AN EVEN SEVEN AND THAT'S A WEEK

And how about those zany Vikings, anyway! Just ignoring the mighty Romans altogether to name almost half the days of the week after their own deities and to Hades with the snooty Romans with their snappy togas and kickin slave-girl orgies! Now there's a bunch of real Men, even if their native literature did consist of poems.

The names of the day of the week were coined in the Roman era, in Greek and Latin, in the case of Monday as ἡμέρᾱ Σελήνης, diēs Lūnae "day of the Moon".^[2]

Many languages use terms either directly derived from these names, or loan-translations based on them. The English noun Monday derived sometime before 1200 from monedæi, which itself developed from Old English (around 1000) mōnandæg and mōndæg (literally meaning "moon's day"), which has cognates in other Germanic languages, including Old Frisian mōnadeig, Middle Low German and Middle Dutch mānendag, mānendach (modern Dutch Maandag), Old High German mānetag (modern German Montag), and Old Norse mánadagr (Swedish and Norwegian nynorsk måndag, Icelandic mánudagur. Danish and Norwegian bokmål mandag). The Germanic term is a Germanic interpretation of Latin lunae dies ("day of the moon").^[3] Japanese and Korean share the same ancient Chinese words '月曜日' (Hiragana:げつようび, translit. getsuyо̄bi, Hangul:월요일) for Monday which means "day of the moon". In many Indo-Aryan languages, the word for Monday is Somavāra or Chandravāra, Sanskrit loan-translations of "Monday".^[4]

In some cases, the "ecclesiastical" names are used, a tradition of numbering the days of the week in order to avoid the "pagan" connotation of the planetary names, and to keep with the biblical name, in which Monday is the "second day" (Hebrew יום שני, Greek Δευτέρα ἡμέρα, Latin feria secunda, Arabic الأثنين ). In many Slavic languages the name of the day translates to "after Sunday/holiday". Russian понедельник (ponyedyelnik) literally translated, Monday means "next to the week", по "next to" or "on" недельник "(the) week" Croatian and Bosnian ponedjeljak, Serbian понедељак (ponedeljak), Ukrainian понеділок (ponedilok), Bulgarian понеделник (ponedelnik), Polish poniedziałek, Czech pondělí, Slovak pondelok, Slovenian ponedeljek. In Turkish it is called pazartesi, which also means "after Sunday".

Position in the week

Historically, the Greco-Roman week began with Sunday (dies solis), and Monday (dies lunae) was the second day of the week. It is still the custom to refer to Monday as feria secunda in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. Quakers also traditionally referred to Monday as "Second Day".^[5] The Portuguese and the Greek (Eastern Orthodox Church) also retain the ecclesiastical tradition (Portuguese segunda-feira, Greek Δευτέρα "devtéra" "second"). Likewise, the Modern Hebrew name for Monday is yom-sheni (יום שני).

In modern times, it has become more common to consider Monday, the first day of the week. The international ISO 8601 standard places Monday as the first day of the week, and this is widely used on calendars in Europe and in international business. Monday is xīngqīyī (星期一) in Chinese, meaning "day one of the week". Modern Western culture usually looks at Monday as the beginning of the workweek.

Wednesday is the day of the week between Tuesday and Thursday. According to international standard ISO 8601 it is the third day of the week. In countries that have Friday as their holiday and in some Muslim countries, Wednesday would be the fourth day of the week. In countries that use the Sunday-first convention and in the Jewish Hebrew calendar Wednesday is defined as the fourth day of the week. The name is derived from Old English Wōdnesdæg and Middle English Wednesdei, "day of Woden", reflecting the religion practised by the Anglo-Saxons, the English equivalent to the Norse god Odin. In some other languages, such as the French mercredi or Italian mercoledì, the day's name is a calque of dies Mercurii "day of Mercury".

Wednesday is in the middle of the common Western five-day workweek that starts on Monday and finishes on Friday.

The name Wednesday continues Middle English Wednesdei. Old English still had wōdnesdæg, which would be continued as *Wodnesday (but Old Frisian has an attested wednesdei). By the early 13th century, the i-mutated form was introduced unetymologically^{[clarification needed]}.

The name is a calque of the Latin dies Mercurii "day of Mercury", reflecting the fact that the Germanic god Woden (Wodanaz or Odin) during the Roman era was interpreted as "Germanic Mercury".

