Friday Morning Latin Lesson: Vol. XXXIII

Here we are, Friday again, or as the Romans called it, dies Veneris ("dee-ace Way-nair-eese"), which translates as "Day of Venus". The Romans tied the days of the week to the heavenly bodies they could see--it made sense, since there were seven days in a week and they could see seven heavenly bodies. Of the original seven names, we've kept three of them, Sunday, Monday and Saturday, and even those have been changed around a bit.

The other four days of the week were given names corresponding to the other heavenly bodies: dies Martis for Mars, dies Mercurii for Mercury, dies Iovis for Jupiter (whose name was Jove, remember) and then finally Venus' day. Incidentally, Saturday was dies Saturni, Sunday was dies Solis and Monday was dies Lunae.

When they were doing trade with the Germanic people, the Germans thought, "Hey, this is a spiffy idea." They happily adopted the seven days in a week notion, but when it came to adopting the Roman gods, they said "Fuck that. Your spiffiness only goes so far, you toga-wearing bastards." Even back then, religion was not a suitable topic of conversation at the dinner table.

So, the Germans adopted the seven day system and then changed the names of the days to reflect their gods and their names for the sun and moon. So, the days of the week turned into Sunday (Sunnandagr in Old Norse), Monday (Manandagr), Tuesday (Tysdagr, from Tiw/Tyr, the Norse god of War), Odensdagr (from Woden/Odin, the All-Father), Thorsdagr (from Thor, the dude with the hammer), Friadagr (from Frigg/Freya, Odin's wife and a lusty goddess of fertility and sex) and then finishing with Sunnundagr Laugardagr which is the Old Norse name. However, English went with the Anglo-Saxon name in this case, Saeternesdaeg--retained from Saturn. The Norse then lent them into Old English after the Danish invasions in the 9th century and the implementation of the Danelaw.

Whew, that was a lot of shit to wade through, but I'm glad I finally passed that along. I've been doing a lot of reading up on the history of the English language. Toss in some refamiliarization with the Norse pantheon for various book research, and I've had a simmering pile of useless information sitting around in my head that has been screaming to try and get out.

Now, if I were living in ancient Rome and feeling the need to reveal something like my vast knowledge of the name origins of the days of the week or ten things that I probably shouldn't reveal, afterward I could heave a hefty sigh and fire this little phrase your way:

Absolvi meam animam.
Pronounced: "Ahb-sole-wee may-ahm ahn-eem-ahm."

Translation is in the hovertext.
Ladies, should things get passionate and the above happens, feel free to use that phrase. Don't think for a second that your partner will be offended or start laughing at you. I mean, Latin is the basis for all the languages of Romance. *ahem* Like I've said before, Latin isn't just a dead language in the Jenks household, it's a means of foreplay.

And fellas, I'm not sure, but I think the appropriate phrase for us would be "absolvi tuam animam". You know how to use it. Preferably while swinging it around above your head in a circle.