In a vast number of languages, the names given to the seven days of the

week A week is a unit of time equal to seven days. It is the standard time period used for short cycles of days in most parts of the world. The days are often used to indicate common work days and rest days, as well as days of worship. Weeks are ofte ...

are derived from the names of the

classical planet A classical planet is an astronomical object that is visible to the naked eye and moves across the sky and its backdrop of fixed stars (the common stars which seem still in contrast to the planets), appearing as wandering stars. Visible to huma ...

s in Hellenistic astronomy, which were in turn named after contemporary deities, a system introduced by the

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. ...

ians and later adopted by the

Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...

ns from whom the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

adopted the system during

late antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

. In some other languages, the days are named after corresponding deities of the regional culture, beginning either with

Sunday Sunday (Latin: ''dies solis'' meaning "day of the sun") is the day of the week between Saturday and Monday. Sunday is a Christian sabbath, day of rest in most Western countries and a part of the Workweek and weekend, weekend. In some Middle Ea ...

or with

Monday Monday is the day of the week that takes place between Sunday and Tuesday. According to the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 8601 standard, it is the first day of the week. Names The names of the day of the week were co ...

. The

seven-day week A week is a unit of time equal to seven days. It is the standard time period used for short cycles of days in most parts of the world. The days are often used to indicate common work days and rest days, as well as days of worship. Weeks are ofte ...

was adopted in early Christianity from the

Hebrew calendar The Hebrew calendar (), also called the Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance and as an official calendar of Israel. It determines the dates of Jewish holidays and other rituals, such as '' yahrze ...

, and gradually replaced the Roman internundinum. Sunday remained the first day of the week, being considered the day of the sun god

Sol Invictus Sol Invictus (, "Invincible Sun" or "Unconquered Sun") was the official Solar deity, sun god of the late Roman Empire and a later version of the god Sol (Roman mythology), Sol. The emperor Aurelian revived his cult in 274 AD and promoted Sol Inv ...

and the

Lord's Day In Christianity, the Lord's Day refers to Sunday, the traditional day of communal worship. It is the first day of the week in the Hebrew calendar and traditional Christian calendars. It is observed by most Christians as the weekly memorial of the ...

, while the Jewish

Sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, Ten Commandments, commanded by God to be kept as a Holid ...

remained the seventh. The Babylonians invented the actual seven-day week in 600 BCE, with Emperor Constantine making the Day of the Sun (, "Sunday") a legal holiday centuries later. In the international standard

ISO 8601 ISO 8601 is an international standard covering the worldwide exchange and communication of date and time-related data. It is maintained by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and was first published in 1988, with updates in ...

, Monday is treated as the first day of the week, but in many countries it is counted as the second day of the week.

Days named after planets

Greco-Roman tradition

Between the first and third centuries CE, the

gradually replaced the eight-day Roman nundinal cycle with the seven-day week. The earliest evidence for this new system is a Pompeiian graffito referring to 6 February (''ante diem viii idus Februarias'') of the year 60 CE as ''dies solis'' ("Sunday"). Another early witness is a reference to a lost treatise by

Plutarch Plutarch (; , ''Ploútarchos'', ; – 120s) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo (Delphi), Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''Parallel Lives'', ...

, written in about 100 CE, which addressed the question of: "Why are the days named after the planets reckoned in a different order from the 'actual' order?" The treatise is lost, but the answer to the question is known; see planetary hours. The

Ptolemaic system In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as geocentrism, often exemplified specifically by the Ptolemaic system) is a superseded description of the Universe with Earth at the center. Under most geocentric models, the Sun, Moon, stars, an ...

of planetary spheres asserts that the order of the heavenly bodies from the farthest to the closest to the Earth is

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

, Mercury, and the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

; objectively, the planets are ordered from slowest to fastest moving as they appear in the night sky. The days were named after the classical planets of Hellenistic astrology, in the order: Sun (''

Helios In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Helios (; ; Homeric Greek: ) is the god who personification, personifies the Sun. His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyperion ("the one above") an ...

