rebness

What started off as a little aside in my previous post became the sort of academic discussion that makes me come over all geeky and very, very happy. So, thanks to the doubly nefarious and splendid input of ozfille, verastar99 and saffronlie, here is more than you ever wanted to know about the naming of the months and the days of the week:

Months of the Year

January -- Janus, the two-headed God o’D00m (I bet he was an Aquarian. Go, us!)
February – After Februa, the Roman festival of purification
March – Mars
April– Aphrodite
May– Maia, the Italian goddess of spring
June– The goddess Juno
July – Julius Caesar
August– Augustus Caesar
September– Seven
October– Eight, duh
November– Nine, ditto
December – Ten, ibid

Days of the Week

English French Latin Nordic

Monday Lundi Moon Moon

Tuesday Mardi Mars Tiw

Wednesday Mercredi Mercury Woden

Thursday Jeudi Jupiter Thor

Friday Vendredi Venus Freya

Saturday Samedi Saturn Saturn

Sunday Dimanche "Sun" Sun

The link with the sun has been broken in French, but Sunday was called dies solis (day of the sun) in Latin.

It is interesting to note that also some Asiatic languages (for example, Hindi, Japanese, and Korean) have a similar relationship between the week days and the planets.

ETA: kyuuketsukirui informs me that Japanese also references the sun for Sunday, and the moon for Monday. Dude!

English has retained the original planets in the names for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. For the four other days, however, the names of Anglo-Saxon or Nordic gods have replaced the Roman gods that gave name to the planets. Thus, Tuesday is named after Tiw, Wednesday is named after Woden, Thursday is named after Thor, and Friday is named after Freya.

And so there we have it. Most informative LJ around, baby!*

*Possibly sheer hyperbole, and a lie, to boot.