Re: Why not 13 months? (Was La Systeme Metrique)
Kai Henningsen (kai@khms.westfalen.de)
14 Oct 1995 21:49:00 +0200
rmcgee@worldbank.org (Robert McGee) wrote on 12.10.95 in <45jtp7$eiv@minerva.worldbank.org>:
> In article <45jjn6$3gg@milo.freenet.vancouver.bc.ca>,
> >gilbert@opus.freenet.vancouver.bc.ca (Gilbert Aubin) says:
> >On the other hand Mittwoch is the Mitte der Woche, the mid of the week,
> >which is only true if it starts with Sunday, so the jury is out.
>
> The Russian "sreda" also refers to Wednesday's position in the middle
> of the week. (The names of the other working days, as you pointed out,
> derive from the cardinal numbers 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th.) Either the
> Slavic and German peoples once began their weeks on Sunday, or else
> they, like U.S. workers, placed Saturday and Sunday together in a
> special category apart from the 5-day work week. (If so, the Russians
> eventually discarded this concept, forcing them to borrow from English
> the useful term "uikend.")
How about an alternate explanation?
This part of the world is heavily influenced by christianity, which goes
back to the jewisch tradition.
For Jews, ending the week with sabbath seems to make perfect sense.
Unfortunately, by now we've shifted the week by a day ...
I seem to remember an official change of definition for the start of the
week from sunday to monday. Nothing quotable, however ...
Kai
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