Why is Wednesday so weird in German?
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- Опубліковано 4 сер 2024
- The German names for most of the days of the week are straightforward, but Wednesday sticks out as really weird. Why is it called "Mittwoch", which means "midweek", and where do the names of the days of the week come from anyway?
On the history of English:
• No, English didn't alm...
Chapters:
00:00 What's the deal with Wednesday?
00:25 Babylonians and Israelites
01:39 Greek, Latin and Germanic
02:37 Modern German
03:26 Christian missionaries
04:07 The first day of the week
Music:
"Style Funk" and "Hot Swing"
by Kevin MacLeod incompetech.com/
Creative Commons Attribution licence
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Love it. “and you can tell because it’s actually possible to buy groceries on a Saturday!” 😂
As a German, I had to think for a moment to understand why that may be funny!
That’s how I usually find out about holidays lol
@@renerpho As another German I don't get it. Could you enlighten me?
@@llutac The idea that shops would be closed on Sundays is unheard of outside of the German-speaking countries. So the fact that you can buy groceries on Saturday does prove that Saturday is a workday, but only because Germany is weird.
@@renerpho I see, thanks!
Interesting. There's a popular children's story about week days, specifically saturday in German. It's called 'Das Sams' and is based on a pun that I will lay out in German first and then try my best to translate and explain.
It goes like this (the protagonist is called 'Herr Taschenbier' so you can keep track):
"am Montag wurde Herr Taschenbier von Herrn Mon mit Mohnblumen begrüßt, am Dienstag hatte er wie üblich Dienst, am Mittwoch war Mitte der Woche, am Donnerstag war Gewitter mit Donner, am Freitag hatte er frei, am Sonntag schien die Sonne, und am Samstag kam das Sams." (This is NOT a direct quote from the book, it has been several years since I've had it read to me as a child, so there's very little I actually remember)
Anyway, on to the translation, or rather plot summary: 'Mr. Taschenbier (whose name translates to 'Mr. Pocketbeer') just lived out his normal and by most standards, pretty boring life, when he suddenly realized that all the names of the days of the week could predict things that would happen on that day:
on monday, a Mr. Mon would surprise him with poppy flowers ('Mohnblumen' in German),
on tuesday, it would be an ordinary work day (tuesday is 'Dienstag', 'der Dienst' translates to 'work' or 'service'),
on wednesday ('midweek'), it would be middle of the week (even though it's technically not, as the video established),
on thursday, there would be a thunderstorm with lots of thunder,
friday (Freitag) would be his day off from work (to have a day off is phrased as 'to have free' in German; 'frei' means free)
On sunday, the sun would shine (finally one that also works in English)
And on Saturday (Sams-tag), a being called the 'Sams' would appear and mess up his life in funny ways. It would have to be called the satur in English. (which would be a mere one letter away from what the day was named after in the first place)
Unsurprisingly, very few countries have attempted to translate the story as its wide use of puns and wordplay in a way that is integral to its plot and themes has made it untranslatable in the eyes of many. Still, there are exceptions: in the Netherlands, there's a version called the 'Zater', named after 'Zaterdag'; and in Swedish, it's called 'Lör' after 'Lördag'. There are also versions in Russian and Japanese, proving that it CAN be done, but only with lots of effort and ingenuity.
Actually it begins with the Sunday in the story, since Sams appears on the final day of the week.
I read the Japanese one. It’s not a good translation, they simply align the first letters of the days of the week with what happens that day; for example Tashenbîru-ojisan wa KAyoubi de KAisha ni iku (Mr Taschenbier goes to work on Tuesday). Not as interesting, to say the least.
@@TheForcedIntegrity Interesting. I was wondering how one might translate this into Japanese, but apparently, my idea was way off. I just figured they'd do something with the elements the days of the week are named after (something like' on monday, it was a full moon; on tuesday, Mr. Taschenbier lit a fire; on wednesday, it rained; ...' and so on), but they obviously didn't do that, since 会社 isn't spelled with 火. 🤷
That reminds me of a nursery rhyme - the rhyme has nothing to do with which is the first day -
Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living.
And the child born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, good and gay.
@@dianedavidson5283 X3 I assume that last line refers to the old/initial meaning of "gay"...
For most Germans Mittwoch is still the middle of the week, as most of us don’t work on Saturday and Sunday. So it fits perfect, as we some kind of celebrate every Friday as the last day of work in a week.
This. And I think it is common to say Wochentag/Wochentage if you talk about Monday to Friday.
@@alex.r.g Wochentage or Werktage.
@@user-uy8cv6yi3f Nur für einen Bruchteil der Gesellschaft.
@@user-uy8cv6yi3f Nur für einen Bruchteil der Gesellschaft. Haben sie obigen Kommentar überhaupt gelesen?
@@user-uy8cv6yi3f Wer Samstags arbeitet hat die Kontrolle über sein Leben verloren
Thor, in Germany, is also often referred to as „Donar“ in germanic mythology, which more closely resembles the „Donner“ of Donnerstag.
