this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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When I was learning english as an inmigrant kid, I was like: why the fuck do they name the months
Because in Chinese, it was just numbers:
月 = Month
And the characters before are just a number
Simple
(Omg I did it again, I went on a rant about language... 🙃)
月
ඞ
I can't be the only one
When the calandar is sus
Tbh, I was kinda disappointed about this when learning Japanese. (Am from Europe where probably all languages have named months.) The days of the week had these fancy names but months were just "[number] month". If you name weekdays, why not name months?
I mean at least in japanese they used to have names but changed to the numbering system at one point.
You still see the old names pop up from time to time in literature and stuff. btw I found a reference https://blog.japanwondertravel.com/the-old-japanese-names-for-the-months-meanings-and-origins-21973
oh really? good to know!
While in German months have names, when talking about specific dates (getting a dentist appointment for instance) you often use numerals. Does the 15th of the fourth at 11 work for you?
Kannst du ein Beispiel auf Deutsch geben? Ich lerne Deutsch.
Heute haben wir den achtzehnte dritte.
huh interesting
That's just neat. It even looks cool in markdown.
this you?
Despite all her frustration with the language, she speaks it very well. And she's totally right of course, Wikipedia even includes the demonym in the cheat sheet on every country page, just because no one ever knows them.
Lol this is the second time someone linked this. 🤣
(Two Days Ago: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/40007037/17338871)
Numbered months should be much easier, but man my brain just can't vibe with it
Is it the same for the days of the week?
In Czech we have:
after no work
second (archaic)
middle
fourth
fifth
Sabbath
no work
星期 = Week, but if you add a number after it, its not Week 1, but 1st day of the week
Week 1, Week 2, would be：
Sunday is actually the first day of the week. This is the the reason Wednesday is in the middle of the week and is called "Mittwoch" (Middle week) in German.
Sunday is the first day for those who inherited Saturday as a holy day.
Achtually, it depends on the country. Wednesday is still in the middle of the work week if you start on Mondays
I'm in Finland, the week starts at Monday, Wednesday is "keskiviikko" (mid-week), and I always thought it was called that because it's in the middle of the work week. Because naming the middle of the work week is very important, and nobody gives a damn about the calendar in the weekend, because it's time to chill.
Well from some countries' point of view, Monday is the first day of the week.
I mean, the word we use to describe Saturdays and Sundays is Weekend (周末), so it actually makes sense for Monday to be the first of the week.
Btw, Calandar apps have this option in settings:
Which has a dropdown menu of options:
Apparantly, some countries use Saturday as the first day of the week? 🤷♂️
I prefer Monday as well, but "end" doesn't always mean "last point in a series". it also means the furthest point of something, but could be on any direction, hence "both ends" is a thing. so weekends can mean the two days on either side of the week, Sunday being first and Saturday being last.
I know that Arabic also has numbers for most days, 1 for Sunday, all the way to 5 for Thursday, but instead of 6 and 7 they named Friday "congregation" (the day Muslims congregate to pray together) and Saturday "sabbath" interestingly enough.
But wouldn't it have to be called "weekends" for your explanation to work?
probably. but then weekends as we say today would have to be called weekendses.
But a weeks ARE a series of days, and thus have a beginning and an end. A stick can have two ends, a week has a clear beginning. And it's on Monday.
The reason Mittwoch is called Mittwoch is that missionaries thought "Wodansdag" is just a little to bit on the nose pagan.