Names for days of the week are similarly derived from the planets in other languages, often from the local pantheon. Knowing which Chinese element was associated with which planet from watching the Sailor Moon anime was how I learned the weekday names and associated kanji in Japanese.
Interesting. In Mandarin, at least nowadays, they’re just numbered. Week is “星期” or “star period.” Sunday is “星期 day” but the others are just 星期 one, 星期 two, and so on. I wonder when that happened.
In Japanese, the days are written with 日 and 月, and then the five elements corresponding to each planet: 火, 水, 木, 金, and 土, followed by -曜日. It was spelled the same in Classical Chinese (where the Japanese got it from), until 1911. The Chinese had apparently learned of Hellenistic astrology by the 4th century. In Classical Chinese, I suppose e.g. Wednesday would be literally “Water-Luminary day”.
That is so cool, I can’t believe I’d never heard it before!
Names for days of the week are similarly derived from the planets in other languages, often from the local pantheon. Knowing which Chinese element was associated with which planet from watching the Sailor Moon anime was how I learned the weekday names and associated kanji in Japanese.
Interesting. In Mandarin, at least nowadays, they’re just numbered. Week is “星期” or “star period.” Sunday is “星期 day” but the others are just 星期 one, 星期 two, and so on. I wonder when that happened.
In Japanese, the days are written with 日 and 月, and then the five elements corresponding to each planet: 火, 水, 木, 金, and 土, followed by -曜日. It was spelled the same in Classical Chinese (where the Japanese got it from), until 1911. The Chinese had apparently learned of Hellenistic astrology by the 4th century. In Classical Chinese, I suppose e.g. Wednesday would be literally “Water-Luminary day”.