Talk:Week/Archive 1

Archive 1

Major Amendment to this article 'Week'

This article has been rewritten. The following sections have been moved;

To 7 Day Week

1 Origins

• 1.4 Hindu week
• 1.5 Chinese week (PART: details adoption of 7 day week split into China and Japan)
• 1.3 European and Near Eastern week (Part: Roman/Etruscan 8 day week rewritten in new Week balance within 7 Day Week)

5 Facts and figures

6 Week number (although still needs cites as previous stated)

To Seven days of the week

As most of this information is already in Seven days of the week and relating to day names, the information will be amalgamated.

1 Origins

• 1.1 Astronomy
• 1.5 Chinese week (PART: details of day names)

3 First day of the week

Other

1 Origins

• 1.2 Jewish and Christian concepts of the seventh day sabbath

This information is within Sabbath, Seven days of the week and 7 Day Week

1 Origins

• 1.6 Market-day week

This is explored within the new Week

2 Weeks and the calendar year

This section was been deleted. Details of other weeks mentioned is now explored in the revised Week. I can find no evidence on the Norse 5 day week, only a theory by Vaster Guðmundsson. This maybe from a half week of 5 nights explained in week#Celts. So I have left it out. Obviously if someone knows of any evidence of this Old Norse 5 day week it can put back in week#Five_Day.

4 Work week and weekends

Workweek will instead be referred to on both 7 Day Week and Seven days of the week

7 Roman Catholic liturgical week

Not sure were to place this. Maybe better with in Liturgy with reference on 7 Day Week. Appreciate any comments or suggestions.

A lot of the discussions on this page will also need to be moved to 7 Day Week and seven days of the week

Suggestions, corrections, comments very much welcomed. --Pnb73 (talk) 13:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Error

What is "day of year"? BrainMagMo (talk) 07:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Old talk

This sentence is very incorrect:

The word "week" is translated as "planet period" in Chinese, possibly based on some misunderstanding of the translators when the concept was first introduced to China.

What "misunderstanding" might this have been? The week is, precisely, a planetary calendar. The Greeks, and probably, all other Middle Easterners of early history considered the sun and the moon and the other observable moving bodies in the night sky to be planets which meant "wanderers". The week was a period for all of the observable "wanderers" in the sky before the invention of the telescope. The question is not whether the translators made a mistake, but who the translators were. I have been laboring under the impression that this was Matteo Ricci. However, I can find no evidence of this. He was the translator of many Western scientific works into Chinese and was the earliest to translate many things into Chinese, so he would be the most likely candidate for this translation. Also, this article mentions nothing about 裡拜, the other term for "week" in Chinese.

Update: I have nothing about the transmission of the 星期 (Xing1 Qi2 or "Star Period") into Chinese in either Science and Civilization in China by Joseph Needham or Chinese History: A Manual by Endymion Wilkinson. I have found a passage on a Chinese website that mentions the transmission of the 七曜 (Qi1 Yao4 or "Seven Luminaries") into China. The passage is as follows:

在古代曾以七曜紀日，其法始於古代巴比倫，以七天為一周，順序為日曜、月曜、火曜、水曜、木曜、金曜和土曜，周而復始，亦稱為星期。中國二世紀時曾出現過「七曜曆」的名稱，但它並不一定就包含七曜紀日法。八世紀時，摩尼教徒從中亞康居國將七曜紀日法傳入中國。

Let me try to translate:

The Seven Luminaries were used to count the days at some ancient date. This other method began in ancient Babylon, one of seven days comprising a week, the Sun Luminary, the Moon Luminary, the Fire Luminary (Mars), the Water Luminary (Mercury), the Wood Luminary (Jupiter), the Metal Luminary (Venus), and the Land Luminary (Saturn), respectively, comprised the original system and were called the "星期" (Xing1 Qi2 or "Star Period"). In Second Century China, a method of recording time was invented, called the 七曜曆 (Qi1 Yao4 Li4 or "Seven Luminaries Calendar"), but it did not definitely contain the Seven Luminaries method of counting days. In the Eighth Century, Manichaeism travelled from 康居國 (Kang1 Ju1 Guo2; Cossack Country?) carrying the Seven Luminaries method of counting days and transmitted it into China.

It appears then that this transmission greatly predates any of the Jesuit Missionaries, such as Matteo Ricci, that I mentioned earlier. I will accept this as fact until I am shown evidence to the contrary. I will update the page now.

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Wasn't the week originally the period between the moon's phases, of which there are four (new moon, first quarter, full moon, last quarter), thus dividing the month into four parts? This works until you try to square the lunar calendar with days and years, which are solar.

Is the week strictly a Western cultural artifact? Did native Americans have weeks? Or the Chinese?

