article but it would be useful to mention it somewhere. Thanks, --EnOreg (talk) 19:57, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

It varies with the country. In Portugal, Sunday is usually regarded as the first day of the week. FilipeS (talk) 18:09, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

There should be a separate section with first day of the week according to language/locale/religion/country (whichever applies). The lemma is "names" but days of the week redirects here so I'd say it's not out of scope.--2003:C5:4F25:9A43:1180:4F9C:8630:4EC (talk) 15:20, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Turkish name footnotes

I fixed several notes today, but the notes for where the Turkish names of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday originate from do not link anywhere and use the wrong symbol (☉4, which coincides with Sunday in Turkish). Could someone familiar with Turkish fix this or explain the origin? --Apollo1758 ^(talk) 21:58, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

周末

周末 means weekend, not Sunday. --JWB (talk) 17:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Changes in Old Portuguese names

The actual names of the days of the week from Monday to Friday in Galician-Portuguese language before the reform by St. Martin of Braga were the following:

Lues (from lua - "moon")
Martes (from Marte - "Mars")
Mércores (from Mercúrio - "Mercury")
Joves (from Júpiter - "Jupiter")
Vernes (from Vênus - "Venus")

Because of these names being references to Pagan Roman gods, Martin of Braga changed them to the names used in Modern Portuguese:

Segunda-feira (from Latin Secunda feria - "second day")
Terça-feira (from Latin Tertia feria - "third day")
Quarta-feira (from Latin Quarta feria - "fourth day")
Quinta-feira (from Latin Quinta feria - "fifth day")
Sexta-feira (from Latin Sexta feria- "sixth day")

Martin of Braga also tried to change the names given to the planets, but without success. - Eduardo Sellan III (talk) 14:26, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Is the etymology of the Portuguese word "feira," written/pronounced differently from the Latin one "feria," strictly derived from the Latin term? Or, it may have a different etymology based on the vernacular meaning of the word "feira," which in Portuguese also means "market"-[day]? Thanks, warshy ^(¥¥) 16:30, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

It's indeed a good question, I've searched about that. The actual etimology of the word "feira" as used for days of the week in Portuguese comes from the Middle Ages, when the markets/bazzars were open everyday during the Easter week ("holidays" in Portuguese is féria or feriado, hence comes the word feira for market). Then all days the week were named feira, except Sunday (domingo, from Latin dies Domnica - day of the Lord) and Saturday (sábado, from Hebrew tradition Sabbath). - Eduardo Sellan III (talk) 00:54, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Let's not get confused. féria is holiday or vacation in Portuguese (plural férias). feira, on the other hand, is [street-]market or market. I don't know which comes first above, the chicken or the egg. In any case, it is remarkable that the Portuguese language/culture is one of the few around the world, I believe, that keeps the names of the day according to the Hebrew Bible tradition of the name indicating the numeric sequence of the day in the week (second-day, third day, etc.) in the seven day week. Except of course for Sunday as you point out. warshy ^(¥¥) 16:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The thing is rather obvious. Feria at first, in Latin, signifies a holiday. But Christians attached it to the simple weekdays (for the Christian every day is a holiday), as the Roman Breviary explicitly mentions and attributes to Pope St. Silvester. Anyway, feria secunda = Monday, and so on, is firmly Latin (Ecclesiastical, Late, and Mediaeval Latin) before anyone ever thought of Portuguese. There are only two days in Ecclesiastical Latin which are not named Feria; the Sunday (Dominica) and the Sabbath (though the latter technically is a feria too, but it's not named that way with an ordinal number). Sounds familiar to the Portuguese speaker? You bet.

It is obviously this which found its way into Portuguese. And if in Portuguese the word "feira" now means market day, and by extension market, this stems from the fact that feria meens here weekday, and on weekdays markets are hold. (Coming to think of it, that's probably where English "Fair" - not in the meanings "beautiful", "just" - comes from too.)

