Re: Why do different countries start the week on different days?

Raymond S. Wise <mplsray@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Blue Hornet wrote:
dandelion wrote:
Some start the week on Monday. Some start the week on
Sunday. Isn't Sunday a day to rest after six days hard
work?


Putting aside the crucial question of 'when the week begins' (which is
not a societal thing at all, but more a matter of 'what day/s do you
have off?' ... the week 'begins' the day after), I've often wondered
why the 7-day week has become the norm, or apparently so, over the
world.

It's simple to understand why humans developed base-10 counting all
over the world, since the vast majority of us have 10 carpal digits.
(Does anyone else wonder why we never developed base-20? Was it
impolite to count on toes?) But counting is counting, and once we have
a base established, 16D or 555 or 101101101 are just alternate ways of
counting the same 365 days in a year. Many of the ancients knew of the
365 or so days in a year from their studies of the heavens. I wonder
what a 'week' was before Genesis was written?

It's sensible that some other cultures would have counted larger time
divisions as "moons", having not a commerce and markets that depended
on prompt rent or interest payments, precise shipping times and
navigation over long water routes ... and not having a written language
or account books to record 'daily' information in any case. I would
expect that other non-Abrahamaic cultures would have divided their days
into other units. Six-day weeks? Eight-days? Nine?

But only a small minority of us came from a religious/cultural
background that developed this so-called 6-day creation + 7th day of
rest for a "7-day week". Can't we break away from that now? I'm ready
for a 10-day week, with 3-day weekends the norm, and occasional 4- or
5-day long weekends.

Then the French can push for 'normal' 4-day weekends, we'll adopt it on
both sides of the pond, and we're ready to employ the rest of the
workforce that can't seem to find a job. Of course, we'd probably need
to name the days after Hindu deities, since there'd be so many of them.
Who can keep track of those things, anyway?


The French tried a ten-day week after their revolution, and the Soviets
went through several reforms which involved weeks of other than seven
days, but the seven-day week returned in both cases. I expect that
religion does play a part, and I think that explains why we can't
succeed in the sensible reform of having a calendar in which, if you
knew the date, you would automatically know what day of the week it is.
Several such calendars have been proposed, but they all would require
an occasional week which was not exactly seven days long.

The simplest way of doing it is to have a year of 52 weeks or 364
days, plus one day which is outside the calendar, such as April Fool's
Day. In some cultures there were two calendars, the secular calendar,
based on the sun (year), with 365 days a year, and the lunar religipus
calendar, based on 52 7 day lunar weeks (phases of the moon). The
lunar religious calendar still survives today in Christendom in
residual form in the "movable feasts" such as Easter.

--
Chris Malcolm cam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Global warming?
    ... It doesn't matter when it was invented, or whether they got the dates of specific events correct. ... I think they started with 1, since only mathematicians, computer programmers, and engineers start counting with 0. ... However, if you can show me where they started counting with the January 1 that *followed* the date when they *believed* Christ was born, then I will also concede the point. ... Besides, if you wanted to know when "Christ" allegedly was born, you'd have to consult a Hebrew calendar. ...
    (rec.boats)
  • Re: Why do different countries start the week on different days?
    ... It's simple to understand why humans developed base-10 counting all ... The French tried a ten-day week after their revolution, ... succeed in the sensible reform of having a calendar in which, ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • PI day, and other days of the year.
    ... unusual distribution of days on the calendar. ... on a base 10 representation of either pi or the clock. ... depending on the base of pi, or e, or the base used in counting days. ... On leap years, 366***also seems ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)
  • Re: Why do different countries start the week on different days?
    ... It's simple to understand why humans developed base-10 counting all ... succeed in the sensible reform of having a calendar in which, ... If the year is divisible by 400, it is not a leap year. ... calendar in a 400-year cycle. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Precession of the Solstices
    ... collected to form the leap day correction on Feb 29th of the 4th year. ... Different ancient cultures had different ideas about the ... adopted different calendar strategies to deal with drift. ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
Loading