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Week was not a Chinese concept. Although week is now used in all Chinese countries just like the rest of the world. In Chinese literature, the new moon and full moon were often refered to, but no trace of any seven day periods. The lunar calendar follows the phase of the moon. The 15th of each month always have a full moon. The 1st and 15th are often the time to fast or turn to vegatarian diet for most part-time buddhists. To throw in as a food for thought, the word "Week" is translated as "Star Period" in Chinese. The translation hints that week is related to some astronmoical events, or it was based on some misunderstanding of the translators when the concept was first introduced to China.

actually there is one reference to a period of 7 days in the Chinese culture, but it is not call a week. It is believe that the dead reincarnates after 49 days, on the 7th day after death, the ghost returns home to see their loved ones for the last time before moving on.

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"All Chinese countries" is awkward; does this mean China and the cultures it has influenced?

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Didn't the Romans once have an eight day week or something like that? Also, mention should be made of introduction of ten-day week in revolutionary France and the Soviet Union. -- SJK

classical Rome never really had a week - they had the month, with the named days - see Roman calendar. --MichaelTinkler

Actually, the Romans did have a concept of a 7 day week. Read Suetonius where he makes references to the days of the week.

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I find the whole Chinese tangent one the page (not in the talk) as irrelevant. Who said anything about Chinese? "All Chinese" sounds really racist or at least nationalist to me.

The meaning of the word week in Chinese would be a nice thing to retain.

Otherwise various other calendars should be talked about on their own page.

Yes I think, various other curious weeks from African cultures etc. are worht mentioning.

-Paul Hill

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Why not put in one of those things that tells how to figure the day of the week given the year, month, and day of the month? --User:Juuitchan

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Moved the following from article - Khendon 10:31 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)

(I am not sure of the conventions for amending what is an obviously excellent article written by a most learned and esteemed contributor. I would like to raise the question of why there are 7 days in the week. The author suggests above that the "The use of the fixed 7-day period was probably a simplification of a part of a lunar month". The correct answer lies in the passage immediately above. There are 7 primary heavenly bodies: the sun, moon and five planets visible to the naked eye. Thus the naming of the days of the week after seven gods, each of whom is associated with one of these bodies.)

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Moved the following question by 203.115.13.34 from article to talk - At18 15:09 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

(How can it be true that China both "adopted the concept of the week only in modern times" and that "[i]n some archaic Chinese references, the days of the week were named after the Sun, the moon, and the five major planets" ?!)

Answer: Chinese astronomers weren't laboring under the impression that the planets were somehow "wandering stars". Neither did Chinese astronomers confuse the sun and the moon with what modern astronmers would call planets.

The Chinese text quoted above in this talk page, pointed out that the foreign concept of week was passed into China in the 2nd and 8th century. i.e. some scholars in China learned about it and recorded in archaic references. Week was not put in use until the birth of New China in 1911. Hence the reference can be archaic and the use is modern. There is no contradiction.

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Truth it is, the Chinese formerly had a 10-day week into which each month is divided by three. This 10-day week worked ever since time immemorial and up to the present day. The 10-day week just had no regular rest day or sabbath like the seven-day week.

However, the seven-day week has been part of Chinese astrology. It certainly arrived in China by the Tang Dynasty at the latest. Much evidence pointed to Buddhist Monks and travellers. The seven-day week was used for astrology, not for practical or civil purposes. It was adopted into the calendar to determine the lucky and unlucky days. Take the example of Su Sung's water clock in 1060. It had the seven-days of the week on its time-keeping table. Moreover, all imperial calendar and rite ministries had the seven-day luminaries as well. Truth is, the Chinese never adopted it for civil purposes because no historical, cultural or even practical incentive ever came up that mandated the use of a week or cycle with rest days.

The Chinese actually adopted the seven-day week in 1911. Then, western and modern influences had become so strong that adoption was the only way to progress the country.

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It be interesting to note that the order of the week in terms of elements: Sun, Moon, Fire, Water, Wood, Metal and Earth resemble Chinese orders. Yin and Yang precede the five elements, with Yang being first, as with historical tradition. Then, the five elements proceed in an order from Fire to Wood. Many charts of the order of five Chinese elements exist and some do denote that order in the elements order. Usually water precedes fire, but instances have been found with the same order as modern seven-day week.

I disagree that the order followed the Chinese elements. The five element is often presented in the order of their control cycle. metal cuts wood, wood penetrates earth, earth dikes water, water extinquishs fire, fire melts metal. That does not match the week order at all. The Chinese names the five visible planets using the name of the five elements. The week names tie to the planets first and then indirectly tie to the elements. The order should be related to the planet order used in western calender/astrology. The Chinese name matches the planet order shown in the "Roman Association" column of the table in the article.Kowloonese 23:44, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Also, the Chinese have had a 28-xiu system long past in which the heaven and its 28 luminaries are divided into quarters of four each. Each are seven and there was primitive time-keeping style of using 28-xiu of seven days per group, four making 28 days and then repeating over. This system preceded the lunar month system and may have led to the seven-day week, considering that the system uses seven-day periods repeating in cycles.

I have a site on this question, and while it can no means be considered 'authoritative', it might have been useful to refer to it instead of reinventing the wheel:

http://www.cjvlang.com/Dow

Also, you should look at:

http://huayuqiao.org/articles/huangheqing/hhq16.htm#_ftnref3

Which gives a much better perspective than that in this entry.

