this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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Monday is the first day of the week.
Do people actually think otherwise?
American here: I fully accept that Monday as first day of the week makes more logical sense, but my brain can’t reverse years of programming. I get very confused and make mistakes if I look at a calendar that starts on Monday.
The more I learn about america the weirder it gets.
It's just the old way of numbering the days of the week. Sabbath is the last day of the week in Judaism, a numbering Christianity continued to use, and Sabbath is Saturday. Early Christians came up with the idea to start the week with worship as well, so Sunday mass was added. Over time, Sunday mass became more prominent (probably also because people started to see Judaism negatively), but the numbering remained.
The average modern person and cultures that weren't "born" in the context of Christianity didn't know that though, and saying all the special weekdays are at the end of the week is less complicated, especially in combination with the term "weekend" that grew to encompass both days, so most people and cultures count Sunday as the last day of the week now.
Edit: Btw, in Judaism days start when the previous day's sun sets, rather than at midnight or sunrise. This might be relevant for why Friday is a special day in Islam, as from our perspective, jews begin to follow their Sabbath rules on Friday evening.
I find that all countries do some pretty weird things. Some more than others, Japan.
I had a job once that when you clocked your hours the week started on Sunday. Didn't change anything about when I got paid but damn was it annoying because I kept a personal spreadsheet to log hours and I started the week on Monday.
In some languages, the word for Wednesday would be translated as "mid-week". I think the logic follows from that.
The traditional view is that Sunday is the first day of the week. Sabbath (Saturday) is the seventh day, therefore Sunday must be the first day. The original idea of Sunday mass was to start the week with worship.