''), Moon (''

Selene In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Selene (; , meaning "Moon")''A Greek–English Lexicon's.v. σελήνη is the goddess and personification of the Moon. Also known as Mene (), she is traditionally the daughter ...

''), Mars (''

Ares Ares (; , ''Árēs'' ) is the List of Greek deities, Greek god of war god, war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for ...

''), Mercury (''

Hermes Hermes (; ) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quic ...

''), Jupiter (''

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

''), Venus (''

Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...

''), and Saturn (''

Cronus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Cronus, Cronos, or Kronos ( or ; ) was the leader and youngest of the Titans, the children of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Sky). He overthrew his father and ruled dur ...

''). The seven-day week spread throughout the Roman Empire in late antiquity. By the fourth century CE, it was in wide use throughout the Empire. The Greek and Latin names are as follows:

Romance languages

Except for Portuguese and Mirandese, the Romance languages preserved the Latin names, except for the names of Sunday, which was replaced by '' iesDominicus (Dominica)'', that is, "the

", and of Saturday, which was named for the Jewish

. Mirandese and Portuguese use numbered weekdays, but retain ''sábado'' and ''demingo''/''domingo'' for weekends. Meanwhile, Galician occasionally uses them alongside the traditional Latin-derived names, albeit to a lesser extent (see

below Below may refer to: *Earth *Ground (disambiguation) *Soil *Floor * Bottom (disambiguation) *Less than *Temperatures below freezing *Hell or underworld People with the surname * Ernst von Below (1863–1955), German World War I general * Fred Belo ...

Celtic languages

Early

Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic (, Ogham, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ; ; or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic languages, Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive written texts. It was used from 600 to 900. The ...

adopted the names from Latin, but introduced separate terms of Norse origin for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, then later supplanted these with terms relating to church fasting practices.

Albanian language

Albanian Albanian may refer to: *Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular: **Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans **Albanian language **Albanian culture **Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...

adopted the Latin terms for Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, translated the Latin terms for Sunday and Monday using the native names of Diell and Hënë, respectively, and replaced the Latin terms for Thursday and Friday with the equivalent native deity names Enji and Prende, respectively.

Adoptions from Romance

Other languages adopted the week together with the Latin (Romance) names for the days of the week in the colonial period. Several constructed languages also adopted the Latin terminology. With the exception of ''sabato'', the Esperanto names are all from French, cf. French ''dimanche, lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi''.

Germanic tradition

The

Germanic peoples The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era ''Germani'' who lived in both ''Germania'' and parts of ...

adapted the system introduced by the Romans by substituting the

Germanic deities In Germanic paganism, the indigenous religion of the ancient Germanic peoples who inhabit Germanic Europe, there were a number of different gods and goddesses. Germanic deities are attested from numerous sources, including works of literature, ...

for the Roman ones (with the exception of ''Saturday'') in a process known as . The date of the introduction of this system is not known exactly, but it must have happened later than 100 AD but before the introduction of Christianity during the 6th to 7th centuries, i.e., during the final phase or soon after the collapse of the

Western Roman Empire In modern historiography, the Western Roman Empire was the western provinces of the Roman Empire, collectively, during any period in which they were administered separately from the eastern provinces by a separate, independent imperial court. ...

. This period is later than the

Common Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bra ...

stage, but still during the phase of undifferentiated

West Germanic The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germ ...

. The names of the days of the week in

North Germanic languages The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...

were not

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...

d from Latin directly, but taken from the West Germanic names. *

: Old English (), meaning "sun's day". This is a translation of the Latin phrase . English, like most of the

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...

, preserves the day's association with the sun. Many other European languages, including all of the

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

, have changed its name to the equivalent of "the Lord's day" (based on Ecclesiastical Latin ). In both West Germanic and North Germanic mythology, the Sun is personified as Sunna/Sól. *

: Old English (), meaning "Moon's day". This is equivalent to the Latin name . In North Germanic mythology, the Moon is personified as

Máni Máni (Old Norse: ; "Moon"Orchard (1997:109).) is the Lunar deity, Moon personified in Germanic mythology. Máni, personified, is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the ''Prose Edd ...

