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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

The Greek word for Monday literally means "second day". Tuesday is "third day", up to Thursday, "fifth day".

That doesn't really prove anything; I could invent a language where my word for Wednesday meant "first day". But that doesn't make it so. The language merely would follow my convention, not describe something inherently true about the numbering.

(FWIW, I agree that Monday is the second day, but mainly just because that's what I was raised to believe. Plus if Sunday is the end of the week, that means Saturday isn't a weekend anymore, which is nonsense.)

In my language, Monday, literally is "first day", Tuesday, is "second day". Also Wednesday and Thursday. It goes different from Friday.

Similar for Georgian, Monday through to Thursday are named roughly "two-Sabbath" to "five-Sabbath", with Saturday being Sabbath of course. Not sure why those numbers, but I assumed it was because it was the number of days past Saturday?

Friday and Sunday get different names, unrelated to Sabbath as far as I can tell -- paraskevi and kvira.

Ahh Paraskevi is the Greek name as well! It means "preparation" or "manufacturing".

Oh nice, the more you know! Kvira probably refers to the same word meaning "week", but seems like there's theories it could derive from Greek mythology as well.

Lots of influence from Greek culture in Georgia for sure. For a fun fact, the Georgian for "Greece" is saberdzneti -- the land of the wise. Berdzeni itself means wise (as well as Greek), but I'm not certain if it's derived from an alternative historical name for the Greek.

While I subscribe to the Monday week start, that’s a really interesting fact that I never would have expected

Doesn't it mean "Moon's day"? From a quick google it seems it derives from the greek "Selēnēs hēmera", where "Selēnēs" is the gooddess of the moon and "Hēmera" is the personification of day(all of this is straight from google[1] btw, i know nothing about ethymology, only thing that sparked my interest is that in most romance languages the word for monday has a similar root to "moon")

[1]: https://www.etymonline.com/word/Monday

Edit: also wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday

He said the Greek (modern, not ancient) name -- Δευτέρα (Deftéra), which has nothing to do with moons, but means "second day". Obviously this only makes sense in a Christian context which starts the week on Sunday. Monday is "first day" (星期一) in Chinese, for example.

Christian context is a bit fuzzy here. On one hand, Monday is called the same in Hebrew (יום שני [yom sheni] = "second day"). On the other hand, Russian "вторник" [vtornik] ≈ "second" is Tuesday, same in other Slavic languages.

Judaism and Christianity both treat Sunday as the first day of the week, so that it is the same in Hebrew is unsurprising.

Yeah, and? When did word etymology become a criteria on what we choose to do with words?

Wait, Wednesday and Thursday are “fourth day” and “fifth day” - not “W(O)din’s day” and “Thor’s day?”

No, the English names don't derive from the Greek names.

Sun Moon Tyr Woden Thor Frig and Saturn’s day

https://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/professions/education/v...

Thor, God of Thunder, would like to have a word with you.

Does he speak Greek? Because, if not, I imagine so would the moon, Tiu, Wodan, Freya, etc.

I thought he was from up north, where Greek is ... less likely.

I would think the same, making him fairly irrelevant as far as the fact I mentioned is concerned.

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