Another planetary day
The word Saturday comes from Old English Sætern(es)dæg, which in turn derives from the Latin dies Saturni, day of Saturn.
In modern Standard German there are two names for this day, Samstag which derives from the Greek Σάββατο (Sambaton) ; and Sonnabend, which is coming from Old High German sunnunaband, and related to the Old English sunnanæfen (Sun-evening, evening before Sunday).
In most Scandinavian countries, the name refers to a Viking custom of bathing on Saturdays; e.g. Lördag (Swedish), lørdag (Danish).
In Portuguese, this is the only day of the week which is not numbered, Sábado (Medieval Latin Sabbata). Other Romance languages also use a cognate with the same root.
The Hebrew word Shabbat, which itself is the most likely origin of the word in several other languages, is likely to derive from the Babylonian word shabbatu or shapattu, which was the feast of the full moon.
In Arabic it is called day of Sabbath, which was borrowed by many languages in the Islam world; however, in the Caucasus, many languages took the name from Farsi.
In Japanese, doyoobi means earth-day, referring to one of the five elements that are believed to make up the physical word.
In the language of the Incas, Quechua, that is still spoken in areas of Bolivia and Peru Saturday is K'uyichichay, Rainbow day, followed by Sun-day, and Moon-day.
Sanskrit uses astrological names, today is Saturn’s day; the hindi word is Shanivaar, which also retains the name of the planet, one of the nine heavenly objects, the deity Shani.
In Mandarin Chinese, the name marks the sixth day of the week.
The eldest son
Today’s article, about the name of yesterday, is a little shorter than the previous ones in this row. In case you are reading it on, for instance the day of Mercury, I am writing this on the day of Sun; just to be sure.
Szombat, the Hungarian term for this day derives from the Greek Sambaton, and the second of June was sunny and hot. A thin layer of clouds cover the sky but the rays of the sun are stronger, and in the bright morning you can see the biggest lake of the country from the chair where I sit; yesterday evening I came to visit a friend (who's favourite book is Steppenwolf from Hermann Hesse, and obviously likes being far from cities). I should mention Taro (a common Japanese male name, meaning eldest son), a Japanese Mastiff who is a little over four month old and weighs about 30K already; he always makes sure that I'll remember him - my pants will be washed and I love him anyways.
Later that day, I made the mistake of driving home (roughly 160 Km) in the middle of the day (29 degrees, Celsius, in the shades), which reminded me how hard it is to spend long hours on a daily basis steering the wheel. - A shout out to my friends who do that for a living.
It is the late afternoon here and now, and I am going to strain the first batch of the elderflower infusion; let’s see how that tastes!
If you can afford it, take a 5 min walk (or sit down) for five minutes, and think about someone or something that you actually like.
The next day, last in the series of these articles, is the day of the Sun.
And this text is way longer then I planned it to be, and I keep on making it even longer..