Re: [lojban] An alternative day-of-week list

[Craig Daniel <craigbdaniel@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 8:38 AM, tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com> wrote:
> What about those non-7-day weeks?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#.22Weeks.22_in_other_calendars
>
> There can be no consistent correspondence for the starting day of the
> week unless we ignore certain calendars with different cycles.
>
> Why would Lojbanistan choose the 7-day week? Because it's an
> international standard, adopted by the ISO? Isn't that adoption on
> hegemonic rather than scientific grounds? Is there any real neutral
> basis for the days of the week of any traditional calendar as there
> are for the length of the Earth's day or year?

Yes, actually. At least, maybe.

The seven-day week arose independently in Latin and Germanic-speaking
cultures, in the latter case at a time when a lunar calendar was in
use which used direct observation of the moon to mark the beginning of
the month (when the crescent moon is first visible after sunset), with
some holidays on the full moon (including the first day of Yule). As
the moon looks full for several days (I am told, though I don't know
why it should be so, that this is especially true at higher latitudes
such as those of Northern Europe), picking a day as the actual "full
moon" date isn't a trivial observation to make the way the start of a
lunation is - but you can get an almost right answer that is
guaranteed to not be visibly wrong if you assume that it's two weeks
after the day you observe the first crescent. That this heuristic was
in actual use is not proven, but it seems likely; this would imply
that the week is half a fortnight, rather than the fortnight being
originally a term for two weeks.

This certainly isn't culturally neutral - it's only useful in
pre-modern lunar calendars! - but it is, at least, a basis in physical
phenomena.

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