# Romance weekdays (evolved or not?)



## SerinusCanaria3075

Good Morning.
First of all, does anyone know the days of the week in Latin? I don't know them but if I'm not mistaken they don't look or sound anything like today's modern day weekdays in almost all Romance languages. 
I noticed that in Portuguese the days Monday through Friday are 2 separate words consisting of a number (segunda, terça...) and _feira_ (which I believe had to do something with the merchants back in the old days). Although Italian, French, Romanian and Spanish seem to have a strong similarity between their 7 weekdays, it's interesting to know that Sardinian kept the original Latin Friday:
Latin: cena pura
Sardo: chenapura

So where _do_ the weekdays come from?


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## Macnas

Actually, I think it was Sardinian and Portuguese that were innovative here - they replaced the original Latin system with numbers.

The original Latin days were all named after Roman Gods or astronomical bodies:

Sunday - Solis (the Sun)
Monday - Lunae (the Moon)
Tuesday - Martis (Mars)
Wednesday - Mercurii (Mercury)
Thursday - Jovis (Jupiter)
Friday - Veneris (Venus)
Saturday - Saturni (Saturn)

The Latin terms for Monday through Friday were inherited by most of the Romance languages (eg, Spanish lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes), though the terms for Sunday and Saturday were changed. Sunday was replaced by a reference to the Christian God (such as Spanish domingo), while Saturday was replaced by "the Sabbath" (Spanish sábado).


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## SerinusCanaria3075

Oops. So obviously they came from Classical Latin, right? Then I think it was later on in history (if I'm correct) when Vulgar Latin named Friday "cena pura" which had to do with the day when dinner took place (can't really remember who) but for the most part even dialects inherited the "formula":
Catalan: Diluns, Dimarts, Dimecres, Dijous, Divendres
Sicilian: luni/luniddia, marti/martiddia, mercuri/mercuriddia...
Corsican: Luni, Marti, Mercuri, Ghjovi, Venneri, Sabbatu
Gallurese: Luni, Malti, Malcuri, Ghjoi, Vennari

Sound or grammar may change depending on location. 
(any more languages or dialects please post them here)


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## Forero

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> Latin: cena pura
> Sardo: chenapura


Is that the "no meat on Friday" tradition?


Macnas said:


> The original Latin days were all named after Roman Gods or astronomical bodies:
> 
> Sunday - Solis (the Sun)
> Monday - Lunae (the Moon)
> Tuesday - Martis (Mars)
> Wednesday - Mercurii (Mercury)
> Thursday - Jovis (Jupiter)
> Friday - Veneris (Venus)
> Saturday - Saturni (Saturn)



Put the word "Dies" in front for Catalá, behind for French.

The English and German days are loan translations, with substitutions of Nordic deities for most of the Roman ones:

Tuesday = Tyr's (Tiw's) day
Wednesday = Wodan's day
Thursday = Thor's (Thunder's) day
Friday = Freyr's day


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## OldAvatar

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> Oops. So obviously they came from Classical Latin, right? Then I think it was later on in history (if I'm correct) when Vulgar Latin named Friday "cena pura" which had to do with the day when dinner took place (can't really remember who) but for the most part even dialects inherited the "formula":
> Catalan: Diluns, Dimarts, Dimecres, Dijous, Divendres
> Sicilian: luni/luniddia, marti/martiddia, mercuri/mercuriddia...
> Corsican: Luni, Marti, Mercuri, Ghjovi, Venneri, Sabbatu
> Gallurese: Luni, Malti, Malcuri, Ghjoi, Vennari
> 
> Sound or grammar may change depending on location.
> (any more languages or dialects please post them here)



Romanian: Luni, Marţi, Miercuri, Joi, Vineri, Sâmbătă, Duminică


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## Frank06

*Hi,*
*


SerinusCanaria3075 said:



			(any more languages or dialects please post them here)
		
Click to expand...

**Please do not post all of them here.*
*In the thread **Months, days of the week** you can find 6 pages and the names of the days in dozens of languages. **Only names in Romance languages and dialects which are not dealt with in that thread (and in this thread so far) can be posted here.*

*Groetjes,*

*Frank*
*Moderator EHL*


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## Outsider

There's also an overview with historical notes at Wikipedia: Days of the Week.


