WHERE DO WE GET OUR DAYS OF THE WEEK?

Human beings have been measuring time by the stars for centuries. Traditionally, seven celestial objects were used for marking the days: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.
 
You can see the evidence of this in Romance languages, where the names for the days of the week are derived from the name of the celestial body. In turn, the celestial bodies got their names from Roman Gods. In English, however, all of the names of our weekdays are derived from Nordic gods, with one exception.
 


Sunday
 

Jewish law made this the first day of the week, although officially, international calendars consider Monday the start of the week. It’s interesting to note that no century begins on a Sunday in the Gregorian calender and that “Friday the Thirteenth” only occurs in months that begin with a Sunday.
 
In Old English, it was called Sunnendaeg meaning “day of the sun”. Members of the Christian faith take Sunday as their ‘Sabbath’ or “day of rest”.
 


Monday
 

Many cultures consider Monday to be the first day of the week. In the Islamic faith and Judaism, Monday is considered a good day for fasting. The name comes from the Old English for “day of the moon”. In Romance languages like French and Spanish, the name for Monday is derived from the Latin word for “moon”, which was luna. Hence the French have lundi and Spanish-speakers have lunes.
 


Tuesday
 

Tuesday derives from the Middle English Tiwes daeg, which comes from the Nordic word for “day of Tyr”. Tyr was the Nordic equivalent of the Roman god of war, called Mars. For this reason, Tuesday is called mardi in French and martes in Spanish..
 


Wednesday
 

The Anglo Saxon god Oden is responsible for the word “Wednesday”. He was called wandering Odin and so his day came to be known as Wednes daeg.Romance languages call this day after the Roman god Mercury. Hence, the wordmiercoles in Spanish.
 


Thursday
 

Thor was the Nordic god of Thunder. His equivalent in Roman mythology was Jupiter also known as Jove. Which is why Thor’s day in English is jeudi, giovediand Jovdio in French, Italian and Ido, respectively.
 


Friday
 

Friday is named for the goddess of love, Venus. The Anglo-Saxon word wasFrigdaeg which is from the Germanic name for “day of Venus”. Hence the Spanishviernes, the Romanian vineri and the Italian venerdi. In most Indian languages, the name for Friday comes from Shukra, the name for the planet Venus.
 


Saturday
 

This is the only day of the week in the English language that is directly named for a Roman god. Saturday is named for Saturn. It is the Shabbat of the Jews and the Thai people associate it with the color purple.
 
Everyone does not have a seven day week. Ancient Egypt and China both used 10 day weeks. The Igbo people in Nigeria use a four day week and the ancient Maya used twelve days. Today, the names of the weekdays flash by in a blur, but if we stop and consider them, we might recognize thier significance. They hearken back to a period when mankind had time to sit and observe the stars.