Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!MathWorks.Com!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!sun4nl!mcv
From: mcv@inter.NL.net (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: Numeric weekday names Re: Why AD Latin, BC English? - summary & followup
Message-ID: <CxMu4I.DnK@inter.NL.net>
Organization: /etc/organization
References: <37e8l8INNls2@symiserver.symantec.com> <37jgd5INN65u@symiserver.symantec.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 22:21:54 GMT
Lines: 41

In article <37jgd5INN65u@symiserver.symantec.com>,
Blake Hodgetts  <bhodgetts@symantec.com> wrote:
>In article <CxIw5L.MAC@inter.NL.net> Miguel Carrasquer, mcv@inter.NL.net
>writes:
>> While 'nedelja' means "week" in Russian now, the older meaning was
>> "Sunday" (from ne-del-ja "no-work-day").  Ponedel'nik can be
>> translated as "after Sunday".
>
>I was not aware of the older meaning of "nedelja", although it is
>etymologically clear and well-demonstrated by the cognate in Polish. Are
>you sure, however, that your interpretation of "ponedel'nik"
>("posle-nedel'-nik") is more appropriate than mine? 

Well, "po" by itself can mean both "at" (+Dat., your interpretation) or
"after" (+Loc, my interpreation).

>It seems to imply
>that Sunday is the header of the week, which is given the lie by
>"vtornik", etc. Interpreting "ponedel'nik" as "beginning the week" seems
>more consistent with the numeric values of the other days. I haven't
>researched this at all, however, and don't claim to be an expert.

Are you counting from zero? 
There are two current interpretations.  In C:-)

A) enum week {Su=1, Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Sa};
B) enum week {Mo=1, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Sa, Su};

A) is the original Jewish/Biblical interpretation.  Russian is consistent
with this, i.e. Mo=2, We=middle, etc., as are German ("Mittwoch") and
Portuguese ("segunda-feira", ...)

In Spanish, the week is enumerated according to system (B): lunes, martes...

English usage of "weekend" is also consistent with (B), although the
canonical enumeration is (A): Sunday, Monday...

-- 
Miguel Carrasquer         ____________________  ~~~
Amsterdam                [                  ||]~  
mcv@inter.NL.net         ce .sig n'est pas une .cig 