English (and Proto-Germanic) _th_ regularly becomes _d_ in German: _thing_ > _Ding,_ _think_ > _denken_ etc.
And then you have Dönerstag, which mostly happens on Friday and Saturday nights.
@@petar_donchev at about 02.00 A.M. you mean? White or red sauce?
@@Peacefrogg mit sharf
@@silubr1 But this isnt the case here, as Donar is the name used by the northern continental tribes in the germanic mythology and Thor is a pure nordic thing. Kinda the same God but with a lot of names, even the continental germanics had different names (Thunaer).
Interesting aspect though
Am Sonntag scheint die Sonne, Am Montag kommt Herr Mon, Am Dienstag hat man Dienst, Mittwoch ist die Mitte der Woche, Am Donnerstag gibt es Donner, Am Freitag hat man Frei und Samstags kommt das Sams
🤣
Fäcts
I have been searching for this one
Freitag kommt Freia Göttin
😂😂😂😂
How do you know something is related to Germany? There is a DIN for it
I have half a mind to just read through a bunch of DINs recreationally ...just to see all the stuff that is regulated by them. Although most of it would probably be incredibly boring.
Metric paper started as a DIN, then became an EN and an ISO standard.
@@qwertyTRiG I'm not surprised. It's pretty brilliant. The width-to-height ratio remains the same if you fold it.
@@tuschman168 Metric paper is the best part of the metric system.
Man lernt nie aus.... und mit Dir Neues zu lernen macht immer Spaß!
Schönes Wochenende!
Du Simp
Again what learned, wie der Engländer sagt 😁
@@Alien0P 😆
@@Alien0P *wie der Loddar sagt.
Am besten haben wir am Schluss die Versprecher gefallen! 😂
We have the same name in Icelandic, it's "Miðvikudagur" Mid week day.
yeah, its quite interesting tbh, because how Old Norse stuff has stuck around in Icelandic somehow that bit managed to changed lol
@@Banom7a see old norse miðvikudagr
@@leavewe yeah I'm well aware, its just somehow it survived in other Northern language haha
fck iceland
Knowing that Saturday is a Werktag can be quite useful because some speed limits and parking signs only apply werktags.
Which those limits usually mention on additional signs below the speed limit sign. (But they don't tell you that saturday is a workday...)
Btw, an important abbreviaton on some schedule is w.a.s. for werktags außer Samstag, i.e. Mo-Fr.
hö? It's not, though? Maybe in some region of Germany or like several decades ago? (There's all sort of weirdness going on in Good ol', eh.) But for traffic signs, the post office and Behörden and such, Werktag is Mo-Fr. That's how they count e.g. "Bearbeitungszeiten". Sa-So is Wochenende...
@YT *heeeee*? o_O OK. Next time some Amt or something gives me a Bearbeitungszeit of x Wertage, I'll send them this!!! (thx, btw 🙇)
@@simonspethmann8086 tatsächlich zählt der § 193 BGB den Sonnabend nicht zu den Werktagen.
Having the week start on the second day of a period known as the "week-end" _was_ pretty silly. I still get unreasonably annoyed when I see it in American calendars.
Originally, the "week-end" was only Saturday afternoon.
It's not specified which end
@@se6369 Time only flows in one direction so any peeriod of time can only have one end.
@@rewboss I did say my annoyance was unreasonable :p
Mostly I just find it inconvenient to have the (modern) weekend chopped in two.
Same here... even though I'm from New England.
I can remember being confused by "Sonnabend" for the first time in primary school. More than two decades later I still couldn't say with certainty which day it meant.
Isn't the english used word "christmas eve" referring to the evenning of the 24th of december because you call the 25th christmas day? So it would be similar to that.
@@nirfz
funnily enough, as a German, understanding the English names for days like Christmas Eve and new years eve let me finally understand the Sonnabend as well.
Not to forget "Hallow-All evening", that has been slurred into "Halloween" and is the day before All-Saints-Day / All-Hallows-Day.
Same here. Almost no one says that where I live (Berlin, the place he said everyone uses it in)
@@nickkohlmann Eingeborener Berliner hier. It's 50:50 for Sonnabend vs. Samstag. Samstag is easier to say, so it's used more in informal settings, while it's Sonnabend for "serious business"
Some dictionaries still list Wodenstag as an archaic term for Mittwoch. Also, one of the Low German names for Wednesday is Wunsdag/Woensdag.
Wednesday is woensdag in Dutch.
Was ein tünnis
Wotan is the old German name for Odin, the allfather.