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Added a link to TheScian Science Wiki page. I was hoping to add content to this page for some Indian languages. But, the table structure that lists days in many languages is too cumbersome and does not scale. I'll wait for a few days and then reorganize it if no one objects. --Selva

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week in asia, native america

was there or was there not a concept of a week in china, japan, india, native america, etc. before the influence of european culture? if there was, did it have 7 days? this is not clear from the article. - Omegatron 21:18, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

Several postings in this talk page has pointed out that there was no concept of week in China. Ancient Chinese uses groups of 10 days called xun2 (旬), it is only to identify which part, namely start, middle and end of the month. There was no concept of taking a day off on Sunday until the Western influence. Chinese used the number 7 in some occasions, but the number 7 was often tied to the seven stars in the big dipper, unlike the Roman origin of week which was based on the Sun, Moon and the five visible planets. I am not the expert in this area, but I would strongly support the claim that week was never a Chinese concept. Japanese culture was heavily influenced by Chinese, so I don't think week was a Japanese concept neither. I'll let someone else comment on the other ancient civilizations such as India and America. Kowloonese 01:11, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I added a comment about exactly what you are asking for back on Jan 8, 2002. My edit didn't survive the test of time. Kowloonese 01:18, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

First day of Week in Europe / America

The article states that Sunday is the first day of the Christian/Jewish week. All European calendars I've seen show Monday to the left and Sunday to the right, indicating that Monday is the first day of the week. US-American calendars, on the other hand, start on Sunday. Anyone know the explanation for this? It should be mentioned, I think. --Sveinb 10:42, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The Europeans have rejected Christianity and along with it the fact of Sunday being the first day of the week? Philip J. Rayment 12:41, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You may be right. But then again, God rested on the seventh day, not the first. That would make no sense. The article on Days of the week explains that continental Europe uses ISO 8601, which has Monday as day one. The current article also links to ISO 8601, so I'll leave it at that. --Sveinb 21:29, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Huh? God rested on the seventh day, which is Saturday, meaning that Sunday is the first day of the week. People that have Monday as the first day of the week are therefore rejecting that Biblical basis. How does that not make sense? Philip J. Rayment 02:28, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Europe is mostly Christian (beleives in Jesus), so rejection of Christianity is not the reason why Monday is the first day of the week there. The trick is that Sabbath (Saturday) has long been the last day of the week, as it was the day the Judeo-Christian God rested after the creation, hence making Sunday the first day. Yet, Christians moved the resting day to the Sunday, pushing the first day of the week to the Monday. Some went back to having the last day on Saturday, some didn't. Europe didn't.In the end, the first day of the week is what your religious authority tells you. Agnostics and Atheists may pick their favorite. Trekkers might pick Thursday. Jean-Frederic

There is an additional twist to this story. In Slavic languages, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are clearly named second, fourth and fifth day (vtornik, četrtek, petek), making week start on Monday. OTOH, in Portuguese, monday is called "second day" (segonda feira), meaning that the week starts on Sunday. Zocky 01:25, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Isn't this a little bit POV? As well as the article;/ some vs most? provide the data/research please on what is what in the world. As well if you take some Islamic contries the first day of the week may be even Saturday. Dominykas Blyze 00:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

From my experience most of Europe has the week start on Monday and Friday/Saturday/Sunday collectively referred to as the "weekend". American calendars seem to start with Sundays exclusively, although most computer related applications seem to follow the ISO practice of starting weeks with Monday.

Historically many countries seem to have had different standards than they do now. To name another example in addition to the ones above, Wednesday is called Mittwoch ("mid-week") in German, although it is the third day of the week according to modern German weekday numbering practices.

Interestingly, week arrays sometimes have eight indexes, starting and ending with Sunday on index 0 and 7 respectively (probably to comply with ISO, which defines "1" as Monday and "7" as Sunday, as well as the American pratice where the first index, i.e. "0", would be Sunday as well).

Even PHP's date function apparently assumes a default numbering beginning with Sunday, as the non-ISO practice (0-6, Su-Sa) is referred to simply as "numeric representation of the day of the week".

Some calendar software goes as far as allowing the user to set the day of the week to any arbitrary weekday, even catering for Discordianists. — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 04:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The reason that Christians mark Sunday as the first day is because Jesus resurrected on Sunday(which is by far the most significant and UBeR-important day for Christians). I am 100% sure of this but cannot find good sources on the internet. perhaps someone should pick up a book about this on their next visit to the library. In Christianity, Saturday is still a sabbath day(not so strict anymore), and the last. --70.74.80.112 19:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Throughout New Zealand and Australia I've never noticed a calendar beginning on Sunday, they have always been Monday. Perhaps this is only custom in the USA or North America? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.109.154.193 (talk) 03:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Me too, from the UK. The article is clearly just wrong. Johnbod (talk) 04:18, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The first day

What does it exactly mean that some day is the first day of the week? Is it forbidden to count «Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday»?

What does that mean: «Later, after the establishment of Islam, Friday became that religion's day of observance -- however the Islamic week still begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday, just like the Jewish-Christian week.»