The Latin name dates to the late 2nd or early 3rd century. It is a calque of Greek ἡμέρα Ἕρμου (heméra Hérmou), a term first attested, together with the system of naming the seven weekdays after the seven classical planets, in the Anthologiarum by Vettius Valens (c. AD 170).

The Latin name is reflected directly in the weekday name in most modern Romance languages: Mércuris (Sardinian), mercredi (French), mercoledì (Italian), miércoles (Spanish), miercuri (Romanian), dimecres (Catalan), Marcuri or Mercuri (Corsican), Mèrcore (Venetian). In Welsh it is Dydd Mercher, meaning Mercury's Day.

The Dutch name for the day, woensdag, has the same etymology as English Wednesday; it comes from Middle Dutch wodenesdag, woedensdag ("Wodan's day").

The German name for the day, Mittwoch (literally: "mid-week"), replaced the former name Wodenstag ("Wodan's day") in the 10th century. (Similarly, the Yiddish word for Wednesday is מיטוואך (mitvokh), meaning and sounding a lot like the German word it came from.)

Most Slavic languages follow this pattern and use derivations of "the middle" (Belarusian серада serada, Bulgarian сряда sryada, Croatian srijeda, Czech středa, Macedonian среда sreda, Polish środa, Russian среда sredá, Serbian среда/sreda or cриједа/srijeda, Slovak streda, Slovene sreda, Ukrainian середа sereda). The Finnish name is Keskiviikko ("middle of the week"), as is the Icelandic name: Miðvikudagur, and the Faroese name: Mikudagur ("Mid-week day"). Some dialects of Faroese have Ónsdagur, though, which shares etymology with Wednesday. Danish, Norwegian, Swedish Onsdag, ("Ons-dag" = Oden's/Odin's dag/day).

In Japanese, the word for Wednesday is 水曜日(sui youbi), meaning 'water day' and is associated with 水星 (suisei): Mercury (the planet), literally meaning "water star". Similarly, in Korean the word Wednesday is 수요일 (su yo il), also meaning water day.

In most of the languages of India, the word for Wednesday is Budhavāra — vāra meaning day and Budha being the planet Mercury.

In Armenian (Չորեքշաբթի—chorekshabti), Georgian (ოთხშაბათი—otkhshabati), Turkish (Çarşamba), and Tajik (Chorshanbiyev) languages the word literally means as "four (days) from Saturday" originating from Persian (چهارشنبه—Cheharshanbeh).

Portuguese uses the word quarta-feira, meaning "fourth day", while in Greek the word is Tetarti (Τετάρτη) meaning simply "fourth". Similarly, Arabic أربعاء‎ means "fourth", Hebrew רביעי means "fourth", and Persian چهارشنبه‎ means "fourth day". Yet the name for the day in Estonian kolmapäev, Lithuanian trečiadienis, and Latvian trešdiena means "third day" while in Mandarin Chinese 星期三 (xīngqīsān), means "day three", as Sunday is unnumbered.

Saturnus, Caravaggio, 16th century. Saturday is the day of the week between Friday and Sunday. The Romans named Saturday Sāturni diēs ("Saturn's Day") no later than the 2nd century for the planet Saturn, which controlled the first hour of that day, according to Vettius ValenS. The day's name was introduced into West Germanic languages and is recorded in the Low German languages such as Middle Low German sater(s)dach, Middle Dutch saterdag (Modern Dutch zaterdag) and Old English Sætern(es)dæġ and Sæterdæġ.^[3] In Old English, Saturday was also known as sunnanæfen ("sun" + "eve" cf. dialectal German Sonnabend).^[4

ORIGINS

Between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, the Roman Empire gradually replaced the eight-day Roman nundinal cycle with the seven-day week. The astrological order of the days was explained by Vettius Valens and Dio Cassius (and Chaucer gave the same explanation in his Treatise on the Astrolabe). According to these authors, it was a principle of astrology that the heavenly bodies presided, in succession, over the hours of the day. The association of the weekdays with the respective deities is thus indirect, the days are named for the planets, which were in turn named for the deities.

The Germanic peoples adapted the system introduced by the Romans but glossed their indigenous gods over the Roman deities in a process known as interpretatio germanica. In the case of Saturday, however, the Roman name was borrowed directly by West Germanic peoples, apparently because none of the Germanic gods were considered to be counterparts of the Roman god Saturn. Otherwise Old Norse and Old High German did not borrow the name of the Roman god (Icelandic laugardagur, German Samstag).