. *

Tuesday Tuesday is the day of the week between Monday and Wednesday. According to international standard ISO 8601, Monday is the first day of the week; thus, Tuesday is the second day of the week. According to many traditional calendars, however, Sunda ...

: Old English (), meaning "Tiw's day". Tiw (Norse ) was a one-handed god associated with single combat and pledges in

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

and also attested prominently in wider

Germanic paganism Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological dating, chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the Bri ...

. The name of the day is also related to the Latin name , "Day of

" (the Roman god of war). *

Wednesday 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 English, the name is derived from Old English and Middle English , 'day of Woden', reflecting ...

: Old English () meaning the day of the Germanic god

Woden Odin (; from ) is a widely revered god in Norse mythology and Germanic paganism. Most surviving information on Odin comes from Norse mythology, but he figures prominently in the recorded history of Northern Europe. This includes the Roman Emp ...

(known as

Óðinn Odin (; from ) is a widely revered god in Norse mythology and Germanic paganism. Most surviving information on Odin comes from Norse mythology, but he figures prominently in the recorded history of Northern Europe. This includes the Roman Emp ...

among the North Germanic peoples), and a prominent god of the Anglo-Saxons (and other Germanic peoples) in England until about the seventh century. This corresponds to the Latin counterpart , "Day of Mercury", as both are deities of magic and knowledge. Importantly, both are also psychopomps, carrying the souls of the dead to the afterlife. The German ''Mittwoch'', the Low German , the ''miðviku-'' in Icelandic and the Finnish all mean "mid-week". *

Thursday Thursday is the day of the week between Wednesday and Friday. According to the ISO 8601 international standard, it is the fourth day of the week. In countries which adopt the "Sunday-first" convention, it is the fifth day of the week. Name Th ...

: Old English (), meaning ''s day'. means

thunder Thunder is the sound caused by lightning. Depending upon the distance from and nature of the lightning, it can range from a long, low rumble to a sudden, loud crack. The sudden increase in temperature and hence pressure caused by the lightning pr ...

or its personification, the Norse god known in Modern English as

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...

. Similarly Dutch , German ('thunder's day'), Finnish , and Scandinavian ('Thor's day'). "Thor's day" corresponds to Latin , "day of

" (the Roman god of thunder). *

Friday Friday is the day of the week between Thursday and Saturday. In countries that adopt the traditional "Sunday-first" convention, it is the sixth day of the week. In countries adopting the ISO 8601-defined "Monday-first" convention, it is the fifth ...

: Old English (), meaning the day of the Anglo-Saxon goddess . The Norse name for the planet Venus was , '

Frigg Frigg (; Old Norse: ) is a goddess, one of the Æsir, in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about her, she is associated with marriage, prophecy, clairvoyance and motherhood, and dwells in the wetl ...

's star'. It is based on the Latin , "Day of

". *

Saturday Saturday is the day of the week between Friday and Sunday. No later than the 2nd century, the Romans named Saturday ("Saturn's Day") for the god Saturn. His planet, Saturn, controlled the first hour of that day, according to Vettius Valens. T ...

: named after the Roman god

associated with the Titan

, father of Zeus and many Olympians. Its original Anglo-Saxon rendering was (). In Latin, it was , "Day of Saturn". The Nordic ''laugardagur'', ''leygardagur'', ''laurdag'', etc. deviate significantly as they have no reference to either the Norse or the Roman pantheon; they derive from Old Nordic , literally "washing-day". The German (mainly used in northern and eastern Germany) and the Low German mean "Sunday Eve"; the German word derives from the name for

Shabbat Shabbat (, , or ; , , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the seven-day week, week—i.e., Friday prayer, Friday–Saturday. On this day, religious Jews ...