Then again, and I'd guess at Renaissance time, the Latin word "feria" may have been reimported in its original meaning and in its original sound (just als Latin "causa" was imported to French "chose" with its Vulgar-Latin meaning thing and was later reimported in its classical meaning as "cause"). --2001:A60:15CA:1E01:148E:DA0A:BEAF:508 (talk) 11:19, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the rather long linguistic discussion above. It does add some important points to some possible future linguistic explanation of the development of the Portuguese day names, which do reproduce the numeric sequence of the original Hebrew day names. Just bear in mind that any attempt at explanation that takes that many words and sentences to take some sort of shape is anything but "rather obvious." The matter of the origin and development of the Portuguese word "feira" to come to mean a week/market-day is still a complex and interesting linguistic subject in and of itself, in my view. warshy ^(¥¥) 20:12, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Turkish weekday names

The Turkish weekday names are now both listed in the section with weekday names beginning (day 1) on Sunday as in the section with weekday names beginning on Monday. AstroLynx (talk) 11:48, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Chinese names

1. It is slightly confusing that the Chinese names in the table in the "East Asian Seven Luminaries" section mostly have no connection with the elements or celestial objects that are the subject of the section. I know the blurb at the beginning does explain that "with the founding of the Republic of China in 1911, Monday through Saturday in China are now numbered one through six", and it implies that the traditional Chinese system did reference the elements or planets. If so, I think it would be helpful to show the traditional Chinese names in the table, and to either label the existing Chinese row as "modern", or delete it from this section entirely and relegate it, with a cross-reference, to the section "Days numbered from Monday", where it is already duplicated.

2. The note at the foot of the table, "Pronunciations for Old Chinese names are given in Modern Standard Chinese" is also confusing since it is unclear that there are any "Old Chinese" names in the table.

3. The text states "The East Asian naming system of days of the week closely parallels that of the Latin system". It would be very useful and interesting to have some information about how this came about.

109.153.236.183 (talk) 04:11, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

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Quoc Ngu Vietnamese

WilliamThweatt,

Latin, Old Portuguese, Old Irish, Proto-Indo-European should be left there for historical purposes. Even though they are extinct languages, it will be good to include them for a more comprehensive picture of the article. However, Chu Nom in Vietnamese should be removed because that is no longer used for Vietnamese orthography. Further, unlike Old Irish or Proto Indo European, Chu Nom is not a language, it is an orthographic system that is no longer in use. Including it in there would be like adding Oracle Bone Script for Mandarin Chinese, or Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Modern Egyptian (Arabic). Quoc Ngu is the official standard orthography for Vietnamese. Chu Nom has been defunct for a century; it is not taught in Vietnam, and it is not the standard or official system for writing Vietnamese. Look at all the other entries in the table, it shows the official script or orthography of that language, and then a romanised version beneath it (unless that language already uses a latin writing system, then it is not further romanised)

For instance:

• Greek: Κυριακή; Kyriakí
• Georgian: კვირა; k'vira
• Hebrew: יום ראשון; yom rishon

Clicking on the language link confirms the official orthography that is in use.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_language
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_language

Doublestuff (talk) 21:13, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

South Asian Section needs attention

Hello article creator, The South Asian section needs to be divided up into two subsections. One should be "Sanskrit/Hindu based" the other should be "Islamic/Arabic based". Religion has played a part in what South Asian languages say what. For example, Urdu barely uses any of the terms that other South Asian languages use. That's because this language is heavily influenced from the West (Persian, Turkish, Arabic) compared to say Bengali which is heavily influenced by Hinduism.