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## SerinusCanaria3075

Ahh. So Portuguese got the "numerical" week from Ecclesiatical Latin, (although I thought it had something to do with merchants in Brazil but I guess not) so Monday through Friday:
E Latin: 
Feria Secunda (Monday)
Feria Tertia (Tuesday)
Feria Quarta (Wednesday)

Cena Pura (if I'm not mistaken) was named for the feast that the Hebrews used to celebrate on Friday. So far I think Sardinian is the only language which has kept it.


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## Sepia

Forero said:


> Is that the "no meat on Friday" tradition?
> 
> 
> Put the word "Dies" in front for Catalá, behind for French.
> 
> The English and German days are loan translations, with substitutions of Nordic deities for most of the Roman ones:
> 
> Tuesday = Tyr's (Tiw's) day
> Wednesday = Wodan's day
> Thursday = Thor's (Thunder's) day
> Friday = Freyr's day




Additional info:

Julius Caesar claimed that the Germanic gods were exactly the same as the Roman/Greek ones, just with different names - even though that is absolute nonsense, he was the boss and that was his view of things.

Might that have anything to do with the Roman weekdays getting Germanic names?


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## Outsider

Sepia said:


> Julius Caesar claimed that the Germanic gods were exactly the same as the Roman/Greek ones, just with different names - even though that is absolute nonsense, he was the boss and that was his view of things.


That was common in the ancient world. The Romans identified their gods with the Greek gods, as the Greeks had previously identified some of their gods with Middle Eastern and Egyptian gods. 
It wasn't altogether unreasonable, in many cases; it seems the pantheons of these ancient cultures had a lot of common elements, and might have derived from an ancestral common pantheon.



Sepia said:


> Might that have anything to do with the Roman weekdays getting Germanic names?


Did the days of the week get named after the Germanic gods as early as that? How soon was the nomenclature adopted? I had assumed it was due to late Roman influence, perhaps during Christianization, in the early Middle Ages.


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## Barbara S.

Or it might be Celtic. Words came into Latin from the Celts too. Also both German and Latin are Indo-European languages and the vocabulary is very similar.


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## Forero

Sepia said:


> Might that have anything to do with the Roman weekdays getting Germanic names?


Which Roman day(s) of the week had non-Latin names?

By the way, didn't the Romans have an 8-day week at one time?


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## Barbara S.

I'm not saying the names were non-Latin, but that Latin itself had many Romanized Celtic loan words. But the question is whether Monday (moonday) came before or after Lunes. The other days are also roughly paralellel. Viernes (from Venus), Friday from Frieda (not sure of spelling) both godesses. Thursday (Thor) = Jueves (Jove) etc.


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## Macnas

Sepia said:


> Julius Caesar claimed that the Germanic gods were exactly the same as the Roman/Greek ones, just with different names - even though that is absolute nonsense, he was the boss and that was his view of things.




Actually, that's not nonsense at all. They are not exactly the same, but they are quite similar. It's believed that many of the early mythologies of the Indo-European peoples (including Roman, Greek, Celtic, Slavic, and Germanic mythology) all come from a single ancestral pantheon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion

So basically, the gods mentioned in the days of the week can fairly easily be "translated".


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## Outsider

Barbara S. said:


> I'm not saying the names were non-Latin, but that Latin itself had many Romanized Celtic loan words. But the question is whether Monday (moonday) came before or after Lunes. The other days are also roughly paralellel. Viernes (from Venus), Friday from Frieda (not sure of spelling) both godesses. Thursday (Thor) = Jueves (Jove) etc.


There is no question that the Germanic names for the weekdays were inspired by the Roman names, and not vice-versa. What remains unclear is how soon this happened.


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## Frank06

*Hi,*

*This thread is about the Romance weekdays and how they evolved. In case of doubt, please check the subject line and the first post.*
*Anybody who wishes to discuss anything else, from Babylonians to Chinese, whatever, can open a new thread.*
*Off topic posts will be deleted.*

*Groetjes,*

*Frank*
*Moderator EHL*


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