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Saturdays are days on which the Theotokos (Mother of God) and All Saints are commemorated, and the day on which prayers for the dead are especially offered, in remembrance that it was on a Saturday that Jesus lay dead in the tomb. The Octoechos contains hymns on these themes, arranged in an eight-week cycle, that are chanted on Saturdays throughout the year. At the end of services on Saturday, the dismissal begins with the words: "May Christ our True God, through the intercessions of his most-pure Mother, of the holy, glorious and right victorious Martyrs, of our reverend and God-bearing Fathers…". For the Orthodox, Saturday — with the sole exception of Holy Saturday — is never a strict fast day. When a Saturday falls during one of the fasting seasons (Great Lent, Nativity Fast, Apostles' Fast, Dormition Fast) the fasting rules are always lessened to an extent. The Great Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and the Beheading of St. John the Baptist are normally observed as strict fast days, but if they fall on a Saturday or Sunday, the fast is lessened.

Sunday is the day of the week between Saturday and Monday. Sunday is a day of rest in most Western countries, and a part of the weekend. In some Eastern countries such as Israel Sunday is a weekday.

For most observant Christians, Sunday is observed as a day of worship and rest, holding it as the Lord's Day and the day of Christ's resurrection. In some Muslim countries and Israel, Sunday is the first work day of the week. According to the Hebrew calendar and traditional calendars (including Christian calendars) Sunday is the first day of the week.^[1] But according to the International Organization for Standardization ISO 8601, Sunday is the seventh day of the week.^[2]

In Roman culture, Sunday was the day of the Sun god. In paganism, the Sun was a source of life, giving warmth and illumination to mankind. It was the center of a popular cult among Romans, who would stand at dawn to catch the first rays of sunshine as they prayed.^{[dubious – discuss]}

The opportunity to spot in the nature-worship of their heathen neighbors a symbolism valid to their own faith was not lost on the Christians. One of the Church fathers, St. Jerome, would declare: "If pagans call [the Lord's Day] [...] the 'day of the sun,' we willingly agree, for today the light of the world is raised, today is revealed the sun of justice with healing in his rays."^[6]

A similar consideration may have influenced the choice of the Christmas date on the day of the winter solstice, whose celebration was part of the Roman cult of the Sun.^{[dubious – discuss][7]} In the same vein, Christian churches have been built and are still being built (as far as possible) with an orientation so that the congregation faced toward the sunrise in the East. Much later, St. Francis would sing in his famous canticle: "Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness."

The name "Sunday", the day of the Sun, is derived from Hellenistic astrology, where the seven planets, known in English as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon, each had an hour of the day assigned to them, and the planet which was regent during the first hour of any day of the week gave its name to that day. During the 1st and 2nd century, the week of seven days was introduced into Rome from Egypt, and the Roman names of the planets were given to each successive day.

Germanic peoples seem to have adopted the week as a division of time from the Romans, but they changed the Roman names into those of corresponding Teutonic deities. Hence, the dies Solis became Sunday (German, Sonntag).

The English noun Sunday derived sometime before 1250 from sunedai, which itself developed from Old English (before 700) Sunnandæg (literally meaning "sun's day"), which is cognate to other Germanic languages, including Old Frisian sunnandei, Old Saxon sunnundag, Middle Dutch sonnendach (modern Dutch zondag), Old High German sunnun tag (modern German Sonntag), and Old Norse sunnudagr (Danish and Norwegian søndag, Icelandic sunnudagur and Swedish söndag). The Germanic term is a Germanic interpretation of Latin dies solis ("day of the sun"), which is a translation of the ancient Greek heméra helíou.^[3] The p-Celtic Welsh language also translates the Latin "day of the sun" as dydd Sul.

A NOTE OF LITTLE OR NO INTEREST

BY NOW IT IS CLEAR THAT THE MODERN WEEK IS COMPRISED OF SEVEN DAYS, EACH WITH 

ITS OWN UNIQUE HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE. bUT THERE IS THAT ONE DAY WHICH HAS

MORE IN COMMON WITH THE WEEK ITSELF THAN ANY OF THE OTHERS. BECAUSE JUST AS 

THERE ARE SEVEN DAYS IN THE WEEK, THERE ARE SEVEN LETTERS IN TUESDAY.

THE ONLY DAY TO SHARE THE NUMBER OF ITS BASIC UNITS WITH THOSE OF THE WEEK