So if I were you, I'd divide the section up into the following:

• Islamic/Arabic based (all these languages use similar terms for all days of the week).
  • Urdu
  • Sindhi
  • Punjabi (Shahmukhi script)
  • Kashmiri

and also add these languages

• • Pashto (I'll provide you the terms)
  • Balochi (same as above)
  • Brahui (same)
  • Balti
  • Burushaski
  • Khowar
  • Shina
  • Wakhi
  • Hindko
  • Kalasha

• Sanskrit/Hindu based
  • Hindi
  • Bengali
  • Nepali
  • Punjabi (Gurmukhi script)
  • Syhleti
  • Bhojpuri
  • Gujarati
  • Tamil
  • Kannada
  • Oriya
  • Telugu
  • Malayalam

Additional points

1. 1. The languages between Burmese to Balinese are actually Southeast Asian.
2. 2. Also, Punjabi uses two scripts. The original script of PUNJABI (itself a Persian word) is a Persian based script called Shahmukhi. The Punjabi you've written in your article is Indianized Punjabi which came much later when Sikhs developed Gurmukhi script and the terms for the days of the week are biased in favour of that script. The Punjabi spoken in Pakistan does not use these newer terms. If you agree with my assessment I can help in getting you credible sources for the languages I have mentioned. Please let me know your opinion. Thanks. PAKHIGHWAYPAKHIGHWAY (talk) 17:22, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Days are NOT numbered "from Monday"

Just to throw this out there, strictly speaking, it's incorrect to say that some of these systems "number the days from Monday". If you notice, in those particular systems, Sunday is never referred to as the "seventh day". It is, in fact, always unnumbered. The issue here has nothing to do with whether the first day is Sunday or Monday; it has to do with whether or not the numbering is absolute (inclusive) or relative (exclusive), counting from Sunday. Some systems count the days absolutely, with Sunday as "day one" (Sunday = the first day of the week, Monday = the second day of the week, Tuesday = the third day of the week) while others number each day by its position relative to Sunday (Sunday = Sunday, Monday = the first day after Sunday, Tuesday = the second day after Sunday, etc.) 98.115.103.26 (talk) 21:50, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Note: I'm only referring to the numbering itself. I am aware that in some countries Monday is placed at the beginning on physical calendars, though I'm guessing that's for practical convenience (Sundays being regarded as part of the weekend, apart from the 5-day work week which starts on Monday, etc.) 98.115.103.26 (talk) 21:56, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that those who start with Sunday first 1-index while Monday first 0-indexes? In which case this whole inconsistency should be solved, as 0-indexing is obviously superior. Also, it's not just for practical convenience, it's just how it's done in most of the world. SorteKanin (talk) 19:19, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

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Bavarian

The addition of Bavarian as an annomaly would be interesting, since it's based on the Germanic calendar, but with two exceptions: Tuesday in some dialects is called Iadda/Ergedåg/Erchdåg/Eredåg based on the Greek Árēos Hēmera (Day of Ares), and Thursday in some dialects is called Pfinzda/Pfinsdåg based on the Greek Pémptē Hēméra (Fifth Day). Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bairische_Dialekte#Wochentage — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.141.2.104 (talk) 17:50, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, they are generally considered to derive from Greek, transmitted through Gothic. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 13:48, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Notes section misleading, description of the problem and proposal for a fix

"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday" have specific historic origins, and random factoids should not be included under these headings in a way that makes these factoids seem like they are the origin of these names. This is what the notes section does.

I will provide an example by looking at "Friday" in the notes section. By placing the notes there under the heading "Friday" an implication is made that they are the origin of the word, or somehow connected to it, and the notes section is where many people will jump hoping for a summary of the days origins given that one is not found elsewhere.

Irish fasting day was a replacement for the more pagan name and was spelled "An Domhnach" - by placing it underneath "Friday" the impression is given that the word friday came from or is connected directly to the Irish fasting day, or that the Irish fasting day was known as "Friday", which is not the case (as is well documented elsewhere in the article.)

"Good Friday" is simply a use of the already existing name, Friday, and the name of the day did not originate with or have any connection to Good Friday as the note section implies. This belongs on the page for Friday and/or a page detailing holidays - not the page detailing the names of days of the week.