Name me the dictionaries, I have never heard someone say that in my entire life
@@nickkohlmann because it's an archaic term, as they said
Finnish has the same thing, with Wednesday being called "keskiviikko" (midweek). Interestingly in Swedish it's called "onsdag", which is derived from the same source as the English Wednesday (both are derived from "Odins dag", or Odin's day). That's notably because if the Finnish names of the weekdays had come from Swedish (which for historical reasons is where a lot of loanwords came from) you'd expect the word for Wednesday to be similar to the Swedish one. So it's likely that the Finnish names for the weekdays are actually derived from German.
it seems that Swedish had an earlier "Midweek" word for Wednesday from Old Norse miðvikudagr
Moi! Finnish ppl use "moi" as greeting is also interesting. Can be close to northern German standard greeting "moin" +n mooi in dutch = beautiful. Have a nice/beautiful day!. mooi dag
afaik "lördag" (saturday) comes from "lögardagen" which means washing day
@@leavewe Icelandic =mid+week+day but historical it is óðinsdagur =(w)odin+day
@@andrethoma5635 i know
Yeah, the Saturday ... Germany is divided into 3 parts here. The northern and northeastern regions use Sonnabend, the southern, western and southwestern regions use Samstag. But there's another small area close to the border of the Netherlands along river Ems in the northwest, where people use Saterdag in their local dialects.
Nice video again.
Have a nice day 🖐👴
As one who lives in the north of Germany: just a few people use "Sonnabend", mostly old people.
@@achimgebhardt5982
I am old enough to use Sonnabend 😁
🖐👴
@@OpaSpielt 😂
You are on of the five people in civilization using Sonnabend, apparently
@@achimgebhardt5982 It's bad that you don't respect your traditional names.
Ich dachte immer, Samstag hat was mit dem Sams zu tun... :P
Well, both words can trace their etymology back to the same language (either Hebrew or Akkadian, depending on how far you want to trace it back). So, they don't have much in common, but it's more than nothing:
The "Sams" in Samstag originates from Byzantine Greek sámbaton, Hebrew "sabbath", and ultimately comes from Akkadian šapattum ("the middle day of the lunar month").
The Sams from the book is a short form of the name "Samuel", and that originates from Hebrew sh'ma ("to hear") and El ("God"). There is an Akkadian cognate as well (šemûm, meaning "to hear").
I think Andrew could have mentioned the fun fact that the word "Samstag" ultimately means "the middle day". Kind of an odd twist, in the context of the rest of the video.
In den USA ist immer noch Sonntag der erste Tag der Woche. Dadurch werden in manchen Jahren die Kalenderwochen unterschiedlich gezählt. Woche 1 ist diejenige Woche, von der mindestens 4 Tage im neuen Jahr liegen.
Ja, ik denk dat is ook de erste dag voor Australië.
As an American I was surprised that he didn't mention this. Calendars generally begin with Sunday on the left and end with Saturday on the right, although I have seen some that begin with Monday and end with the weekend.
@@danielcarroll3358 rewboss clearly mentioned ISO 8601 at 04:38. If calender-companies don't follow the standard, it's not his fault.
@@michelaushamburg6766 I'm not "blaming" Rewboss, just pointing out another difference between North America and most of the rest of the world.
This is a bit funny because even the Americans see Sunday as part of the weekend. If Sunday is the first day of the week, the weekend should be Friday and Saturday.
Very thorough! You taught me several new things in a very short time.
There is a European language where all pagan weekdays were successfully eliminated. In Portuguese, the days between the day of the Lord (Domingo) and the Sabbath (Sábado) are named/numbered Segunda-feira, meaning "second mass", Terça-feira, "third mass", and so on: Quarta-feira, Quinta-feira, Sexta-feira.
Which I feel must have been easier for foreigners to remember when weeks still started on Sunday.
Danke für dieses Video.😁 Hatte schon zahllose Diskussionen darüber das "eigentlich" Sonntag der erste Tag der Woche ist.
Love your videos Andrew. Thanks!
"In a word: Christianity." -- Andrew, you are ingenious as always.
I don't like Sundays because there's little you can do in a small village. But a sunny Sunday can be fun in summer.
The bloopers were excellent this time. Lads, watch Andrew's videos 'til the end!
The annoying thing about the "Ruhe"tag aka day of silence (Sunday) is just they (the church) makes its ding ding thing as being the noisiest thing. Well besides the motor cycle enthusiast going as herds around or roaring Austin mini and the like. When having a heavy traffic road litterally under my feet, even with three storie beneath.
The Old English bit was nicely pronounced (IIRC Rewboss/Andrew is from the UK's West Country region - at least he has relatives still living there, so maybe the Wessex ancestry is still shimmering in his blood like Cherkov-radiation).
The Italian bit needed a long e (since it's stressed and in an open syllable); whether open or closed, depends on the (native)speaker and his dialect.
Also, „Sonnabend“ is a word I first heard in the German version of the Nickelodeon series „Doug“. I only use „Samstag“.
As I experienced it, Sonnabend is, if in the first place, only used by older people just like some people might still use a more english sounding pronunciation of Juli e.g. pronounced like 'Yulee' normally and the alternative version being pronounced 'Yuly' so basically like the english version but without the typical J sound at the beginning, I hope that makes sense.