I think it has to do with how we number weeks within a year.

Speaking of which there are also differences.

US count the first sunday of a year as the first day of week "1". Any days prior to this sunday is considered week "0". This means that a week that start late in december in one year is counted as week 52 of that year but suddenly on january 1st changes name to "week 0".

In Norway and I believe much of europe we count the first thursday of the year to belong to week "1" and the week start on Monday. Thus, "Week 1" may start in late December or week "52" or "53" may end in early January of the following year. If you think "Why Thursday?" the answer is simple: The first thursday of a year indicates that this week has the majority of its days within that year. If you counted on the first monday, tuesday or wednesday you might end up that a week that had the majority of its days would count as belonging to the previous year and not the current year. Having the rule that when a week is split between two years, it belongs to the year that has the largest part of it, and a week start on monday gives you "first thursday" as the rule.

I wrote a perl script long ago that took parameters and computed week number etc for a given date given initial rules like that, perhaps I should dig it up and place it here?

It also affect how you display calendars as you tend to put the first day of the week on the far left and the last day of the week to the far right. Also, if you number weeks in the year it too will affect calendar display.

salte 16:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hindu Civilization had the concept of week much earlier

Hindu Civilization had the concept of week much earlier. Ramayana, the oldest known scripture of the Hindus dates back to 3000 BC. There are evidence in this epic scripture about the seven-day a week concept, 12 months/ 365 days a year concept. Babylonian civilization and the rest followed later on.

Phase

Is it worth mentioning that the cycle has not been kept in phase? That is to say, the day that Israel observes as the 'Sabbath' is in fact not the day that was originally 'Shabat', owing to corrective and other measures introduced over the last 2000 years. - Richardcavell 21:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Out of interest, which changes are these? If you're thinking of the Julian calendar > Gregorian calendar shift, for example, note that that only changed the link between days (within week) and dates (within month) - the cycle of MTWTFSS was unbroken.

It does make me wonder, though - how far can we trace back the cycle of days of the week? If lots of different civilisations used a 7-day week, they can't all have been in sync. When did the week settle down to the cycle we use now? (Or am I mistaken?) — sjorford (talk) 12:35, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

According to Days of the week#Origins of the week, it says the 7-day week has been unbroken for nearly 2000 years, and a recorded roman date from the 1st century has an associated day of the week that agrees with the modern sequence. I'm still curious as to when the current sequence did start, and which civilization started it (which is why I read this article in the first place). Ae-a 11:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't remember the reference, but my understanding was that it's been uninterrupted since Julius Caesar standardized the practice after his invasion of Egypt in the first century BC, importing the middle eastern tradition and replacing what Rome had been using prior to that (the eight-day Etruscan calendar). --Psm (talk) 04:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Julius Caesar did NOT standardize the week. Its first recorded use in Rome was during the reign of Augustus. Romans then used the seven day week alongside the eight day nundinae until the fourth century when the latter was outlawed by Christians when they attained power. The Jews invented the week during their exile in Babylonia beginning in 586 BCE, basing it on a Babylonian practice of regarding days 7, 14, 21, and 19 (49 counted from the first day of the previous month) of every month unlucky.[1]. Thus the Babylonians themselves did not use an unbroken sequence of weeks. Furthermore, we have no prrof that its sequence was unbroken even by the Jews until the Roman inscription mentioned in Days of the week#Origins and discussed more fully in Days of the week#Astrological interpretations. — Joe Kress (talk) 09:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Just noticing

From the page history, it appears to be one of the older articles. Just interesting to know--M W Johnson 12:48, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Week numbers

The ISO 8601 way of numbering weeks is, as far as I know, used in most countries Italic textexceptItalic text the US. Not only by businessmen in Europe, as stated in the article. This can lead to difficulties when planning oversea trips, as the time my mother's company got a call from a vistor from the US arriving at the airport one week "early", wondering where the people who promised to meet him was...

So, the Europeean and American week numbers will be different in years when January 1st falls on a Friday or Saturday, and the same all other years.

Ingrid Aartun 15:28, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

7-day week

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Astronomy/7day.html Quote: The 7-day week was introduced in Rome (where ides, nones, and calends were the vogue) in the first century A.D. by Persian astrology fanatics, not by Christians or Jews. The idea was that there would be a day for the five known planets, plus the sun and the moon, making seven; this was an ancient West Asian idea. However, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire in the time of Constantine (c. 325 A.D.), the familiar Hebrew-Christian week of 7 days, beginning on Sunday, became conflated with the pagan week and took its place in the Julian calendar. Thereafter, it seemed to Christians that the week Rome now observed was seamless with the 7-day week of the Bible -- even though its pagan roots were obvious in the names of the days: Saturn's day, Sun's day, Moon's day. The other days take their equally pagan names in English from a detour into Norse mythology: Tiw's day, Woden's day, Thor's day, and Fria's day. 166.70.243.229 17:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Length of time

Quote: the longest conventionally used time unit that contains a fixed number of days. What about the fortnight?

