Samstag

Forms

Samstag m (genitive Samstages or Samstags, plural Samstage)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German sameztac, inherited from Old High German sambaztag, a compound whose first part was borrowed before the High German consonant shift, with tag (“day”) added to make it clearer.^[2][3] Pfeifer and the EWA take the first part as borrowed from Gothic *𐍃𐌰𐌼𐌱𐌰𐍄𐍉 (*sambatō), a word of the Gothic Arian mission that came up the Danube to the southeast of the German-speaking area and spread from there;^[2][3][1] Kluge derives it from Latin sabbatum, with a nasal that was probably already Vulgar Greek, and counts it among the words taken over from the classical and Christian world even before the Germanic peoples became Christian.^[4] The Duden also thinks the Arian mission possible.^[5]

The nasal form goes back to a Vulgar Greek form σάμβατον (sámbaton) beside Ancient Greek σάββατον (sábbaton, “sabbath”), the source of the Bible Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌱𐌱𐌰𐍄𐍉 (sabbatō).^[2][1] The same nasal form spread to Romanian sâmbătă, Hungarian szombat and Old Church Slavonic сѫбота (sǫbota), and French samedi shows it too.^[2][1][4] The Greek word comes from Biblical Hebrew שַׁבָּת (šabbāṯ, “day of rest”).^[4][2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German sambaztag is first recorded in the Tatian (about 830), and then in Otfrid, Notker and glosses, meaning both the Jewish Sabbat and Saturday.^[7][3][8]

Semantic evolution

Kluge notes that Saturday is the only day of the week whose name contains no Germanic god in any Germanic language.^[4] Beside Samstag there are Sonnabend, probably spread by the Anglo-Saxon mission, and the northwestern Satertag, a partial translation of Latin diēs Sāturnī “Saturn's day”.^[3][4]

Samstag was originally the word of southern Germany and the Rhineland, and Sonnabend that of the north and centre.^[9][5] It is now used in western and southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland,^[3] and it tends to spread over the whole language;^[9] Wiktionary calls it dominant except in the former East Germany.^[1] From the 15th century it is often spelled with an inserted /p/ or /b/: sampstag, sambstag.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 830 – Old High German sambaztag is used in the Tatian.^[7]
• 863–871 – Otfrid uses sambaztag.^[3]
• 1517 – Geiler von Kaysersberg writes sampstag.^[10]
• 16th century – Hans Sachs writes sambstag.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. Saturday, the sixth day of the week beginning with Monday.^[11][1]

Word family

• samstags

Related words

• Sabbat
• Sonnabend
• French samedi

Usage notes

Langer Samstag was formerly the first Saturday of the month, when shops stayed open in the afternoon.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
3. ^ a b c d e f Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 7, 942
4. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 785
5. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
6. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 272
9. ^ a b Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
10. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 14, 1755
11. ^ a b Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag