Top Document: [sci.astro] General (Astronomy Frequently Asked Questions) (2/9) Previous Document: B.09 What are the possessive adjectives for the planets? Next Document: B.11 Why does the Moon look so big when it's near the horizion? See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge Surprisingly, yes. This comes from the historical association of the "planets" with gods and goddesses. In ancient times, the word "planets" was from the Greek for "wanderers" and referred to objects in the sky that were not fixed like the stars. Some of these associations are clearer in English, especially if we compare with names of Norse or Old English gods/goddesses, while others are clearer from comparing French/Spanish with the Roman gods and goddesses. We have: Sun Moon Mars Mercury Jupiter Venus Saturn Roman Luna Mars Mercury Jupiter Venus Saturn Norse Tiw Woden Thor Freya French dimanche lundi mardi mercredi jeudi vendredi samedi Spanish domingo lunes martes miercoles jueves viernes sabado Italian Domenica Lunedi Martedi Mercoledi Giovedi Venerdi Sabato English Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday German Sonntag Montag Dienstag Mittwoch Donnerstag Freitag Samstag Notes: 1. Sun: Dimanche and domingo are from the Latin for "Day of the Lord." 2. Saturn: Sabado is from "Sabbath." 3. German and English use Teutonic, not Scandinavian forms of the God names, e.g., "Woden" in "Wednesday," not "Odin," which is the Norse equivalent. The God of Tuesday was Tiw. 4. Russian numbers three days (Tuesday = 2nd, Thursday = 4th, and Friday= 5th) and does not use God/Planet names for the rest. In Sanskrit (an Indo-European language), we also find ("vaar" means day) Sun Ravivaar Ravi Sunday Moon Somvaar Som Monday Mars Mangalvaar Mangal Tuesday Mercury Budhvaar Budh Wednesday Jupiter Brihaspativaar Brihaspati Thursday Venus Shukravaar Shukr Friday Saturn Shanivaar Shani Saturday This association between planets and days of the week holds in at least some non-European languages as well. In Japanese the days Tuesday through Saturday (and the associated planets) are named after the five Asian elements, rather than gods. Japanese days planets Sun nichiyoubi hi (same kanji as nichi) Moon getsuyoubi tsuki (same kanji as getsu) Mars kayoubi kasei Mercury suiyoubi suisei Jupiter mokuyoubi mokusei Venus kinyoubi kinsei Saturn doyoubi dosei For additional reading, particularly about Eastern day naming, see <URL:http://www.cjvlang.com/Dow/>. User Contributions:Top Document: [sci.astro] General (Astronomy Frequently Asked Questions) (2/9) Previous Document: B.09 What are the possessive adjectives for the planets? Next Document: B.11 Why does the Moon look so big when it's near the horizion? Part0 - Part1 - Part2 - Part3 - Part4 - Part5 - Part6 - Part7 - Part8 - Single Page [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: jlazio@patriot.net
Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:11 PM
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