Not to say that there were suggestions of other lenghts for "week". `'mikka (t) 17:40, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Bible-Calendar-Nature

http://CalendarPetin-Meton.narod.ru/Bible.htm Quote: In recent times (IV century CE) Christian Church (the Bible) exerted its influence on the calendar: a mythical industrial cycle (7-day’s week) was introduced into the calendar, which is present in the calendar at the present time.

   There observed in Nature the time cycles connected with the seen movement of heavenly bodies (the Sun, the Moon, the Earth).

The cycle of 7 is originated from the visible change of the shape of the moon. A month consists of 29.5 days. But we can see the moon for 28 nights except one dark night when the conjunction of the moon and the sun takes place. Look at the sky and see the change of the real moon! You can know the reason why the number 7 is used as a kind of cycle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.134.228.113 (talk) 22:53, 14 September 2008 (UTC) These natural cycles are reflected in a calendar. They are a calendar basis and are used for counting of long time intervals. For example, the seen Sun movement defines the seasonal solar year in a calendar, the Moon movement - the month (lunation), the Earth rotation - the sutki (day + night).

   A mythical 7-day’s week is absent in Nature.

   A calendar problem, in particular, lies in the fact 

that in the 313 year (IV century CE) the Roman Emperor Constantine has wrongly introduced a 7-day’s week into the solar (Julian) calendar when one had legalized Christian. Unfortunately, this mistake was not corrected in 1582 by Roman Pope Gregory XIII and by the author (reformer) Christother Clavius while making the Julian calendar reform.

    The mistake of Emperor Constantine is in the inequality 

between the duration of a CALENDAR month and the average duration of the NATURAL lunar cycle (29,5305888531 sutki).

    Strictly speaking, the duration of one week should be equal to:
         29,5305888531: 4 = 7,382 … sutki.

Further, taking into account the idea, that in any calendar there can be only the integers (fractional numbers should be approximated to the nearest integers) it is necessary to consider, that:

         I week=7,38х1= 7,38= 7 sutki,    i.e. 7
      I+II week=7,38х2=14,76=15 sutki,    i.e. 7+8  
  I+II+III week=7.38x3=22,14=22 sutki,    i.e. 7+8+7          

I+II+III+IV week=7.38x4=29,52=30 (or 29)sutki, i.e.7+8+7+8(or 7)

Thus, the next conclusion follows: For conformity of the CALENDAR months to the NATURAL lunar cycles, the following conditions should be observed:

     -  the calendar months (lunations) should have structures - 7+8+7+8 (30 sutki) and 7+8+7+7 (29 sutki),

grouped in the Meton-cycles known from the ancient times (before the Julian and Gregorian calendars).

      For the last 200 years the calendar experts have created a lot of projects of calendars with a 7-day's week. But all of them are as though «the curve mirrors» which are not convenient to use.
      The unique project of a calendar «with a flat mirror» 

(i.e. 7+8+7+8 and 7+8+7+7) is placed on sites: http://CalendarPetin-Meton.narod.ru/index.htm http://Petin1Mikhail.narod.ru/index.htm Petin M. mikhlud@pochta.ru 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Work week

Shouldn't 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_day#The_work_week' have some citation here? Because that's what I came here looking for... And I believe I ain't the only one too tupid to do that.. o.o' 200.230.213.152 22:25, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Weekends in the Middle East

I'm pretty sure that weekends in some Muslim countries (e.g. U.A.E.) are on Thursday & Friday; I am making the neccessary changes in the Days of the week section of the article. Ozzykhan 16:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Some Malaysian states use this as well Nil Einne 11:13, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Weasel words? 3-day, 8-day weeks statement needs to be substantiated

In the first section, the following sentence needs shoring up:

"Although seven day weeks are common to all modern societies now, anthropologists note that weeks of other durations (varying from three to eight days) are found in many pre-modern societies"

Cmathew 18:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cmathew (talk • contribs) 18:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC).

I have heard before that ancient Rome used 8 day weeks with one day of rest per eight days. -- this is reinforced by http://www.therthdimension.org/AncientRome/Calendar/calendar.html though uncited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.212.30.130 (talk) 13:38, 5 September 2007

The Romans did use an eight-day week called the nundinae, but it did not have a day of rest. Rather, it was a market week, having one day when farmers came to town to sell their products. See Roman calendar#Nundinal cycle. Two sources for all these various length weeks are F. H. Colson, The week (1926); and Eviatar Zerubavel, The seven day circle (1989). — Joe Kress 19:05, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Sunday consistant?

