The origins of the theophoric week in the Germanic languages

2007/10/10 by Philip Shaw · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Linguistics and language evolution #Medieval Literature and History #Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies #Germanic languages #History #Linguistics #Underpinning #Classics #Philosophy #German #Geology

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1468-0254.2007.00213.x

openalex publication_date 2007/10/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

The Germanic terms for the days of the week that contain the names of Germanic deities are often taken to result from Romano‐Germanic interactions in the fourth century AD. Yet this need not be the case: the linguistic arguments underpinning this view are not decisive. A reassessment of these names suggests that an early medieval process of transfer in scholarly Christian contexts may be equally, if not more, plausible.

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• Germanic paganism [wikipedia]

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