Fantastic video. This was really something new to me.
In southern German dialects often „Pfinztag“ is used for Thursday. It goes back to the Greek word πεντε for five and is an example for the High German consonant shift p>pf and t>z. Furthermore, in Bavarian you may find “Ertag” for Tuesday, wich goes back to the Greek god of war Αρης, but also to Arius the founder of Arianism, which was the predominant form of Christianity in the region during the 5th and 6th century. Thus, in Bavarian the only non-christian name of a day of the week is “Freitag”, but this may result from the missinterpretation of Friday as free-day before the weekend.😉
And do not forget, the Jewish Sabbath starts Friday Evening (18Uhr) and not midnight.
Errr no, I live in southern Germany (Stuttgart) and never ever heard the word Pfinztag :)
@@Delibro That doesn't mean it is inexistent ;) I'm from a region in Bavaria and in the elder version of the dialect you could hear it. The week would be "Mounda, Irrda, Micha, Dunnaschda, Pfinza, Samsda, Sunnda". Of course that's not how most people speak today, since the dialects are generally on decline.
@@auriocus Ich wollte eigentlich nur korrigieren dass in weiten Teilen Süddeutschlands "Pfinztag" nicht nur nicht oft sondern gar nicht verwendet wird :)
Afaik Freitag comes from old Germanic for the days of the gods, Freyas-Tag (Freitag/Friday), Dunars-Tag (Donnerstag/Thursday [Thor's Day] ).
Thank you very much for this indeed very informative video!🙂👍
Other channels have outtakes at the end of videos, rewboss has a beatboxing fit.
In Brazil the week still starts on Sunday (Domingo, yes day of the lord too). So much so that the other days are basically numbered: 2ª-feira, 3ª-feira, 4ª-feira, 5ª-feira, 6ª-feira. Feira being a very old way of naming the mass service of the catholic church. So: day of the 2nd mass (Monday), day of the 3rd mass (tuesday) and so on. And Saturday also remained with the Hebrew derivate sábado.
Those are very boring names for the days of the week
Portugal is the same. Oh, same language ;-)
@@leavewe Agreed; as a Cantonese speaker, my home language has this same problem of numbered weekday names. Every weekday, except Sunday, is numbered 1-6; Monday is Day 1, Tuesday is Day 2, and so on until Sunday, where it is Day Sun.
And this is why I've come to love the Japanese/Korean names, as their names are (from Monday to Sunday): Moon Day, Fire Day, Water Day, Wood Day, Gold Day, Soil Day, and Sun Day.
It confused me at first when I was in Portugal this summer and tried to make sense at a bus stop. I was searching for the weekday and weekend schedule but all I see was some 2ª- 6ª and other combinations and at first I thought those are the hours.
@@youngwii Interestingly, the Japanese/Korean names are also adaptations of the Babylonian system: this is obvious in the case of Sun Day and Moon Day, but the other five days are also named after the planets. It just so happens that the five planets in question are named after the five elements in these languages, which is how the names of the elements ended up in the names of the days of the week.
Haha, great video!
Very well-researched!
I always found the spelling of Wednesday a bit cumbersome when you basically say "when's day".
Great video, very informative as usual.
as a french speaker, I can confirm that english is a lot wierder than german…
Ganz tolles Video !!! Ich liebe Sprache . Ich liebe Sprachen . Und so ein gut recherchiertes Video lässt mein Herz höher klopfen . Thank you for these positive vibrations
I thought I knew about the days of the week, but a lot was new for me too. Thanks for your research Andrew.
I am fluid in regard to when the week starts. With Sunday being particularly special in Germany in some respects, I almost see a week as having six days plus one special day. In some ways the week starts for me on Monday and ends on Saturday. In others, like the actual working week, it’s Monday through Friday with the weekend being special. In some regards I see Sunday as the day I start with a clean slate. While Saturday is the day to finish what needs to be done in a given week.
Really interesting topic!
The German word for thunder "Donner" as well as the weekday "Donnerstag" come both from "Donar" which is the southern Germanic name for the god Thor. Donnerstag used to be called Donarstag.
Yup, it's the same system in english and german.
Should also have explained why exactly Samstag is sometimes calles Sonnabend, or Sunday's eve, because yes, it also has to do with Christmas Eve and why Germany celebrates christmas on the 24th and not the 25th of december.
And "All Hallows Eve" (Halloween), which is the evening before All-Hallows ("Allerheiligen").
I was only kind of intrigued at first, but this new knowledge is great!
Thank you very much SIr,
You are telling me History of my language ... in a diffrent language.
Brilliant^^
Mittwoch = Wotans tag (Odens dag) in Swedish. The rest are also old gods. We didn't take to christianity until late, and it was easily lost it :-) I do love the idea of "middle of the week-day". It's called "small saturday" in Sweden, so people go out drinking then :-D I don't, as I live in a small village with a single pizzeria that just got closed down for health reasons. Again...