Anyone know for how long the days of the week have been kept consistant (Sunday 2000 years ago = 7 x N days before this Sunday)? It might be interesting to note the earliest date the 7-day week cycle can be consistantly tracked to have been held since (Was Paul of Tarsus' Sunday 7 x N days ago?) - Eric 10:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I have often wondered the same thing. If I had to guess, I would imagine it goes at least to the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple after the Babylonian Captivity (that is, 6^th century BC, the time of Ezra/Nehemiah) --Xyzzyva 05:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The earliest Sunday which is part of a continuous series of Sundays that continues to the present is in an Easter table starting in AD 311. The earliest isolated weekday which can be reliably dated is from AD 60. Although it was called a Sunday, by modern reckoning it was a Wednesday. See Days of the week. — Joe Kress 04:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

No. At the very least, some days were lost in the switch from Julian to Gregorian calenders. I'm not certain how many. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.95.210.111 (talk) 01:25, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

No days of the week were lost during the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendars. When ten days of October were deleted, the Church specified that Thursday 4 October 1582 was to be followed by Friday 15 October 1582.[2] Likewise, the British Calendar Act 1750 specified that Wednesday 2 September 1752 was to be followed by Thursday 14 September 1752. In both cases the days of the week are very difficult to discern because they are specified via dominical letters. A somewhat easier way is to use Calendrica and enter either 15 October 1582 or 14 September 1752 for the Gregorian date. Note the corresponding weekdays and the corresponding Julian dates (just below and to the left of the highlighted Gregorian date). You may also toggle the dates via "Prev. Day" and "Next Day" on either side of the table's title. — Joe Kress (talk) 05:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Japanese meeting Europeans

The phrase

Thus the 19th century Japanese, when encountering Europeans for the first time, were surprised to find their own names for the days of the week corresponded to the English names.

is certainly incorrect. Japanese did not met europeans for the first time in the 19th century, that traces back to the 16th century. I've read the webpage cited as a reference (http://www.cjvlang.com/Dow/) and I've found that it does not imply that the Japanese were surprised at all with the correspondance. In fact, this site only says that when the japanese decided to adopt the seven day week in the 19th century as an step in the process of "westernisation" they choosed to take the names of their seven day astrological week (which had the same "meaning" and origin than the western ones).

So, I've posted a new corrected version of this phrase.

Removed Defacement

Removed the line "3 its a magic number is a badboy song so all u oldies get into it" from the start of the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.12.191.165 (talk) 20:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

1911 version

This is from the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica, which is out of copyright, from this TIF:

WEEK (from A.S. wicu, Germanic *wikôn, probably = change, turn), the name given to periods of time, varying in length in different parts of the world, but shorter than a "month." The month may be divided in two ways: a fractional part may be taken (decad or pentad), as in East Africa or Ancient Egypt (moon-week), or the week may be settled without regard to the length of the month (market-week, &c.). The seven-day week (see Calendar) originated in West Asia, spread to Europe and later to North Africa (Mahommedan). In other parts of Africa three, four (especially in the Congo), five, six and eight (double four) day weeks are found, and always in association with the market; the same applies to the three-day week of the Muyscas (S. America), the four-day week of the Chibchas, the five-day week of Persia, Malaysia, Java, Celebes, New Guinea and Mexico; in ancient Scandinavia a five-day period was in use, but markets were probably unknown. That the recurrence of the market determined the length of the week seems clear from the Wajagga custom of naming the days after the markets they visit, as well as from the fact that on the Congo the word for week is the same as the word for market. Among agricultural tribes in Africa one day of the week, which varies from place to place, is often a rest-day, visiting the market being the only work allowed.

Lasch in Zts. für Socialwissenschaft, ix. 619 seq., and N.W. Thomas in Journ. Comparative Legislation, xix. 90 seq., refer to the week in connexion with the market. (N. W. T.)

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This contains information which is not in the current Wikipedia article, but which may be out of date. What information can be verified should be incorporated into the article.

This text is currently posted at 1911encyclopedia.org which is being used as a reference for part of this article. This is not sufficient, because it is now a wiki and thus not a reliable source for Wikipedia.

I assume Mahommedan as used above refers to the Islamic calendar. -- Beland 17:29, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

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The 1911 "Calendar" entry is considerably longer and more informative. There is a reliable tiff version which may or may not be readable in your web browser, and an less reliable OCR version. -- Beland 17:38, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Islamic week

The islamic view of the history of creation denies the fact that God rested on the seventh day. --Chahibi 14:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

And so, what is the source of this denial? What is the Islamic account of creation and of the week then? What os the Islamic view of the week, with all references possible, please? Thanks,

warshy 12:55, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Some references from the English meaning of the Qur'an:

Surah Al-Qaf, Verse 38: "And indeed We created the heavens and the earth and all between them in six Days and nothing of fatigue touched Us"

Surah Al-Ar'af, Verse 54: Indeed your Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in Six Days, and then He rose over the Throne. He brings night as a cover over the day, seeking it rapidly, and (He created) the sun, the moon, the stars subjected to His Command."

And there are a number of others.

We have been researching this topic to see if there is actually a relation to between the creation of the universe and the seven day week as per Judeo-Christian traditions and it seems that there isn't.

