As a translator and linguist, languages are fascinating to me. I enjoy comparing words in languages and seeing the similarities and differences. When it comes to abstract things, I find it interesting to look at the meanings of words and their etymology (the history of where words came from) to see why we call things the way they are. An excellent example is the days of the week.

Why did we call Sunday “Sunday”? Is that the day we have the most sun? Do all languages call it their version of “the day of the sun”? It turns out (no surprise) that the answer is no.

Monday

Across Europe there are three major categories for names for Monday: the day of the moon, (the day) after Sunday, and numbering the days.

The day of the moon is the most common name among Germanic (e.g. English, German, Swedish, etc.) and Romance (e.g. Spanish, French, Italian, etc.) languages. There is a simple reason why this is the way that it is: the Roman Empire. Many places that speak Romance and Germanic languages today were ruled or heavily influenced by the Roman Empire, meaning that Latin was used for the highest levels of government. Latin called this day diēs Lūnae. In the Romance languages, the diēs part has been dropped and a variation of Lūnae stands on its own, such as Spanish lunes.

For the Germanic languages, it was standard for ease of communication to relate the Roman days of the week to the local, Germanic days via translation. Over time these translations were adopted as the names of the days of the week, so “day of the moon” became Mānini dag in Proto-West Germanic, literally meaning “moon day”. This type of word is known as a calque. As the Germanic languages expanded and differentiated, they modified this term to become the modern-day terms, such as Monday.

Isolate languages Albanian and Finnish also fall into this category as they adopted “moon day”. Like the Germanic language family, their terms are also a calque of the original Latin term.

The Slavic languages have taken a different approach. The majority use a term that comes from the Proto-Slavic term ponedělьnikъ, which is a combination of *po– (“after”) +‎ *neděľa (“Sunday”). Sunday is an important day in the Christian Orthodox church as the day of resurrection of Jesus Christ, so Monday as a relatively normal day is simply the day afterwards.

Greek and Portuguese also have this same kind of reasoning. However, rather than using “after Sunday”, they use Sunday as the start of the week (most important first), making Monday the second day of the week.

Malta, being close to Arabic, starts counting the week from Sunday since Saturday is the holy day in Islam. This makes Monday the second day after Saturday.

The Baltic languages view Monday as the first day of the week, labelling as “first day”.

Hungarian (another isolated language) has decided to not follow any of the trends and instead go for (literally) “head of the week”, meaning the start of the week, using a similar counting method the Baltic languages, Greek and Portuguese.

Tuesday

On Tuesday we start to see more variation between the language families.

The Slavic languages generally begin to use a numbering system for the days starting with Tuesday. Since it is the second day after Sunday, “second” or “second day” is used.

The Roman Empire used gods to name each day and that has continued into modern Romance languages, which use some variation of the term “Day of Mars”. This was also adopted the the Celtic languages in the British isles (Welsh, Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic) and continues to be used into the present day.

Instead of “Day of Mars”, the Germanic languages use a variation on “Day of Tiw”. In Roman mythology, Mars is the Roman god of war. During interactions between the Romans and Germanic tribes, the equivalent was the god Týr, written as Tiw in Old English, and is where English’s word Tuesday comes from. During this time, Týr was considered to be the Germanic version of the god Mars and vice versa. This allowed the two cultures to keep track of the days using each other’s calendars, which was useful for trade and communications.

Greek, Portuguese, Malta and (surprisingly) Icelandic decide to use the trusted numbering system meaning “third day”.

Wednesday

On Wednesday we see more chaos and crossing of language family boundaries than any other day.

The Romance family uses some variation on the “Day of Mercury”, referring to the Roman god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence, messages, communication/divination, travellers, boundaries, luck, trickery, and thieves.

In contrast the Germanic languages (except German) use “Day of Odin”, referring to the Norse/Germanic pagan god of wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, sorcery, poetry, frenzy, and the runic alphabet. While there are some overlaps, there are no direct equivalents with the Roman god Mercury in Norse mythology.

N.B. There are many spellings of Odin, including Wodin, Wōden, Uuôden, Wuodan, Wêda and Wuotan.

German is an outlier that fits in more with the Slavic languages, which decided to call this day some variation of “middle of the week”. Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian also follow this pattern, which could be due to Slavic influences.

The Celtic languages of the British Isles also split from the Romance languages and call this day “First fast of the week”. The name referred to historic days of fasting, especially during the Christian holy week before Easter. Welsh is the exception as it is the only one spoken in an area with strong Roman influence and never replaced “Day of Jupiter” with the name from the Catholic tradition.

Portuguese, Maltese and Greek continue with the numbering system: “fourth/fourth day”.

Thursday

On Thursday, we see the languages primarily return to the way that their language family refers to days. For example the Romance languages use the god Jupiter for the name “Day of Jupiter. Jupiter was the Roman god of thunder and the sky.

