Chinese character question--days of the week

[Helena]

I know that in Korea the characters they use for the days of the week are sun, moon, fire, water, wood, metal (gold), and earth. I’m pretty sure they use these in Japan, too. But this site indicates that they use something else in mainland China. Can anybody tell me where these are used and not used? How about in Taiwan?

[Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas]

*Originally posted by Helena *
**I know that in Korea the characters they use for the days of the week are sun, moon, fire, water, wood, metal (gold), and earth. I’m pretty sure they use these in Japan, too. But this site indicates that they use something else in mainland China. Can anybody tell me where these are used and not used? How about in Taiwan? **

In the People’s Republic of China, and I guess in Taiwan too, the names of the days of the week consist of the syllables “xing qi” (literally “star period”) followed by a number from one to seven. Thus Monday is “xingqiyi”, Tuesday “xingqi’er” and so forth.

Note, this is for the dialect Putonghua (Mandarin), I have no idea if they use a different system in Cantonese and the other minority languages of China.

UnuMondo

[Tars_Tarkas]

I usually see sun still used for sunday in Chinese, and my chinese coworkers say that also, but the 1-6 for the other days are right. 7/sun is probably interchangable

[Johanna]

I’m thinking that in the old days in China they used the traditional symbols for the days of the week. For some reason the modern Chinese have replaced them with boring numerals … but Japanese and Korean have kept the traditional names … which were discussed in more detail in this thread.

[Urban_Ranger]

Week is a purely artifical division based on Judeo-Christianity traditions. It has no correspondence in nature such as the lunar month. As such, it did not exist in Asia until introduced by Christian missionaries, so there are no “traditional symbols” per se for the days of the week.
UnuMondo,

Another character that is used is *chou[/] (cycle).

[jovan]

*Originally posted by Urban Ranger *
Week is a purely artifical division based on Judeo-Christianity traditions. It has no correspondence in nature such as the lunar month. As such, it did not exist in Asia until introduced by Christian missionaries, so there are no “traditional symbols” per se for the days of the week.

Wrong. This was discussed in depth in the thread linked by Jomo Mojo

Allow me to quote myself:

The first mention of the seven-day week in Chinese litterature dates from the late 8th century and is found in the Kong que ming wang jing a translation by one Yijing of a Buddhist sutra, the Mahâmâyûrî-vidyârâjñî, or Peacock Sutra. That being said, it is believed that through Persian Manicheist influences, the week had already been introduced in China by that date.

The first mention in Japan dates from 806, in the Shukuyôkyô, another Buddhist sutra brought back from China by the great monk Kôbô Daishi (Kûkai).

Franciscan missionaries did not go to to China until the 13th century, while St. Francis Xavier landed in Japan in 1549.

It appears that Buddhist missionaries were as instrumental to spreading the 7-day week as were the Christians, though for both of them the origin for the concept is the same.

In the same thread, Protesilaus wrote:

The Babylonians seem to have been the first to name days of the week after planets/gods around 700 BC. The Romans replaced the names with their own gods when Constantine borrowed the idea of a week in AD 321.

[jjimm]

In (Cantonese) Hong Kong, they use a number character, followed by the character for “day”. They say “Yat yat” (‘one day’ - Monday) “Yi yat” (‘two day’ - Tuesday), “sam yat” (‘three day’ - Wednesday) etc. I seem to recall that there’s an irregularity for Sunday, but can’t remember what this is. However, I’m not sure if the character that is used in writing the day of the week is actually the character for the word “yat”, as written Chinese and Cantonese aren’t always the same.

[jovan]

jjimm, are you sure? My intro to Cantonese book (phrasebook, really) gives the days of the week as:

sing kei yat (monday)
sing kei yi (tuesday)
sing kei sam (wednesday)
sing kei sei (thursday)
sing kei ng (friday)
sing kei luk (saturday)
sing kei yat (sunday)

All of those are written the same way as in Mandarin, with Sunday being “sun” instead of #7.

Then again, though, I never actually got to use that phrasebook, so someone who knows better should probably confirm that.

[jjimm]

Ah, I was remembering the short (slang) form. I learned spoken Cantonese and never took classes, so a lot of what I know is “incorrect” as far as the books are concerned.

Your version is more correct.

Tomorrow, today and yesterday are “tsing yat”, “gum yat” and “tsum yat” respectively, so “yat” definitely is something to do with day.

[jjimm]

This also puts me in mind of how time is expressed.

The word for minute is “fan chong”. So 5.15 should correctly be expressed thus: “Mm dim sap-mm fan chong” (5 hour fifteen minutes), but most people actually use “goh-tsi”, which are units of 5 minutes (i.e. the numbers on the clock). Thus 5.15 is usually said: “Mm dim sam goh-tsi” (5 hour 3 [units of 5 minutes]).