It seems that in Islam (and indeed for the pre-Islamic Arabs) the seven day week has the same origin as in other cultures with the 7 planets. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.234.244.140 (talk) 10:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The source of the Islamic week is the Jewish week, not the planetary week. None of the days of either the Islamic week or the Jewish week are named for planets or gods, whereas all of the days of the English and planetary weeks are named for planets or gods. Five days of both the Islamic and Jewish weeks are numbered in concert one through five, corresponding to the English names Sunday through Thursday. The most important clue is yaum as-Sabt, which is obviously derived from the Jewish name for its seventh day Shabbat even though that it is not the Muslim Sabbath or day of rest as Qur'an 50:38 make clear. Only one of the seven days of the Islamic and Jewish weeks is not related—yaum al-jumu`a (gathering day), corresponding to the English Friday, which is numbered six in Hebrew. — Joe Kress (talk) 02:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

'feria' and Latin

To Joe Kress:

Here is what I was able to glean from 'feria' on Wordnet 2.0:

feria

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Noun
1. a weekday on which no festival or holiday is celebrated; "in the middle ages feria was used with a prefixed ordinal number to designate the day of the week, so `secunda feria' meant Monday, but Sunday and Saturday were always called by their names, Dominicus and Sabbatum, and so feria came to mean an ordinary weekday"
(hypernym) weekday
2. (in Spanish speaking regions) a local festival or fair, usually in honor of some patron saint
(hypernym) celebration, festivity
(classification) Spanish

This could be a good basis for expansion on your inclusion of the Latin word 'feria' on the text of the main article, no? Thoughts? Thanks, warshy^talk 15:26, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the first definition belongs in the article. I don't think the Spanish version belongs here. Although it is similar to the Classical Latin meaning of feria, a legal holiday, it seems to directly contradict the last paragraph of feria, a day on which no saint is celebrated in Roman Catholicism. The latter may cause confusion. (I added HTML line breaks to format your entry the way you intended.) — Joe Kress (talk) 20:55, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Joe,

In Roman Catholicism each weekday of the year has a patron saint. This does not mean that day is a holiday (although some are). In the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) starting in the early Middle Ages, each normal weekday of the week (a saint day) is also a market day. And here is the classical example of the transformation of 'feria' from holiday to market day, as Roman Catholicism progressed from Classic or Ecclesiastic Latin to vernacular Latin, which then became Spanish or Portuguese: In Portuguese, each weekday is numbered as a serial market day. Hence: Monday (Lunes in modern Spanish), is Segunda-Feira in Portuguese (Second Market Day; Tuesday (Martes in modern Spanish), is Terca-Feira in Portuguese (Third Market Day).

What seems to have happened, as Latin became the different vernaculars, and as the Roman Catholic Church started assigning a saint to each 'feria' (weekday) of the year, is that 'feria' became a plain weekday (no holiday) and a "saint day," and also a "market day" ('feria' in Spanish, 'feira' in Portuguese). Basically, from a legal weekday (no holiday) in Latin, a weekday became both a "saint day" and a "market day" (no holiday). Is this a little clearer now? It seems to me, we have to differentiate somehow between 'feria' in Classic Latin, and 'feria' in common usage in the vernaculars that derived from Latin throughout the Middle Ages.

warshy^talk 13:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I thought I understood this until your last comment, which created confusion where none had existed, and you simply ignored the source of confusion I mentioned, the last paragraph of feria. My understanding is that every day of the year has one or more saints assigned to it, regardless of the day of the week on which it falls during any specific year (see calendar of saints). Because all days of the year have saints, that cannot determine a day's status as a holiday or as a weekday. I don't understand your phrase "each normal weekday of the week (a saint day)". By "normal weekday of the week" do you mean Monday through Friday excluding Saturday and Sunday? If so, that seems to be a modern view because Saturday and Sunday are now holidays (the weekend). Until the 20th century, the only day of the week that was a holiday was Sunday—Saturday had been a normal work day alongside Monday through Friday since 321 when Constantine specified that only Sunday was to be the weekly day of rest, in effect abolishing the fasti of the Roman calendar, where the position of each day within the year, not the week, determined what activities could be conducted on each. In my view, all days of the week are weekdays (feria), not just the second through sixth 'weekdays', otherwise Monday through Friday would have been numbered one through five when the other two were named Dominica and Sabbatum. You seem to be implying that because the second through sixth weekdays of Ecclesiastical Latin are not named, only numbered, 'feria' acquired the meaning of a saint's day simply to give those weekdays a name, the name of a saint. This does not explain why they also became 'market days'. — Joe Kress (talk) 05:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

This is getting too confusing. I will try to simplify it for you: Classic Latin 'feria' was a common, regular day. Not a holiday. A common, regular day is also a market day, as opposed to a holiday or day of rest, in which there is no market. In non-classic Latin and in the vernaculars 'feria' begins to mean just a plain "market day." In the Iberian vernaculars, actually, 'feria' or 'feira' means just plainly market. Sabbatum/Sabado is also a market, working day in Roman Catholic Europe up to modern times, but it retains the original Hebrew scripture name. Any confusion remaining? I don't think so. warshy^talk 12:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