Swedes sure love drinking, especially on midsommar
Really interesting. Thanks!
In portuguese, its even weirder cause it starts from sunday (domingo - which is the first day of the week in portugal and brasil) and calls monday by its ordinal numbers: 'segunda(-feira)', tuesday 'terça(-feira)', wednesday 'quarta(-feira )' thursday 'quinta' friday 'sexta'. They use ordinal numbers to label days from monday to friday. Note that '-feira' is often omitted in spoken and written forms. Feira means free day meaning that monday would literally translate to 'second free day'. Saturday and sunday are exceptions, (sábado and domingo).
Please note that i do not speak and understand portuguese, so please reply in english if possible. I was just reading an article from wikipedia and was interested in how days of the week in portuguese are different to the rest of the romance languages.
Interesting. So only the judeo-christian namings were kept, and the rest simply got ordinal numbers. It would seem the church was successful driving out the pagans there...
Mittwoch is the only name of a weekday that make sense. Because its the mid of the week. (If you count Sunday as the first day.)
In the polish language you have even more days with legit names. In english you have just random names for random days.
In the video he explained how the English names aren;t random, just old an following a tradition.
nah mittwoch is still in the middle of the workweek, because Saturday, even if some people have to work falls on the weekend.
been ages since i thought about it and so i have forgotten the word,..but i remember there being different words for 5day workweeks and the working hours on a saturday.
No, legally Saturday is a work day. That's important if you ever, for example, park in a spot where you need to buy a parking ticket "werktags". If it's free on Saturday _and_ Sunday, it will say "Mo-Fr".
@@rewboss good you mentioned it, thats the word i was missing "arbeitstag" und "werktag" arent the same
werktag includes saturday, but arbeitstag ends friday.
@@Brainreaver79 "Arbeitstag" translates as "business day", and is a word that means any day a specific business is open as usual; or, more accurately, the days when emyployees are required to work and which are not public holidays. In factories and offices, this is usually Monday to Friday; but if you work in retail, Saturday is also a business day.
@@rewboss if you work in a bakery, sunday is also a work day. There's always someone working somewhere. I would put the majority of the people as the main indicator for this. Surprise : some supermarkets are also open on sunday.
stumbled upon these. Able to teach my german wife a few things haha. cheers mate
Ich kann mich an zeiten erinnern, als die geschäfte meistens samstag mittags schlossen, außer am "langen Samstag" (1957 bis 1996) de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langer_Samstag
Was ich mich immer frage ist, warum die Ärzte Mittwoch nachmittags zu haben.
@@frankj10000 Damit Ärzte und Arzthelferinnen an nem normalen Termin einkaufen gehen können?
@@boghag Das würde Sinn machen, wenn die Arztpraxen nicht auch Samstags zu hätten. Oder an den anderen Tagen besonders lange geöffnet hätten, was auch nicht der Fall ist.
They also got the Irish with their Christianised day names. Dé Domhnach is the Lord's Day. (In fact, in archaic English, it would not be so unusual to hear Lord's Day instead of Sunday.)
It is the same in German. Sunday/Sonntag was also called "Tag des Herren" in former times and can still be found in older books.
But every German child knows: Samstag kommt das Sams 😉
Came here for this.
In Irish Friday is Dé hAoine. This was a day when eating meat was not allowed. There are also many Wednesdays when meat was also banned so it became Dé Céadaoin (Céad-aoin) which means first Friday.
Always a fun video, guess when I lived in Germany it depended on the job as an office person it was Monday through Friday, and in retail I had Tuesday and Sunday off. Back in the US retail I depending on the time of year I had a 6 or 7 day work week. Now back to office work I have again the weekends off.
This is the best German channel ive ever seen
To make matters even more complicated, we have the Arbeitstage (monday to friday) as well as the Werktage (monday to saturday). Both translate to working day 🤷♂
So Mittwoch is still the middle of the week when you only count Arbeitstage :)
"Arbeitstag" translates as "business day". And different businesses have different business days: for people who work in shops, Saturday is an "Arbeitstag".
@@rewboss 70-80% of German businesses do not have you come in for work on saturday. So for the majority of the population, Mittwoch is the Mitte der Woche.
Superb. Dankje.
Mir fehlt noch die Alternative Bergfest für Mittwoch. 😉
In Finland, Saturday is also a work day. Although for most office workers, that's only really noticeable during a holiday, because to have a week of holiday, you generally need to spend six days of paid time off: apart from some exceptions, you need to spend a PTO day on Saturday because it is a work day even though you wouldn't have worked on that day anyway.
Great video! Now I'm actually kind of surprised that the word "Samstag" even survived the Nazi era, given its Hebrew background.
Btw, I'm German (born and raised) and at 34 years old I genuinely only recently realized that Saturday counts as an official workday ("Werktag") in Germany, because a friend and I almost got a ticket for parking in a spot that prohibited parking on workdays. Always thought that "Werktag" in that context only meant Monday to Friday.