Jumu'ah has the same problem as both An Domhnach and Good Friday. Firstly, neither the name Friday or Jumu'ah find their origins in the other. Secondly, while Jumu'ah happens on a friday it is not itself a day of the week, instead being a prayer that happens during that day of the week. Jumu'ah is also confusingly repeated twice, once directly and again with a citation noting that the word for gathering - which is Jumu'ah - is also a secular word in Malta. Both of these insertions are spurious and misleading when given in this way, as in neither case is Jumu'ah a word for a day of the week, nor a word that is in any way connected to the word Friday.

Most galling of all the actual origin of the name "Friday" as coming from Frige or Freya is not even mentioned in the notes, despite being documented elsewhere in the article. The information showing that the names of the days originally came from Roman gods/planets, with the Roman names for tuesday through friday being replaced by germanic versions of Old Norse god's names, is already on the page - but this is confusing and difficult to find in the article instead of being prominently displayed as a primary point of interest, and is not even clearly mentioned at the start!

Every day in the "Notes" section suffers from similar problems to friday, but I think you get the point. For this reason I propose that a short introduction stating the direct historical origin of the most commonly used modern names be inserted on or at the top, the notes section entirely deleted, and relevant information from the notes section be integrated into either the existing section on the page or moved to the day's individual wikipedia page if it has nothing to do with its name.

A common usage section formatted this way would also be best placed towards the front of the article, I say this for two reasons. First it is what most people will be looking for, secondly it provides a prominent way to link to pages of individual days for those seeking information not related to their names.

This would be much clearer and to the point, with less chance for confusion, but I also feel it is too sweeping a change to make without community input. Would anything be lost via this change? Is there a clearer or more accessible way to format the information?

2601:545:4600:D514:748D:87E7:8847:6130 (talk) 18:02, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

All of your points are excellent, and obviously researched and supported. I hope you straighten out this mess, and I haven't even read that section, yet. That said, this is an old article, with an old talk page. Your comment is one of the newest on the page. Please place new comments at the BOTTOM of the page. if your browser shows a "+" at top of page, just use that button, and you will automatically be positioned correctly, or click "new section" or "new topic". I intend to clip and paste you to the chronologically correct place. rags (talk) 15:42, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Religious objections to the names of the days

A section should be added to reflect the opposition to 6 of the days being named after ancient gods (English Names) in modern times, and efforts that are in place to change the names. Attempts to secularize dates are happening, and it would be a good topic to add to the page. For example, if BC/AD is to be changed then the names of the days should be changed as well.

Religious objections? It should be noted that Christian cultural iconoclasts have had the leisure of centuries to change the names of the days of the week (perhaps to Johnday, Paulday, Georgeday, Ringoday, etc., you might think), and so far they've only got around to renaming Sunday in some languages, and not in others. So I think they've very little chance of effecting such a change nowadays, when most of us either don't give a damn about religious matters any more; or find it quaintly charming that the English language still uses god-names redolent of its honest, heathen past, a thousand years ago!

Nuttyskin (talk) 01:56, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

I've added a note about the Quaker usage of 'First Day' under 'Days numbered from Sunday' Addedentry (talk) 21:08, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I object on purely scientific grounds. The planets have no influence over human life, nor do they "rule" over the days. The same law of gravity rules the planetary rotations as rules ours. Pagans are "slaves of the wandering stars". Free yourself from superstition. Thanks to the demonstration of Newton's law of universal gravitation, we no longer have to take this on faith from the Biblical monotheists. We know it for a fact. The greek language followed the hebrew in naming days after their number in the week, and that may be the best naming convention. Jaredscribe (talk) 01:18, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Why is Saturday not named after Njörðr?