The Germanic languages use Thor as an equivalent to Jupiter. He also had the power of thunder and lightning. His day is the “Day of Thor”.

In the Celtic languages, there is some division. Welsh also uses “Day of Jupiter” while Scots and Irish Gaelic use “Day between two fasts”. Can you guess what they are going to call Friday?

In the Slavic languages, Thursday is called “fourth” or “fourth day”.

We do see something interesting if you look at Albania on a map. On Thursday it shows that it is an isolated language by calling Thursday “the day of fire”.

Portuguese, Greek, Maltese and Icelandic continued the numbering system: “fifth/fifth day”.

Friday

On Friday we again see a nearly clear division by language family. The Slavic languages continue with “fifth day” while the Romance languages use something new: a major goddess in the Roman pantheon! Venus was the goddess of love, beauty, sex, fertility, and victory and Friday became “Day of Venus”. The Germanic languages follow up with “Day of Freya”, a major goddess of love, beauty, youth, and fertility in Norse/German pagan pantheon.

There is an exception here: Icelandic. Although it is a Germanic language, it follows the British Celtic languages by using “Day of fasting/no meat”. Like the word for Wednesday, this refers to giving up meat and fish on Fridays during Lent (the period of giving up luxuries before Easter). Welsh decides to continue being the exception by following the Romance languages again.

The Slavic languages continue numbering with “fifth/fifth day”.

The Baltic languages are divided between Latvian and Lithuanian continuing the numbering system and Estonian using “Day of Freya”.

Portuguese continues its numbering with “sixth day” but this time Greek decides to switch it up. Friday in Greek is Παρασκευή, referring to “preparation” for the upcoming Sabbath/weekend days.

Albania also continues its unique naming system with the “Day of Prenda”. Prenda is the goddess of dawn, love, beauty, fertility, health and protector of women in the Albanian pagan mythology. This most likely relates to the day to the Latin “Day of Venus”.

Finally Maltese stands out as a further outlier due to its connection with Arabic. The Maltese il-Ġimgħa has a couple of meanings, including simply “week” but also “collect/regroup”, which is what was done historically. This was the last day of the working week, so this was the last day to get anything done before the weekend and the holy days.

Saturday

If there is one thing that most of Europe can agree on, it is the meaning of Saturday. From Portugal in the West to Russia in the East, almost all countries use the term for the “Sabbath”. The Sabbath is originally a Hebrew term that refers to a day of religious observance and abstinence from work, kept by Jewish people from Friday evening to Saturday evening, and by most Christians on Sunday. Most businesses and offices in Europe are not open at the weekend for this reason. This includes Hungarian and Maltese, both of which are unrelated to other language families in Europe.

The exceptions to this are the Dutch and English, which form part of the Western Germanic subgroup, Danish, Swedish Icelandic and Norwegian forming the Northern Germanic subgroup, Finnish (another isolated, unrelated language), the Baltic languages and the Celtic languages.

Albanian, Dutch, English and the Celtic languages continue using something the Romance languages have stopped: derivatives of the Latin Sāturnī diēs. Saturn was the Roman god of time, generation, dissolution, abundance, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation.

The Northern Germanic languages, Finnish and Estonian are probably my favourite due to their term for naming Saturday. It was tradition to wash your clothes on Saturday for a long time in these countries, so their term means “laundry day”.

Latvian and Lithuanian continue with the tried and true numbering system: “sixth day”.

Sunday

We have seen that typically it is the Romance languages that follow what the Romans did and the Germanic languages use calques for names. For Sunday this is turned on its head. Instead, the Romance languages have been influenced by Christianity and therefore use terms that mean “Day of our Lord”. The Celtic languages except Welsh also use this meaning. Greek and Portuguese also stopped counting days and preparation to also use this meaning.

Estonia also follows this religious example by calling Sunday “Holy day”.

The Germanic languages, Albania and Welsh have stuck closer to the Latin dies Solis, referring to the Sun and Solis, the Roman sun god by using calques such as English’s “Sunday”.

The Slavic languages use the term “Day of rest” – you did not work on Sundays as it was a break from the rest of the work week.

In Hungarian the term for Sunday means “Market day”, which is fitting for a day when you do not have to work and instead go to market.

Finally Latvian and Lithuanian continued their trusted counting system.

Trends

As we can see from the maps, there are a couple of trends that we can see in naming days.

Typically we can see that languages in language families tend to stick together and stay consistent for the days, using either religion, natural phenomena, activities and numbers to label the days. For example French and Spanish are likely to have similar names for the same day. The same is true for languages like Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.

For those that use multiple systems (like English), we can see influences from other cultures on the labels. The Roman Empire directly affected many parts of Western and Central Europe as well as the Balkans. It also affected Northern Europe more indirectly which is why sometimes the days are named after gods that are no longer worshipped.

