Montag

Forms

Montag m (genitive Montages or Montags, plural Montage)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German mōntac, inherited from Old High German mānetag, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *Mānini dag (“day of the moon”), a loan translation from Latin diēs Lūnae (“day of the Moon (goddess Luna)”), which was itself modelled on Ancient Greek ἡμέρα Σελήνης (hēméra Selḗnēs, “day of Selene”).^[2][3][1] The same rendering is Old English mōnandæg and Old Norse mánadagr, and today Dutch maandag, English Monday and Swedish måndag.^[2][3] The Duden dates the loan translation to the 4th century, when the Germanic peoples took over the Roman week.^[4]

The first part keeps the old form of Mond without the final dental, Old High German māno.^[3][5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in Notker, around 1000, as mānetag rendering the Latin secunda sabbati, the second day of the week.^[7][8] Kluge dates the first record to the 11th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Monday is the second day of a week counted from Sunday, but as the first working day it was also taken as the first day: Maaler's dictionary calls it the first day of the week.^[7] In some trades the journeymen kept Monday for themselves, as a Hamburg guild rule of 1458 shows, and craftsmen in general came to treat it as a continuation of Sunday's holiday.^[7] From this comes the blauer Montag, a Monday taken off without good reason: Adelung connects it with the Monday before Lent, when churches in parts of southern Germany were decorated in blue, and the Duden with the liturgical colour of that day.^[5][9] An earlier name for it was guter Montag.^[10][5]

Southern dialects keep umlauted and reduced forms: Bavarian mæntag, Tyrolean möntig, Swabian mentig, Swiss mæntig.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – Notker writes mānetag.^[7][8]
• c. 1150 – Middle High German māntac in the Kaiserchronik.^[11]
• 1458 – A Hamburg guild rule gives the crossbow-makers' journeymen every Monday free.^[7]
• 1793 – Adelung explains the blauer Montag.^[5]
• 19th century – Rosenmontag appears.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. Monday, the first day of the calendar week, between Sunday and Tuesday.^[9][1][13]
2. In blauer Montag (colloquial): a Monday on which someone stays away from work without good reason.^[9]

Word family

• Rosenmontag

Related words

• Mond
• Tag
• English Monday

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 633
3. ^ a b c Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
4. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
5. ^ a b c d Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
6. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
7. ^ a b c d e f Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 2514
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
10. ^ Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
11. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
12. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 773
13. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org