Adoptions from Germanic

Hindu tradition

Hindu astrology uses the concept of days under the regency of a planet under the term ''vāsara/vāra'', the days of the week being called sūrya-/ravi''-''/āditya'', chandra-/soma-, maṅgala-,

budha Budha () is the Sanskrit word for the planet Mercury (planet), Mercury, personified as a god. Also a god who represented the intelligence. He is also known as Somaya, Rohinaya, and rules over the nakshatra, ''nakshatra''s (lunar mansions) of A ...

-, guru-/bṛhaspati-, śukra-,'' and '' śani-vāsara''. ''śukrá'' is a name of Venus (regarded as a son of Bhṛgu); ''

guru Guru ( ; International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ''guru'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian religions, Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: tr ...

'' is here a title of

Bṛhaspati Brihaspati (, ), is a Hindu god. In the ancient Vedic scriptures, Brihaspati is associated with fire, and the word also refers to a god who counsels the devas and devis (gods and goddesses). In some later texts, the word refers to the large ...

, and hence of Jupiter; ''budha'' "Mercury" is regarded as a son of ''Soma'', that is, the Moon. Knowledge of Greek astrology existed since about the 2nd century BC, but references to the ''vāsara'' occur somewhat later, during the

Gupta period The Gupta Empire was an Indian empire during the classical period of the Indian subcontinent which existed from the mid 3rd century to mid 6th century CE. At its zenith, the dynasty ruled over an empire that spanned much of the northern Indian ...

(''

Yājñavalkya Smṛti The ''Yajnavalkya Smriti'' (, IAST: ') is one of the many Dharma-related texts of Hinduism composed in Sanskrit. It is dated between the 3rd and 5th century CE, and belongs to the Dharmashastra tradition. The text was composed after the Manusmr ...

'', c. 3rd to 5th century AD), that is, at roughly the same period or before the system was introduced in the Roman Empire.

In languages of the Indian subcontinent

Southeast Asian languages

The

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

n tradition also uses the Hindu names of the days of the week. Hindu astrology adopted the concept of days under the regency of a planet under the term ''vāra'', the days of the week being called '' āditya-, soma-, maṅgala-,

-, guru-, śukra-,'' and '' śani-vāra''. ''śukrá'' is a name of Venus (regarded as a son of Bhṛgu); ''

'' is here a title of

, and hence of Jupiter; ''budha'' "Mercury" is regarded as a son of ''Soma'', that is, the Moon.

Northeast Asian languages

East Asian tradition

The

East Asian East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

naming system for the days of the week closely parallels that of the Latin system and is ordered after the "Seven Luminaries" (七曜 ''qī yào''), which consists of the Sun, Moon and the five classical planets visible to the naked eye. The Chinese had apparently adopted the seven-day week from the Hellenistic system by the 4th century AD, although by which route is not entirely clear. It was again transmitted to China in the 8th century AD by Manichaeans, via the country of Kang (a Central Asian polity near

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

). The 4th-century AD date, according to the ''

Cihai The ''Cihai'' is a large-scale dictionary and encyclopedia of Standard Mandarin Chinese. The Zhonghua Book Company published the first ''Cihai'' edition in 1938, and the Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House revised editions in 1979, 1989, ...

'' encyclopedia, is due to a reference to Fan Ning (范寧), an astrologer of the Jin dynasty. The renewed adoption from Manichaeans in the 8th century AD (

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

) is documented with the writings of the Chinese Buddhist monk

Yijing The ''I Ching'' or ''Yijing'' ( ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The ''I Ching'' was originally a divination manual in ...

and the Ceylonese Buddhist monk Bu Kong. The Chinese transliteration of the planetary system was soon brought to

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

by the Japanese monk Kobo Daishi; surviving diaries of the Japanese statesman Fujiwara no Michinaga show the seven-day system in use in

Heian Period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

Japan as early as 1007. In Japan, the seven-day system was kept in use (for astrological purposes) until its promotion to a full-fledged (Western-style) calendrical basis during the Meiji era. In China, with the founding of the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

in 1911, Monday through Saturday in China are now named after the luminaries implicitly with the numbers. :''Pronunciations for Classical Chinese names are given in

Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...

