Julie Abbott, age 11, of Lansing, Mich., for her question:
HOW WERE THE DAYS OF THE WEEK NAMED?
A week is made up of seven days. We have no exact record as to how this man made division of time came into being, but we do know that the ancient Hebrews were among the first to use it. In the Bible's book of Genesis it says that the world was created in six days and the seventh day, or Sabbath, was a day for worship and rest. First day of the week is Sunday. It means day of the sun in a Teutonic translation. Christians set it aside for worship of God and as a day of rest. The Italians call it domenica; the French call it dimanche, and the Spanish have named it domingo. All three names come from the Latin words dies dominical which means Lord's Day.
Monday is the second day of the week. The name is from the Anglo Saxon monandaeg, which means moon's day. Each of the seven days of the week was dedicated to a god or goddess in ancient times, and Monday was sacred to the goddess of the moon.
Third day of the week, Tuesday, had its name come from Tiu or Tiw, the old Anglo Saxon form of Tyr, the Norse god of war. Tyr's father was Odin, or Woden, the king of all the gods in Norse mythology and the man for whom Wednesday was named. Mardi, for Mars, is the French word for Tuesday.
At the beginning of the Christian Era Wednesday was called Woden's day by the Germans. The ancient Romans were the first to name the days of the week after gods in mythology. The fourth day of their week was named after Mercury, and from this name comes the French name for Wednesday, mercredi.
The Teutonic god of thunder, Thor, gave his name to the fifth day of the week. At first it was called Thor's day. It was also most likely a translation for the Latin dies Jovis, meaning Jove's day, for Jove or Jupiter, the Roman god of thunder.
Sixth day of the week is Friday, named from the Anglo Saxon word Frigedaeg, which means Frigg's day. Frigg was the Norse goddess of love. The Scandinavians, and a lot of other people, too, call Friday the luckiest day of the week. At sunset on Friday the Jewish Sabbath begins and the day is also a holy one among the Muslims.
Seventh day of the week is Saturday, the only one named for a Roman god. Giving the day its name was Saturn. The day is Sabbath for the Seventh day Adventists and also the Jews. It's also the first day of the weekend for most people, and a day without school classes for most children.
Put the seven days together and they spell week, with about four of them adding up to month. In the Gregorian calendar which we use today, we have 12 months. The ancient Greek calendar divided the month into three periods of 10 days.
The proper lunar month, which we call the synodical month, is that period of time between one new moon and the next. The synodical month lasts 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2.8 seconds.