I wouldn't have minded the Nazis replacing Samstag with Saturn again 👍🏻 Or a germanic god.
The German working week ist ending Fridays at 1pm sharp:
"Freitag nach eins macht jeder seins".
Oder für die zu spät kommer: Was bis Freitag Mittag Zeit hatte hat auch noch bis Montag Zeit. 😂
Was du heute kannst verschieben, kann auch noch bis morgen liegen. 👌
@@Nils.Minimalist Unsauber gereimt, also schlechtes Handwerk.
Gut erklärt, ich wusste es garnicht warum dem so ist^^
Am Samstag kommt das Sams.
In the Northwestern variety of Low German, saturday is indeed named "Saterdag".
Which neatly connects to the Dutch "zaterdag".
Anglophones calling Wednesday 'Hump Day' should be able to relate to 'Mittwoch'
In Switzerland on a Saturday the Stores are only open until 5:00pm. This sucks.
Czech (and other Slavic languages) has named the days of the week pragmatically:
* Sunday = Neděle (no work)
* Monday = Pondělí (day after Sunday)
* Tuesday = Úterý (second day [after Sunday])
* Wednesday = Středa (middle of the week [starting with Sunday]), cf. Mittwoch)
* Thursday = Čtvrtek (fourth day)
* Friday = Pátek (fifth day)
* Saturday = Sobota (Sabbath)
Very interesting.
Also, when I was growing up in the 1960s/70s, spending a lot of my summers visiting and staying with my grandparents in Hannover from the UK, Saturday was indeed referred to by everyone as “Sonnabend”.
In fact then, the TV listings magazines used title the page for that day as Sonnabend/Samstag.
However, now that I go back to Hannover, 40-50 years later, my girlfriend there tells me it has gradually fallen out of most peoples’ use there, is deemed a bit ‘old-fashioned’ with most people now says: “Samstag”
Thanks for this. I always wondered how Wotan (or Wodan) got kicked of a calendar in his home territory and yet remains on the calendar over here in the States.
The French wanted to introduce the day with 10 hours and the week with 10 days.
But the metric system failed.
So it stayed at 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours, 7 days a week and 12 months a year.
That had nothing to do with the metric system and everything to do with The French Revolution, which tried to completely redo the calendar with some cockamamie scheme that nobody wanted to use. Redefining the hour so that only 10 of them made up a day went along with that.
The metric system didn't come along as an international standard until later on in the 19th Century.
That is "decimal system", not "metric system".
Traditionally, the Japanese have a ten-day week and 30-days months.
The metric system is the very thing we have right now
The etymology of Hebrew "sabbath" can be traced back further, to Akkadian šapattum, meaning "the middle day of the lunar month". So "Samstag" ultimately means "the middle day". Which is funny, given the topic of this video.
Which day is supposed to be the Sabbath day? Saturday or Sunday? And if it is Sunday, then why is Saturday named after the sabbath in languages like Spanish and Italian?
@@carultch Saturday, not Sunday. Sabbath is observed from sunset on Friday evening until sunset the following day. The Christian practice to observe a rest day on Sunday is a different tradition.
In some Parts of Thuringia and Frrankonia , Mittwoch is called Bergfest , at the Start of the week you have to climb a Hill, on wednesday you reach the top , and on thursday you go Down to weekend ., Back to valley.
i live in far east Bavaria, on top of a moutain.
the days...begin with moday are as follow.
mada iada midicha finsda freida samsda and sunda ;)
and midicha is translated mid of the work week. the " da" part is translated with day.
monday to friday was to working for your income. saturday was for work at home and sunday for working as little as possible. so my grandma told me....she was born in the 1920's.
in this time if you wanted to reach the next city it was a long long way to go, because horses or bicycles was for the People that had money.
Sorryfor my poor english!
greetings:)
Surprised they consider Saturday a 'work' day, when everything closes at lunch time... which was my main culture shock when I lived there for a few years!
That was changed in, if I remember correctly, the 1990s. Now the shops are open all day Saturday. But the classification of Saturday as a work day has less to do with which stores are open and for how long (that was a joke), but is a legal concept to do with what rights you have as a worker, and how much you get paid for working on that day.
@@rewboss Maybe 50% of shops are open on saturday. The vast majority of people usually don't work on the weekend.
That's a very complicated way of saying "Mittwoch means middle of the week and that's why it was originally called that"
Schön, ich habe dir vor Jahren die Frage geschickt, warum der Tag im Englischen und Deutschen so anders heißt. Man muss nur warten und man bekommt bei dir auch die Antwort, auch wenn meine Frage nicht unbedingt die Ursache für das Video war. Damals habe ich aber auch noch gefragt, warum es in England nie eine Sprachreform gab, in der man das Geschriebene auch der Aussprache anpasste. Es gibt ja Orte in UK wo nicht mal die Muttersprachler wissen, wie man die auspricht. Wie hier auch schon erwähnt wurde gibt es einfach zuviele stumme Buchstaben in wednesday.