.''

Numbered days of the week

Days numbered from Monday

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

prescribes

as the first day of the week with ISO-8601 for software date formats. The Slavic,

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

and

Uralic languages The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers ab ...

(except Finnish and partially Estonian and Võro) adopted numbering but took Monday rather than Sunday as the "first day". This convention is also found in some

Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...

whose speakers were converted to Christianity by European missionaries. In Slavic languages, some of the names correspond to numerals after Sunday: compare Russian ''vtornik'' () "Tuesday" and ''vtoroj'' () "the second", ''chetverg'' () "Thursday" and ''chetvjortyj'' () "the fourth", ''pyatnitsa'' () "Friday" and ''pyatyj'' () "the fifth"; see also the Notes. A number of

Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...

have days numbered from Monday as an influence from Western missionaries. They brought along with them working days, e.g. in

Setswana Tswana, also known by its native name Setswana, is a Bantu language indigenous to Southern Africa and spoken by about 8.2 million people. It is closely related to the Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho languages, as well as the Kgalaga ...

: Labobedi (the second working day - Tuesday), Laboraro (the third working day), Labone (the fourth working day), Labotlhano (the fifth working day). Sunday became known as the day of going to church when the iron (''tshipi'') bell rings, thus Latshipi. In

, the week is referred to as the "Stellar Period" ( zh, c=星期, p=Xīngqī) or "Cycle" ( zh, p=Zhōu, s=周, t=週). The modern Chinese names for the days of the week are based on a simple numerical sequence. The word for "week" is followed by a number indicating the day: "Monday" is literally the "Stellar Period One"/"Cycle One", that is, the "First day of the Stellar Period/Cycle", etc. The exception is Sunday, where 日 (''rì''), "day" or "Sun", is used instead of a number. A slightly informal and colloquial variant to 日 is 天 (''tiān'') "day", "sky" or "heaven". However, the term 週天 is rarely used compared to 星期天. Accordingly, the notational abbreviation of the days of the week uses the numbers, for example, 一 for "M" or "Mon(.)", "Monday". The abbreviation of Sunday uses exclusively 日 and not 天. Attempted usage of 天 as such will not be understood. Colloquially, the week is also known as the "Worship" ( zh, p=Lǐbài, s=礼拜, t=禮拜), with the names of the days of the week formed accordingly. This is also dominant in certain regional varieties of Chinese. The following is a table of the Mandarin names of the days of the weeks. Note that standard Taiwan Mandarin pronounces 期 as ''qí'', so 星期 is instead ''xīngqí''. While all varieties of Mandarin may pronounce 星期 as ''xīngqi'' and 禮拜/礼拜 as ''lǐbai'', the second syllable with the neutral tone, this is not reflected in the table either for legibility. Several Sinitic languages refer to Saturday as 週末 "end of the week" and Sunday as 禮拜. Examples include Shenyang Mandarin, Hanyuan Sichuanese Mandarin,

Taishanese Taishanese (), alternatively romanized in Cantonese as Toishanese or Toisanese, in local dialect as Hoisanese or Hoisanwa, is a Yue Chinese language native to Taishan, Guangdong. Even though they are related, Taishanese has little mutual i ...

, Yudu Hakka, Teochew, Ningbonese, and Loudi

Old Xiang Old Xiang, also known as Lou-Shao (), is a conservative Xiang Chinese language. It is spoken in the central areas of Hunan where it has been to some extent isolated from the neighboring Chinese languages, Southwestern Mandarin and Gan languages, ...

. Some Hakka varieties in Taiwan still use the traditional Luminaries.

