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From: anderson@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.origins
Subject: Re: Days of the week
Message-ID: <8025@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 12-Dec-85 21:47:16 EST
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.8025
Posted: Thu Dec 12 21:47:16 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Dec-85 23:13:15 EST
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Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
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>     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
> 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?
>
Several messages posted to this newsgroup lately have explored the
significance of the apparent equation of Germanic Loki with Saturn which
seems to be implied by the relation of e.g. Danish loerdag with English
Saturday. However interesting the mythological significance of this relation,
though, it IS mythical: Danish loerdag is a modern reflex of Old Norse
laugar-dagr (cf. also modern Icelandic laugardagur), literally "bath-day",
from the Noun laug "hot-spring; bath". Loki had nothing to do with it.
                                        Steve Anderson
                                        Dept. of Linguistics, UCLA
                                        beaune!anderson@locus.ucla.edu
                                        ijq3sra@uclamvs.bitnet