🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <memo.831375@cix.compulink.co.uk>, alext@cix.compulink.co.uk (Alex Thomas) writes:
> Did someone explain why 'Wednesday' does not appear in German?
> Isn't it because Wotan was tabooed: compare our English 'touch wood'.

No doubt.
 
> Secondly, did anyone derive 'Samstag/Samedi'? I think it's 'Sabbatum Dies'.
> Judaeo-Christianity has thus 'annexed' only one German day, as opposed to
> two French; while English weekdays have remained stoutly pagan.

_Samstag_ is allegedly derived from Greek _sambaton_, an alternate form of
_sabbaton_, the connection being that there was a Gothic mission to Germany,
the Goths having learned their Arian Christianity from the Greeks and then
sending missionaries up the Danube.  Bavarian dialects of German have
another weekday name with this origin: _Pfinztag_ 'Thursday' derives from
Greek _pente:_ 'fifth'.  And yet another: Bavarian _Ertag_ 'Tuesday' is
named after the Greek god Ares (with a > e through Umlaut); the Latin
equivalent was, of course, _dies Martis_.

While _Pfinztag_ and _Ertag_ are confined to Bavarian, _Samstag_ has
a wider distribution, being used throughout the South and up the Rhine.
(Northern and Eastern areas say _Sonnabend_, and a very few places say
_Saterdag_, a Frisian form.)

Because of this distribution, it is possible that French _Samedi_ is borrowed
(and remade) from _Samstag_, though it could also be derived from some Latin
analogue of _sambaton_.  My Larousse chastely mentions only _dies sabbatum_,
which does not explain the _m_ at all.

--Leo Connolly				Prost Neujahr!