Days numbered from Sunday

Sunday comes first in order in calendars shown in the table below. In the Abrahamic tradition, the first day of the week is

Biblical Sabbath The Sabbath is a weekly day of rest or time of worship given in the Bible as the seventh day. It is observed differently in Judaism and Christianity and informs a similar occasion in several other faiths. Observation and remembrance of Sabbath ...

(corresponding to Saturday) is when

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

rested from six-day Creation, making the day following the Sabbath the first day of the week (corresponding to Sunday).

Seventh-day Sabbath The seventh-day Sabbath, observed from Friday evening to Saturday evening, is an important part of the beliefs and practices of list of Sabbath-keeping churches, seventh-day churches. These churches emphasize biblical references such as the ancien ...

s were sanctified for celebration and rest. After the week was adopted in early Christianity, Sunday remained the first day of the week, but also gradually displaced Saturday as the day of celebration and rest, being considered the

. Saint Martin of Dumio (c. 520–580), archbishop of

Braga Braga (; ) is a cities of Portugal, city and a Municipalities of Portugal, municipality, capital of the northwestern Portugal, Portuguese Braga (district), district of Braga and of the historical and cultural Minho Province. Braga Municipality ...

, decided not to call days by pagan gods and to use ecclesiastic terminology to designate them. While the custom of numbering the days of the week was mostly prevalent in the

Eastern Church Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in the Eastern Mediterranean region or locations further east, south or north. The term does not describe a ...

, Portuguese and Mirandese, due to Martin's influence, are the only

in which the names of the days come from numbers rather than planetary names. Members of the

Religious Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

(Quakers) historically objected to the pagan etymologies of days and months and substituted numbering, beginning with First Day for Sunday. Icelandic is a special case within the Germanic languages, maintaining only the Sun and Moon (''sunnudagur'' and ''mánudagur'' respectively), while dispensing with the names of the explicitly heathen gods in favour of a combination of numbered days and days whose names are linked to pious or domestic routine (''föstudagur'', "Fasting Day" and ''laugardagur'', "Washing Day"). The "washing day" is also used in other

, but otherwise the names correspond to those of English.

Days numbered from Saturday

In Swahili, the day begins at sunrise, unlike in the Arabic and Hebrew calendars where the day starts at sunset (therefore an offset of twelve hours on average), and unlike in the Western world where the day starts at midnight (therefore an offset of six hours on average). Saturday is therefore the first day of the week, as it is the day that includes the first night of the week in Arabic. Etymologically speaking, Swahili has two "fifth" days. The words for Saturday through Wednesday contain the Bantu-derived Swahili words for "one" through "five". The word for Thursday, ''Alhamisi'', is of Arabic origin and means "the fifth" (day). The word for Friday, ''Ijumaa'', is also Arabic and means (day of) "gathering" for the Friday noon prayers in Islam.

Mixing of numbering and astronomy

In the Žejane dialect of Istro-Romanian, ''lur'' (Monday) and ''virer'' (Friday) follow the Latin convention, while ''utorek'' (Tuesday), ''sredu'' (Wednesday), and ''četrtok'' (Thursday) follow the Slavic convention. There are several systems in the different Basque dialects.
Astronomy and Basque Language
', Henrike Knörr, ''Oxford VI and SEAC 99 "Astronomy and Cultural Diversity"'', La Laguna, June 1999. It references Alessandro Bausani, 1982, ''The prehistoric Basque week of three days: archaeoastronomical notes'', ''The Bulletin of the Center for Archaeoastronomy'' (Maryland), v. 2, 16–22. In Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino), which is mainly based on a medieval version of Spanish, the five days of Monday–Friday closely follow the Spanish names. For Sunday is used the Arabic name, which is based on numbering (meaning "Day one" or "First day"), because a Jewish language was not likely to adapt a name based on "Lord's Day" for Sunday. As in Spanish, the Ladino name for Saturday is based on ''Sabbath''. However, as a Jewish language—and with Saturday being the actual day of rest in the Jewish community—Ladino directly adapted the Hebrew name, ''

''. The days of the week in

Meitei language Meitei (; ) also known as Manipuri ), is a Tibeto-Burman language of northeast India. It is the official language and the lingua franca of Manipur and an additional official language in four districts of Assam. It is one of the scheduled ...