Christianity, the predominant religion throughout the past 2000 years or so in Europe, has also had a large impact, especially on the names of the weekend days Saturday and Sunday. It is likely that, e.g. in the Romance languages there was an older name that aligned with the Latin term before they were changed to accommodate a more Christian name.

We also see influences from neighbouring cultures on each other, such as in the case of German and Hungarian calling Wednesday “middle of the week” like the Slavic languages and Albania following the Latin naming system except for Thursday and Friday, where it goes back to its own unique system.

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Notes: Here are the languages, terms and meanings used for the maps:

Language	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Bulgarian	понеделник	вторник	сряда	четвъртък	петък	Събота	неделя
Croatian	ponedjeljak	utorak	srijeda	četvrtak	petak	subota	nedjelja
Czech	pondělí	úterý	středa	Čtvrtek	pátek	sobota	Neděle
Danish	Mandag	tirsdag	onsdag	torsdag	Fredag	lørdag	Søndag
Dutch	Maandag	Dinsdag	Woensdag	Donderdag	Vrijdag	Zaterdag	Zondag
English	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Estonian	esmaspäev	teisipäeval	kolmapäeval	neljapäeval	reedel	laupäeval	pühapäev
Finnish	maanantai	tiistai	keskiviikko	torstai	perjantai	lauantai	sunnuntai
French	Lundi	Mardi	Mercredi	Jeudi	Vendredi	Samedi	Dimanche
German	Montag	Dienstag	Mittwoch	Donnerstag	Freitag	Samstag	Sonntag
Greek	Δευτέρα	Τρίτη	Τετάρτη	Πέμπτη	Παρασκευή	Σάββατο	Κυριακή
Hungary	hétfő	kedd	szerda	csütörtök	péntek	szombat	vasárnap
Gaelic (Irish)	Dé Luain	Dé Máirt	Dé Céadaoin	Déardaoin	Dé hAoine	Dé Sathairn	Domhnach
Italian	Lunedi	Martedì	Mercoledì	Giovedì	Venerdì	Sabato	Domenica
Latvian	pirmdiena	otrdiena	trešdiena	ceturtdiena	piektdiena	sestdiena	svētdiena
Lithuanian	Pirmadienis	antradienis	trečiadienį	ketvirtadienis	penktadienis	šeštadienis	sekmadienis
Maltese	it-Tnejn	it-Tlieta	l-Erbgħa	il-Ħamis	il-Ġimgħa	is-Sibt	il-Ħadd
Polish	Poniedziałek	Wtorek	Środa	Czwartek	Piątek	Sobota	Niedziela
Portuguese	Segunda-feira	Terça-feira	Quarta-feira	Quinta-feira	Sexta-feira	Sábado	Domingo
Romanian	luni	marţi	miercuri	joi	vineri	sâmbătă	duminică
Slovak	pondelok	utorok	streda	štvrtok	piatok	sobota	nedeľa
Slovenian	ponedeljek	torek	sreda	četrtek	Petek	sobota	nedelja
Spanish	Lunes	Martes	Miércoles	Jueves	Viernes	Sábado	Domingo
Swedish	måndag	tisdag	onsdag	torsdag	fredag	lördag	söndag
Welsh	Dydd Llun	Dydd Mawrth	Mercher	dydd Iau	Gwener	Dydd Sadwrn	Sul
Norwegian	mandag	tirsdag	onsdag	Torsdag	fredag	lørdag	søndag
Ukranian	понеділок	вівторок	Середа	четвер	П’ятниця	Субота	неділя
Belarrusian	панядзелак	аўторак	серада	чацвер	Пятніца	субота	Нядзеля
Russian	Понедельник	Вторник	Среда	Четверг	Пятница	Суббота	Воскресенье
Scots Gaelic	Diluain	Dimàirt	Diciadain	Diardaoin	Dihaoine	Disathairne	Didòmhnaich
Serbian	Понедељак	уторак	Среда	четвртак	петак	Субота	недеља
Bosnian	ponedjeljak	utorak	srijeda	četvrtak	petak	Subota	Nedjelja
Albanian	e hënë	e martë	e mërkurë	e enjte	e premte	e shtunë	të dielën
Macedonian	понеделник	вторник	среда	четврток	петок	сабота	недела
Icelandic	Mánudagur	þriðjudag	miðvikudag	fimmtudag	föstudag	laugardag	sunnudag

For language placement on the map, I used the major language or for co-official languages, the largest two languages available. For places like Switzerland and Belgium where parts of the country speak different languages in different families, I used a different colour to show when the words had different meanings. For example if Romance languages were yellow and Germanic languages were red, I used orange.

For most countries where multiple languages are spoken but not in specific geographic regions (e.g. Macedonian and Albanian in North Macedonia), I used the larger language to represent the country.

I hope you found this as interesting as I did!