Deutschland wurde erst 1871 effektiv vereinigt und erst ca. 1901 konnten sich die Sprachwissenschaftler auf eine einheitliche Schreibweise (für Schulen und Behörden) einigen. Das ist noch nicht allzu lange her.
In England gibt es ca. seit Heinrich VIII, Elisabeth I und Shakespeare eine dominante zentrale Regierung in London, die auch die "richtige" englische Schreibweise benutzt. Seitdem hat sich an der geschriebenen englischen Sprache kaum etwas geändert. Nur die Nuschelei ... äh, Spracheffizienz ... äh, Sprachentwicklung ist weitergegangen.
very interesting!
Seems to me that outside of business contexts, Sunday has remained the first day of the week in much of the English speaking world - personally I find it quite confusing when I cannot change American calendar displays to have the week start on Monday, for example because they're web based 😅
In Hungarian Szombat (similar to your pronunciation) is the Saturday. SzombatON would mean on sunday. And then they say Hungarian is like no other languages, when in fact, learning it for 9 years now I often come across some sililarities to German and English and speaking German and English, wuite a few things do make sense in Hungarian to me. Not sure whether this is a general thing or just my own way of thinking/approaching thinking
Those missionaries certainly took a position on the names of days of the week.
The second part was my favorite! ;)
Thor is called Donar in the West Germanic languages. So it's not named after thunder but Donar, though both words are related.
Thunder got its name from Donar, not the other way around.
While you can buy groceries on Saturday, most people in offices, the industry and other non-grocery related jobs do not work on Saturday. Of course, hospitals, police, fire department, hotels, baker, fuel stations, etc. are usually open 24/7 anyway and some production facilities have a shift system that also carries through the week. For me Mittwoch was always the middle of the week and for most TGIF is still working.
Small thing: The word "Donner" is coming from the Germanic god of thunder "Donar" (which is a bit like Thor, as Wotan is Odin). So Thors Day and Donars Day are both named after the god, not one for the god and the other for his signature sound.
And yet "Donar" - "donner" and "Thor" - "thunder" have the same kind of connection.
Germany is one of the few countries which (as far as I know) still have laws regulating when you can buy things. Very strange for me living in Sweden there such regulations were scrapped 50 years ago. Why should the State proclaim a certain day of the week as "holy" in some way. All inhabitants are not Christians. There are also Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists &c or just indifferent to religion.
Now i have to think about the Babilonian that claimed to have "discovered" the sun.
"Shut up Fred we didnt need to find that IT WAS ALWAYS THERE"
"Okay but do you think anyone has seen the big white sphere in the night sky yet?"
"Sometimes i really want to punch you Fred..."
xD
In Russian we have Понедельник (translated like "week start") Вторник ("second day"), Среда (translated as "middle", same as "Mittwoch"), Четверг ("forth day"), Пятница ("fifth day"), Суббота (same origin as "Sabbaton"/"Shabbat"), Воскресенье ("resurrection").
"Понедельник" is best translated as "the day after doing nothing". The numbering is interesting, because although it appears to start with Monday as the first day, Wednesday is still the "middle day".
The etymology of "неделя" is "не делать", and was originally the name for Sunday before it came to be used to mean "week". That's because Sunday was the start of the week: the numbered days count how many days after Sunday it is. Sunday was changed to "воскресенье", so the week went like this: "Day of the resurrection", "A day after Sunday", "Second day [after Sunday]", "Middle [of the week]", "Fourth day [after Sunday]", "Fifth day [after Sunday]", "Sabbath".
But of course it's easier to think that "вторник" is the second day of the week, so we generally say that in the Slavic languages, the week begins on Monday. That's just not how it began.
@@rewboss Yes, "делать" is "to do" and "дело/дела" is "business/things", so it's kind of similar to shabbat as "no business" day. In Polish, Sunday is still "niedziela", and Monday "poniedzielnik". "po" is the preposition for "after".
@@angelsjoker8190 It's 'poniedziałek' in Polish, but close enough:) I always thought 'niedziela' means 'doesn't divide' as 'dziela' sounds closer to 'dzielić' (to divide) than 'działać' (to work). It made sense in my head as Sunday is the day that doesn't divide week on any parts, but just ends/starts it (I knew that Sunday was first day of the week some time ago, I still remember some calendars beginning with Sunday).
@@blinski1 You are, of course, right with "poniedziałek". While writing, my mind jumped between Russian and Polish and in the end mashed both together 😅
Interestingly, while writing, "dzielić/делить" (to divide/separate) also came to my mind, but both, in Polish and in Russian, I've independently learned that etymologically, it comes from "to do/business", which also makes sense as on Sunday you were not supposed to work or do stuff.
Also in Czech, Wednesday is středa (middle).