(officially known as

Manipuri language Meitei (; ) also known as Manipuri ), is a Tibeto-Burman language of northeast India. It is the official language and the lingua franca of Manipur and an additional official language in four districts of Assam. It is one of the scheduled ...

) originated from the Sanamahi creation myth of

Meitei mythology Meitei mythology (or Manipuri mythology) () is a collection of myths, belonging to the religious and cultural traditions of the Meitei people, the predominant ethnic group of Manipur. It is associated with traditional Meitei religion of Sanam ...

Notes

Sunday

Lord's Day – From Latin () or Greek () Holy Day and First-Day of the Week (Day of the Sun -> Light -> Resurrection -> Born again) (

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

)

Resurrection Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions involving the same person or deity returning to another body. The disappearance of a body is anothe ...

(

)

Bazaar A bazaar or souk is a marketplace consisting of multiple small Market stall, stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, Central Asia, North Africa and South Asia. They are traditionally located in vaulted or covered streets th ...

Day Market Day No Work Full good day Borrowed from English ''week'' From an Old Burmese word, not of Indic origin.

Monday

After No Work After

Head of Week Master (as in Pir, because

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

was born on a Monday) From an Old Burmese word, not of Indic origin. First day of the week

Tuesday

Thing (Assembly), of which god Tyr/Ziu was the patron. Second day of the week (

cf. The abbreviation cf. (short for either Latin or , both meaning 'compare') is generally used in writing to refer the reader to other material to make a comparison with the topic being discussed. However some sources offer differing or even contr ...

Hungarian 'two') Third day of the week. From

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

'third day' From

Proto-Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium BC through the 6th ...

'second'

Wednesday

Mid-week ''or'' Middle The First Fast (

) Third day of the week

Thursday

The day between two fasts (''An Dé idir dhá aoin'', contracted to ''An Déardaoin'') (

) Five (Arabic) Fifth day of the week. Fourth day of the week.

Friday

The Fast (Celtic) or Fasting Day (Icelandic) (

) Good Friday or Preparation (

)

Jumu'ah Friday prayer, or congregational prayer (), is the meeting together of Muslims for communal prayer and service at midday every Friday. In Islam, the day itself is called ''Yawm al-Jum'ah'' (shortened to ''Jum'ah''), which translated from Arabic me ...

(

Friday Prayer Friday prayer, or congregational prayer (), is the meeting together of Muslims for communal prayer and service at midday every Friday. In Islam, the day itself is called ''Yawm al-Jum'ah'' (shortened to ''Jum'ah''), which translated from Arabic me ...

) Gathering/Assembly/Meeting (

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

) – in Malta with no Islamic connotations Fifth day of the week Borrowed from Germanic languages Or canàbara, cenàbara, cenàbera, cenàbura, cenarba, chenàbara, chenabra, chenapra, chenàpura, chenarpa, chenàura, cianàbara, chenabura; meaning holy supper as preparation to the sabbathday(Saturday)

Saturday

'' ( Jewish and Christian Sabbath) Wash ''or'' Bath day Sun-eve (Eve of Sunday) After the Gathering (

) End of the Week (

'rest') Week Half good day Half day

Days named after planets

Greco-Roman tradition

Romance languages

Celtic languages

Albanian language

Adoptions from Romance

Germanic tradition

Adoptions from Germanic

Hindu tradition

In languages of the Indian subcontinent

Southeast Asian languages

Northeast Asian languages

East Asian tradition

Numbered days of the week

Days numbered from Monday

Days numbered from Sunday

Days numbered from Saturday

Mixing of numbering and astronomy

See also

Notes

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Notes

References

Further reading