|
|
The Days of the Week |
Let history and language unveil some of the mysteries of the present and join our project.
The names of the days are some of the most frequently used words in almost any language. Still most people do not realise the meanings of these names go somewhat deeper than the calendar surface and that they usually have an interesting history attached to them.
This project wants to look into the words our far language ancestors decided to use for seven times 24 hour periods and to dig into their history, do a bit of linguistic archaeology and then compare and find out to what extent the languages of Europe resemble or differ.
The aim is to have at least one group of pupils or students for each language spoken in Europe do the necessary research in their own language and then translate it into a foreign language they are learning at school. As a lot of languages are involved, it is our intention to keep the texts rather short and simple.
We would like you to write a bilingual (possibly multilingual) text explaining the meaning and origin of the names of the days used in your mother tongue. This means you start in your own language with an explanation of the (sometimes hidden) meaning and an assumption of the probably mysterious reason why those particular names were chosen at which point in time. Then you translate your text into a foreign language you are learning at school. The name of the day should be translated as litterally as possible!
There is a page for each day and a more general history of the week page so that the same information should not be repeated seven times. If a text has already been submitted for your language, do not hesitate to add any information you think suitable.
(For technical reasons we can only put the names of the days in your own language at the moment, and have the rest of the text in either English or German (possibly also Spanish or French). Please also send an e-mail with the names of the days in your language to geert@gymck.cz , if possible with a handwritten attachment, so we can check the correct transcription. We would like to apologise for these restrictions and possible difficulties with special letters in the beginning of our project. We would also welcome a Latin transcription, if your language uses a different alphabet.)
We hope to attach an art project to this site in the near future, in which participants can draw or paint their mental images of the days. Our students will continue to improve the site on various levels in the course of this and next school year.
Thank you for joining us.
Languages or very much alive, just as their creators. If people do not breathe or drink or eat, they will die. It is much the same with languages. If a language stops taking up new elements and undergoes no more changes, it will soon be pronounced dead and will only be waiting for a decent burial.
New words are continually introduced into living languages, grammar structures are simplified or complicated, meanings cross over to other words or words to other meanings, new inventions and fashion desire new vocabulary, letters or syllables are eaten and eventually left out in spelling changes, the road from ear to mouth can be long and winding which may lead to sound shifts in the long run, ....
... and a few centuries later your language is no longer what it used to be. There may be some very mysterious things in our everyday use of language and we are not even aware of it, until we ask ourselves why we call Tuesday Tuesday.
What might help you in this case is called etymology, the study of the origin and history of words and their meanings. It is a field of science where a lot of work has been done. Many good dictionaries add short etymological information to their entries, and there are of course excellent etymological dictionaries. But a lot of questions remain to be answered and a considerable amount of work is still waiting to be done. Research in this field is, however, very specialist and time-consuming.
Therefore, always be aware of amateur etymology. It was, for example, once suggested that news was called news, because it was brought to us from all directions, from North East West and South. Or Jonathan Swift, who lived at the turn of the 17th and 18th century, thought 'apothecary' (which was used for pharmacy in his days) had been compounded of 'a pot he carries'.
Comments, questions and answers
If you have any, please click here .
Here is one question to start with:
Does anyone know how old the seven-day week actually is?
We may not have covered all the languages spoken in Europe. If you cannot find your mother tongue and believe it should be added, please contact us.
|
Romance
French |
Germanic
(North) |
Slavic
(East) |
(Celtic) Modern Greek Albanian |
(Finno-Ugrian) Basque Arabic Turkish |