Sæll, Konni!

I think we should be careful in drawing conclusions
from the Faroese form 'fríggjadagur'. The 'gg' need
not be original but may be an example of the Faroese
'sharpening'.

I see Þorsteinn Vilhjálmsson, a physics professor here
at the university, insists it must have been 'Freyjudagr'.
His evidence, however, seems insufficient. It may not have
been as 'obvious' in the time the names were adapted that
Venus should correspond to Freyja rather than Frigg.

http://visindavefur.hi.is/svar.asp?id=4452

Kveðja,
Haukur

> 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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