When i went to school back in the 90s, the tv programm magazine was still in the order that weeks startet with Sunday end ended with Saturday.
Is "Zischdig" for tuesday common in your too? In the southwest it is, and it's said that it comes from our germanic forefathers.
Ja. Ziustag. Im Schwäbischen "Zeischdig".
Very good Henning Wehn impersonation at one point Andrew.
Mittwoch, to be honest, is still the middle of a "Government"-Week.
Schools, Pre-Schools and public facilities like town halls are just aviable from Monday to Friday. Even
medical practices (with exceptions for Hospitals or ermergency-practices) are aviable from Monday to Friday.
The Grocery is, in some german cities, also aviable on Sunday. For Example: Cologne, Essen, Aix La Chapelle, Berlin, Hamburg and many more!
Tha last part is also important with something else (at least in austria): There are speed limit signs, mostly in urban areas with an additional sign that says "an Werktagen" and often also has a time information on it, like 07:00 - 18:00.
Which in this example means that this speed limit is enforced on workdays between 7 am and 6 pm. (those signs are mostly around schools).
And so while there's usually no school on saturdays (anymore), the speed limits are still enforced on saturdays as they count as workdays.
And in Germany you have to be careful, as these speed limits are also enforced on bank holidays, if they are on a Monday - Friday.
What is a "bank holiday" in Germany?
@@michelaushamburg6766ein Feiertag
Dank you!
Portuguese here. Monday is officially the first day of the week, but it's traditional position as the second day of the week is cemented in it's own name: segunda-feira, second day. The same for all work days, really: third day, fourth day... Saturday and Sunday are Sábado (Sabbath) and Domingo (Dominus).
I struggle with Sonnabend and Samstag as much with left and right lol
only in 1976 in Germany Montag(monday) was declared as the first day of the week before it was the sunday. wodanstag(Wednesday) was changed by the roman church into mittawecha (mittwoch ) in the 10th century
Tuesday - Dienstag
Yeah, sounds literally the same 😜
Ah it was explained later in the video
And an alternative name of Thonar/Thor is also Donar. But yes the association of Thunder to Thor is also a good giveaway for the root of the name
Interessantes video meine Kerle
Are there places where it's not possible to buy groceries on a Saturday? I'm asking because, as a citizen of the U.S., I've been able to buy groceries in a Saturday my whole life. When I was young there were many stores which weren't open on Sunday but even that hasn't been true for a good 30 years now. You can buy groceries any day of the week - even on holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas Day, although grocery stores that are open those days usually have very limited hours (but there are still convenience stores).
It is both surprising and utterly unsurprising that Germany needed laws to define the start of the week. Great video.
We don't need laws for that. We just love to have laws for that 🤣
We have a DIN for how an artificial poo needs to be devised to test whether loos flush properly. This is no joke.
😄
@@TigruArdavi That's glorious!
Hey @RobWords, didn't know you were around here. Love your channel as well! 👍
Well ISO is international, so it's not just the germans... (It's just that ISO often uses what the germans already formed into a norm when it makes sense to not invent the wheel again)
I think it has mostly to do with things like the numbering of the weeks of the year. So when an appointment or time limit is set for the end of week 35 between international parties for example, both sides know what date that actually means.
Could you pls explain how many freedays you've got and how much vaccancies.
My last job just offered me fiften and I was jused to thirtysix per year...plus saturday AND sunday...
The German working law (BUrlG) forbids less than 24 Werktage vacancy-days per year. (That is four normal weeks, because if you don't work six days a week, your vacancy days are reduced accordingly.) If you get more days, you are lucky. If you get less days, you can claim the missing days in court. If German law does not apply to your contract - bad luck for you.
Let me tell you that most Germans working from Monday to Friday, and Mittwoch is still known as Middle of the week and many towns and regions have a little tradition the "Bergfest"(Mountainfest?)(its actually not a real festival it is more or less smth for your own)so have drink in the evening and students going out for party (at least everything you can do with a beer in the hand :P) , wich is better explain as a methapher, so its like celebrate the Top of the mountain, because going down is much easier.
In my region of Germany some (especially older) dialect speakers use the word "Pfingstag" for Thursday, which means "5th day" :-)
He/title: Why is Wednesday so weird in german?
Also the englisch language:
written - Wednesday
spoken - wensday
even thou Samstag is a Werktag, for most people it is not a Arbeitstag (which is kind of dificult to translate, because I think both would be working day)
thank you
Thursday is the more interesting day of the week, because it's "Kleiner Freitag" (little friday) or "Vize-Freitag" (vice-friday) for all those, who usually work Mo-Fr ;c)
Saturday in swedish is called Lördag which comes from Lögardag which means the day when you wash yourself :). So in order they are day of the sun, day of the moon, day of Tyr, day of Oden, day of Thor, day of Frej/Freja and get clean day.
for sabbaton (3:04) we still have shabaton which means time off like ''shant shabaton'' - a year off (as of free time)
The ending was on spot