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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.origins
Subject: Days of the week
Message-ID: <674@spar.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 29-Nov-85 06:54:08 EST
Article-I.D.: spar.674
Posted: Fri Nov 29 06:54:08 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Dec-85 03:22:46 EST
References: <174@watmath.UUCP> <262@ho95e.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 32
Xref: watmath net.nlang:3821 net.origins:2670

>I get the impression that renumbering the days of the week so they
>start with Monday is a recent European rationalization of "Sunday is
>our Sabbath so it must be the 7th day of the week"; customary usage in
>the USA is that the week starts on Sunday, whereas I remember learning
>the days of the week in French as "<monday>, <tuesday>..." (Sorry, but I
>never could spell them) - Bill Stewart

    The 7 days of the week fit nicely into the ancient cosmic scheme with 7
    (visible) non-stationary astronomical bodies, which were, of course,
    considered to be gods. What is odd is the mapping of the GraecoRoman
    gods to the Teutonic ones:

Object    French        English     Danish    Teutonic Names

sun	  [dimanche]	sunday      s0ndag    sun
moon	  lundi		monday      mandag    moon
mars  	  mardi		tuesday     tirsdag   E.Tiw
mercury   mercredi	wednesday   onsdag    E.Weden, G.Wotan, S.Odin
jupiter   jeudi		thursday    torsdag   G.Donner/S.Thor
venus	  vendredi	friday      fredag    G.Freia+Fricka
saturn	  [samedi]	[saturday]  loerdag   E.{low/ley=flame},G.Loge,S.Loki

    Tiw, which is cognate with ju-piter and zeus (IE. dy[eo]us = `day,sky'),
    was equated with mars; the teutonic king of the gods (weden) was equated
    with mercury; the god of thunder (thor) with jupiter; and the sly god
    of fire (loki) with saturn. These equations make no sense whatsoever!

    Can anybody explain this? And why do we call it `saturday' rather than
    `leyday/lowday', which is what I suspect would be the AngloSaxon 
    equivalent of Danish `loerdag' if it had survived?

-michael