The Typological Study of Week-Day Names in the Contemporary Persian

Introduction
Throughout the history, humans have categorized the concept of time into particular units, such as the day, week, month, and year. According to Rosenfeld (1994: 150), dividing the day into 24 hours dates back to Hellenistic era, which was carried out by the ancient Egyptians. In Christian-based calendars, including the Julian and Gregorian calendars, each day started from midnight of one day to midnight of the next day (24 hours), while Islamic and Jewish calendars consider the sunset as the starting point of the day.
The categorization of the next concept, Week, has been mostly affected by the religion for over two thousand years. Today, in almost all over the world, the concept of week consists of seven days. However, Malerb (2007:416) notes that among the Yoruba people, a week comprises four days. He also states that during the French Revolution, an unsuccessful attempt was made to change the concept of week from seven days to ten days. Furthermore, in the year 1929 a week was reduced to five days for a short period of time in the former Soviet Union (Zirbavel, 1985:35). Moreover, at one point in history, a twelve-day week was used in Turkey (Safipour and Shabani, 2019:158). In fact, the origin of the seven-day period goes back to Judaism and the Book of Genesis (Rosenfield, 1994:142) which states that the creation of the world took place in 6 days. This belief, along with the provision of a day for rest, led to the formation of the concept of “week” for a specific period of time. Salzman (2004:186) emphasizes that the nature of seven-day period for the week is rooted in Christianity. As they had to perform religious rituals every seven days, a concept called “week” was formed. A similar view is presented in ten verses of the Holy Qur’an, indicating that the creation of the world occurred over six days. Therefore, it can be concluded that the seven-day nature of the week is fundamentally rooted in religious beliefs.
One challenge in studying the days of the week is investigating the etymology of their names. In general, linguists suggest three general patterns for naming the days of the week across languages worldwide: numerical, astronomical, and natural elements. It is important to note that, throughout history, other factors have influenced weekday names; however, these factors cannot be regarded as fixed naming patterns. The present study aims to study Persian weekday names based on three universal criteria: established patterns of weekday naming, weekday salience, and word-formation processes.
 
Review of Literature
The study of Persian weekday names has been previously done by researchers such as Behrouz (1965), Gharib (2006), Safipour and Shabani (2019), and Safipour and Safipour (2021). However, none of these studies have analyzed Persian weekday naming pattern through the lens of typological universals. Instead, they have primarily focused on the diachronic aspects of it. Therefore, the current study offers an innovative approach by applying a linguistic typological universals framework.
 
Method
This study is descriptive-analytical in nature, with data collection done through a library research method. The study is conducted by means of several steps. In the first step, typological universals which are related to the naming of weekdays were extracted and introduced based on reliable typological sources. These criteria were then explained and elaborated upon with reference to credible literature. Finally, Persian naming patterns and practices were examined in light of these universals.
 
Results
The study of weekday names in different languages has led researchers including Zirbavel (1985), Brown (1989), and Boltergini (2021) to conclude that several universal patterns can be recognized in naming the days of the week. Although none of these studies explicitly mention all three existing patterns, this study introduces the three primary patterns as Numerical, Astronomical, and Natural Elements. These patterns represent the initial findings of the present research. However, this is not the only result, as the main aim remains the investigation of Persian weekday naming patterns.
The results indicate that Persian weekday names are formed in accordance with the numeral pattern. This pattern includes three subtypes in which Persian goes to the second one. Persian similar to other languages of this subtype including some Altaic languages (as Uzbek, Kyrgyz, ...) and some Iranian languages (for example Zazaki, Tati, ...) considers “Sunday” as the first day of numerical naming of week days and has numeral words for the other six days of the week. Furthermore, diachronic evidences illustrate that month-days were named in a planetary pattern in old and middle periods of Persian. So that, it is possible to consider a type-changing process for Persian. Moreover, findings of the research reveal the consistency of Persian for the second criterion universal. Since, similar to the hierarchy presented in this context, Saturday is the most salient weekday name in Persian. The results based on the last criterion show that borrowing is the most common method for weekday name formation in Persian. In addition, the alternative word for Friday, Adineh, could be considered as a kind of loan translation. In this regard, some Altaic languages such as Turkish, Gagauz, and Tatar have borrowed the Persian word bāzār for forming the names of certain weekdays. Similarly, Urdu, an Indo-Aryan language, has borrowed the Persian word hafte for this purpose.
 
Discussion
The main aim of this study was to analyze the behavior of Persian weekday names according to the three criteria including universal patterns of day naming, the relative prominence of each day, and the morphological processes involved in the formation of these day names. The findings indicate that Persian predominantly employs the numerical pattern among the three identified universal patterns namely, the astronomical pattern, the numerical pattern, and the natural elements pattern. However, due to linguistic variations within languages that use the numerical pattern, this pattern was further subdivided into three subcategories. Analysis of Persian revealed that it belongs to the second subcategory of numerical-pattern languages, aligning it with particular Altaic languages such as Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Kazakh, as well as with some Iranian languages, including Tati and Zazaki, which begin numerical day naming from “Sunday”. Moreover, the results show that although the concept of a week was absent in ancient and Middle Persian, the terminology used to designate days of the month during these eras was more closely in accordance with the astronomical pattern. Therefore, one can assume a kind of shift in the type of Persian from this perspective. Regarding the degree of prominence of the days of the week, Persian, in line with the existing universals, considers “Saturday” as the most prominent day. Finally, among the four morphological processes, borrowing plays a more important role in naming the days of the week in Persian.
 
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