It’s all very confusing.

[jovan]

Yes, yat6 is the character for sun, which is also used for day.

Mandarin: rì - ex: mingri (tomorrow)
Japanese: nichi, jitsu - ex: kyûjitsu (day-off)
Korean: il - ex: suyoil (wednesday)

[jovan]

BTW, if anyone wants to know more about days of the week in Asia, check out:
http://cjvlang.com/Dow/

Pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about the subject.

[Urban_Ranger]

*Originally posted by jovan *
The first mention of the seven-day week in Chinese litterature dates from the late 8th century and is found in the Kong que ming wang jing a translation by one Yijing of a Buddhist sutra, the Mahâmâyûrî-vidyârâjñî, or Peacock Sutra.

Cite?

*Originally posted by jovan *
It appears that Buddhist missionaries were as instrumental to spreading the 7-day week as were the Christians, though for both of them the origin for the concept is the same.

There is no indication that the week is used in Ancient China.

Babaylonians might be the first to invent the week, but who is certain of that? Are you?

[jovan]

Urban Ranger:

Cite for the Peacock Sutra:

From the site I linked above:

According to the author Kiyoshi Yabuuchi, quoted at Professor Yasuaki Nakano’s site (Japanese only), the days of the week were noted in Da Kong Que Zhou Wang Jing(‘Grand Peacock Exorcises the King Sutra’) as translated by the Chinese Buddhist monk Yi Jing ( Yi4 Jing4, 635-713)

This page in Japanese contains a quote from a book by Masao Uchida on the history of the calendar in Japan that concurs with the info above.

Urban Ranger wrote:
There is no indication that the week is used in Ancient China.

From the first site:

The Cihai, a Chinese encyclopaedia, carries the following entry for qi1 yao4 li4, or ‘seven luminaries calendar’:

qi1 yao4 li4, i.e., method of recording days according to the qi1 yao4. China normally observes the following order: sun, moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Seven days make one week, which is repeated in a cycle. Originated in ancient Babylon (or ancient Egypt according to one theory). Used by the Romans at the time of the 1st century AD, later transmitted to other countries. This method existed in China in the 4th century. It was also transmitted to China by Manichaeans in the 8th century from the country of Kang, in Central Asia.

The earliest use of ‘seven luminaries’ cited by the ‘Cihai’ is attributed to Fan Ning, a scholar who lived from AD 339-401. Tellingly, the Chinese ‘seven luminaries’ were arranged in the same order as the Middle Eastern planetary names for days of the week, and not in the classic order of the Chinese five elements, which put water before fire.

[sub]Text edited to remove Chinese characters.[/sub]

The Cihai is a major Chinese encyclopedia/dictionary.

That being said, the use of the week wasn’t official, or even widespread, until after the fall of the Qing dynasty, in early 20th century. That does not mean though that it was an unheard-of concept before the Christians came along. You implied that the week was purely Judeo-Christian. It does not seem so, as Buddhists Astrologists have been using it before they had contact with that tradition.
Regarding Babylon. No I don’t know for sure, but then again when it comes to ancient history, it’s very hard to know anything for sure.

However, there is good reason to believe that Babylonians used a seven-day week:

From This site of Christian scholarly references:

The Sabbath-rest was a Babylonian, as well as a Hebrew, institution. Its origin went back to pre-Semitic [Sumerian] days, and the very name, Sabbath, by which it was known in Hebrew, was of Babylonian origin. In the cuneiform tablets the Sabattu is described as "a day of rest for the soul,"1 and in spite of the fact that the word was of genuinely Semitic origin, it was derived by the Assyrian scribes from two Sumerian or pre-Semitic words, sa and bat, which meant respectively “heart” and "ceasing.

So there is a hint that Babylonians and Hebrews were using a similar time system and that such a system predates the Old Testament. There is also the fact that the attribution of planets to gods can also be traced to Babylon, and there you go, not hard proof but like I said, it’s ancient history.

[puubs]

Nothing really to add to other replies, except for some terms in Chinese (specifically Mandarin). To say days of the week, it’s xingqi + yi/er/etc (in which the latter are days). Xingqi yi refers to monday, and yi = one. For Sunday, it’s a bit different, it can be xingqi ri (ri = sun), or xingqi tian (tian = day). Also, instead of xingqi, you can say “libai”.

As for the fifteen minutes, I’ve actually not heard of that (using 5 minute intervals). I have heard of using “ke” for quarters, ie 5:15 = wu dian yi ke.

[jjimm]

I’m talking about “street” Cantonese, though, rather than Mandarin.

[China_Guy]

“libai” is used instead of “xingqi” for much of the southern half of China. Taiwanese tend to use “libai” a lot more that “xingqi”. Both are understood, but I’m talking common usage here.