Thanks, Konrad,

It's always good to learn more about this, - it's always rather fascinated me!

Lucy-Jane

> Heilir góðir nemendr!
> Greetings good students!
>
> I ma not sure when Germanic folk first picked up the habit of naming
> the days of the 7-day week as they do, nor for that matter whether
> there were 7 days or not in earlier editions of the Germanic week,
> but the custom is generally considered to be quite old. In view of
> this, some early norse versions could prove interesting to some of
> you. The asteriks mean that the forms can be reconstructed, but are
> not actually found written or heard spoken as such. These following
> are all standard for Proto-Norse (here shown from +/- 300-400AD), an
> era during which the language is thought to have been quite stable
> and conservative. The Old Norse forms are also shown for comparison
> and a few issues pointed out.
>
> *sunnôn dagaz - sunnudagr (sunnu + dagr)
> *mânôn dagaz - mánadagr (mána + dagr)
> *tîwas dagaz - týsdagr (týs + dagr)
> *wôdanas dagaz - óðinsdagr (óðins + dagr)
> *þunras dagaz - þórsdagr (þórs + dagr)
> *frijôz dagaz - friggjardagr (friggjar + dagr)
> *laugôz dagaz - laugardagr (laugar + dagr)
>
> The first 4 are considered unproblematic, except for the dating of
> the generalization of -an over -ôn for all masculine n-stems, which
> effects only *manôn dagaz. *þunras dagaz could also be *þonras dagaz
> - it depends on whether the a-mutation of u (making it o) occurred
> before or after loss of the nasal (n). Old English has þunres dæg,
> for comparison, and Old English almost always matches Old Norse when
> it comes to a-mutation, whereas other Germanic languages differ very
> widely in this respect. I chose friggjardagr over frjádagr because I
> think it is more original. Faroese has friggjardagr, which is quite
> specific, whereas frjádagr is more generic (and problematic). The
> last one, *laugôz dagaz, could be specific to Old Norse, which also
> has laugar-aptann, laugar-kveld, and laugar-nátt, showing that the
> use is probably quite old. I thought some of you might enjoy seeing
> something on this topic.
>
> Regards,
> Konrad
>
>
>
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