I mean, if today i.e. is Sunday then someone long time ago should have said “Today will be Sunday” for the first time in a period from today that is multiple of seven. I was assuming that it was Pope Gregory XIII in October 1582, but looks like he is not. I failed in googling and duckduckgoing out the answer, so I ask for Lemmy’s collective wisdom!
EDIT: so question is not about the origin of 7-day week and sequence of weekday names, but about the exact reference point (day) of today’s weekday countdown. From when have people stopped adding or ommiting any adjustment ‘out-of-week’ days (like in Babylon or Rome) and kept counting to seven till today? In other words, there should be a point exactly N x 7 days ago from which the 7-day countdown has not been interrupted. Or at least the earliest known day in history that everyone on Earth agreed upon as a reference point
EDIT 2: Solved by https://lemmy.world/comment/1852458 Thanks everyone!
I believe most weekday names as we know them in English and many other northern European languages derive from the vikings.
Monday = Moon day. In Spanish, it’s “lunes”.
Well, the question is not about the origin and sequence of weekday names, but about the first day in history of uninterrupted count of 7-day cycles which leads to today’s state of the week. Added this to the post.
Saturday is Saturn’s Day
I believe the Vikings adapted them from the Romans. The Greeks and Romans also had a day for the Sun and a day for the a Moon. They obviously never changed the Month from their Latin roots. July and August are named after Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus.
Saturday in nordic languages Lördag/lørdag is simply lögardagen, the day in the week when you took a bath.
“Saturday” references to the planet “Saturn”.
Here is a video about the origin of the weekday’s names in different languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gifimOF5a_U
I addition to that, here is a video which explains how the months got their names: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9iOt48bTw4&list=PL5x1QB-VRuDtHCWcuSx0DgJr2mnuNXkSB&index=4 This channel has very interesting videos about the ethymological origins of different things. It’s worth watching.
Edit: spelling
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=gifimOF5a_U
https://piped.video/watch?v=Y9iOt48bTw4&
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Don’t know about Saturday, but “lørdag” comes from the Norse word for “washing day” because the vikings were surprisingly hygienic for their time, and bathed/washed themselves once a week.