References in Origin of the week

Could the section about the near east origin of the week have links to Sumerian or Babelonyan texts where there are references to a seven day week? The section has no references right now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.219.228.172 (talk) 14:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The section has a reference and quote from a 1943 Jewish encyclopedia which is sufficient for Wikipedia verifiability although a more thorough discussion is warranted. However, the week as a period of seven days is never mentioned in any Babylonian text to my knowledge. Instead, Babylonian texts state that certain activities must be avoided on days 7, 14, 19, 21, and 28 of a month, where 19 can be viewed as day 49 of the previous month if that month had 30 days. Jews transformed this into the seven-day week. Thus the seven-day week is a Jewish concept, albeit based on a somewhat related Babylonian concept. See "Origin of the sabbath" in Sabbath in The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913). Also see footnote 19 in "Tracing the Origin of the Sabbatical Calendar in the Priestly Narrative (Genesis 1 to Joshua 5)". — Joe Kress (talk) 04:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Origin of the week focus

Look, what's been listed in this article are a few [hand picked] examples or day names and possible (maybe circumstantial) links to celestial objects. There are many languages for which this is not true. Must this article really imply that the names for the days always have something to do with celestial objects? Maybe other languages should be listed also, for comparison. Just off the top of my head: Portuguese, Swahili, Japanese, Russian, etc. --70.168.100.252 (talk) 01:10, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

See days of the week, which lists their names in a large number of world languages (79), included those you listed and many more. They are organized into planetary versus numerical, the latter into languages (not countries) whose weekdays are numbered from Saturday (Swahili), Sunday, or Monday. — Joe Kress (talk) 03:58, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Chinese 10 Day Week

Chinese History: A Manual By Endymion Porter Wilkinson Published by Harvard Univ Asia Center, 2000 ISBN 0674002490, 9780674002494 Advises the Chinese 10 day week went as far back as the Shang Dynasty 1200-1045 BCE. Which predates Han Dynasty 206BCE - 200CE shown in Week#Chinese_week. I didn't edit the page as I'm not sure if everyone is happy with this cite. --Pnb73 (talk) 23:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Week and Days of the Week

Days of the Week should focus on 7 day week and maybe renamed 7 Days of the Week or 7 Day Week, it's origin, names of the days in other cultures and languages and their origins, first day of the week for various cultures, religions, etc. naming of days, pagen gods / planets attributed to each day as in use today and as in use by the Sumerians for day 7, 14, 21, 28. etc. etc. etc.
These two pages have a lot of duplicated information. This wouldn't leave a lot of information on Week, but Week should be a starting point it's history and current use of the grouping and division of days less than a month. Used in the past and still in use today. And refer to Days of the Week (or 7 Day Week) being such a large subject.
Currently [Week] has little information on other week systems; parts of Africa have 3, 4 (especially along the Congo), 5, 6, and 8 day weeks. The Mayas, Persians and Malaysians had 5, Muyscas 3. etc. The 10 day week (if explored in more detail may eventually deserve it's own page) was a system used by Chinese Dynasty's, Egyptians and even French Revolution, etc.). This would fill Week up with information I think people would appreciate too.
Additionally I'd like to know more about the word 'Week' and it's origin. It's suggested it has the same meaning as 'Market Day'? Is that it's original translation? It's clear that these two pages need to be rewritten and cleaned up and I'd like to start the discussion of how this should be done.--Pnb73 (talk) 10:23, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Since I don't feel like doing it, I'll let you take the lead in your reorganization. I disagree with adding 7 to Days of the Week because it then violates Wikipedia's requirement that the article title should be that used by most English speakers (7 being understood). I agree that Week should be expanded as you outline, which would make any discussion of the seven-day week here only a summary with a reference to [Days of the Week] as the main article. The Maya never used a 5-day week. That may be a misunderstanding because the bar equalled five dots (days) in their base-20 numbering system. My New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary says "week" comes from a Germanic noun probably meaning "series" or "succession", and is related to the Latin preposition "vic-" (not in my Latin dictionary) as seen in the English preposition "vice-" mean next in succession, like "vice-president". — Joe Kress (talk) 01:59, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I found Online Etymology Dictionary which has interesting details of the word week.
The amount of other 'days of the week' for weeks not 7 days but other quantities of day groupings/lunation divisions i.e. Maya_calendar#Tzolk.27in, Aztec_calendar#Day_signs, Soviet_calendar#Five-day_weeks, etc. etc. etc. is a large subject. The term '7 Days of the Week' is used by most English speakers and would help show the difference for someone researching, interested, etc. in just 7 days of the week or lead elsewhere if looking for other days of the week. If days of the week was to include the origins of the 7 day week and not just the origins of the names of the days of the week then to clarify we either need a 7 day week to explore the origins, order of days, first day of the week, etc. and days of the week just about that; 'days of the week'
And if so, [Days of the week]] should not be limited to the 7 days of the week and include the names of days for other quantities of day groupings/lunation divisions as mentioned in the examples above.
It's a lot of information potentially. By breaking these 2 pages into 3 pages would help for development and accuracy by focusing on a more specific subject.
So I suggest either Week, 7 Day Week] and Days of the Week or Week, 7 Days of the Week and other pages relating to 10 days of the week, etc. etc.
It needs some thinking.--Pnb73 (talk) 11:51, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

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