If the English names are derived from Norse deities considered equivalent to the original Greco-Roman deities that bore the names of the weekdays, then why is Saturday not named/associated with Njörðr when the Roman deity Saturn went by his name in Icelandic traditions? 2407:7000:A2AB:D00:8DB0:63B3:F1B7:E932 (talk) 21:49, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

References

English

Should current English have a line of entries in the table in Germanic tradition"? S C Cheese (talk) 10:19, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Corsican

It is said that "Saturday" in Corsican is both "sàbatu" and "sadorn". As far as I know, no cognate of "saturni dies" survives in Romance languages and I couldn't find a source that mentioned any other word for "Saturday" in Corsican besides "sàbatu". I also noticed that the word for Saturday in Cornish happens to be "sadorn". I believe the editor might have gotten the two mixed up.

Nitaipoddar

Nitai 2402:3A80:1102:7F15:0:0:266F:6D5D (talk) 13:30, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Tabels should start with monday

The tabels starting with Sunday is Americacentric, a lot of countries have Monday as the first day, and since none of them is more relevant then the oher, we should look at internaional standers, ISO norm lists money as first and sunday as seventh day of the week, and thus, the tabels should start with Monday Norschweden (talk) 15:00, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Sequence and cycle of fifths

The classic order of the planets from fastest/inner to slowest/outer planets are: Moon (C, Mo), Mercury (D, We), Venus (E, Fr), Sun (F, Su), Mars (G, Tu), Jupiter (A, Th), Saturn (B, Sa). The "Heptagram" in the article should indicate the harmonic cycle of fifths with the classic planet sequence around the circle connecting the sequence of the days of the week by the star pattern. Suppose we begin with C=Mo, the next fifth is G=Tu, then D=We, A=Th, E=Fr, B=Sa, F=Su, and back to C (Moon, slightly flat "wolf tone"). Alexgenaud (talk) 14:10, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

For example: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=54528

So you're saying that stepping by four in a cycle of seven makes a pattern isomorphic to that of stepping by four in a cycle of seven? The strong law of small numbers comes to mind. —Tamfang (talk) 04:12, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 1 September 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Feel free to send Days of the week to RfD if desired. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:26, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

---

Names of the days of the week → Days of the week – The title is more concise. There is no ambiguity when it comes to what this article is about. I didn't want to move it myself since I want to get community input on this. There doesn't seem be a move discussion on the talk page, so I thought it would be appropriate to launch a discussion. Interstellarity (talk) 22:59, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose move. This is specifically about the names of the days of the week. O.N.R. ^(talk) 11:33, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Yes, there may be some ambiguity when we have a separate Day article. So may I further suggest that the Days of the week redirect be changed so it instead points to Day, similar to how Months of the year currently redirects to Month. Zzyzx11 (talk) 16:13, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose this is specifically on the names, not the arrangement or anything more general on days of the week. If it were more general, better merge with Week, as every week has the same days. DankJae 20:49, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Oppose as per others — this is about the names of the days, not the days themselves. Days of the week should redirect to Days, as per WP:CONSISTENT. Lewisguile (talk) 13:50, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Galician

I was confused about the overestimation of 'segunda feira,' 'terza feira,' etc. in the Galician language. As a native speaker, they are very rarely used over 'luns,' 'martes,' and so on. While their use is acceptable in standard Galician and they also appear in the Real Academia Galega dictionary, their use is infrequent. The phrase "Except for in Portuguese, Galician and Mirandese, the Romance languages preserved the Latin names" is also incorrect because of this. The Latin day names were preserved and are in fact the most used ones in modern Galician. I'll change the phrase to reflect that. To clear up the confusion, it might also be helpful to include a separate section for Galician-Portuguese, the medieval form of both languages.

I'm aware YouTube does not count as a reliable source, but this video explains what I'm talking about really well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-udTMjGOR14 95.18.76.205 (talk) 00:26, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

classification of Chitrali

Chitrali is classified with other indian subcontinent languages, even tho the day names are "1 day" "4 day" and similar NS1729 (talk) 06:43, 16 October 2024 (UTC)