In some countries, like the United States of America, Saturday is the seventh and final day of the week. In other parts of the world, like the United Kingdom, Saturday is said to be the sixth day of the week. It is also the day of rest and worship for Jewish people. Along with Sunday, it makes up the weekend. Its name comes from the Roman god Saturn.
Saturday
Etymology
Saturday
The name Saturday, Old High German sambaztac, comes from a developed vulgar Greek form *sambaton of the Greek word sabbaton, which ultimately goes back to an equation of the designation from the "day of Saturn" (also "sater day") in reference to the Hebrew term Šabbatai ("star (Saturn) of Šabbath") and thus to Hebrew shabbath ("rest", "holiday", "Sabbath"). It spread up the Danube with the missionization of the southern German-speaking area and is used today in Austria, southern and western Germany. It is considered a holiday especially in the Jewish religion and in the Seventh-day Adventist Free Church. The names in the Romance languages uniformly go back to it: French le samedi, Ital. il sabato, Spanish el sábado.
Linguistically untenable is the interpretation that the Old High German form can be traced back to S'Ambeth's day, i.e. to a day in honour of an alleged Norse-Celtic earth goddess Ambeth, one of the three Bethen. This thesis seems to explain the geographical distribution in Austria and southern Germany quite well, but already the theory of the existence of the Bethen as a pagan goddess trinity is based solely on the dubious interpretations of the lay researchers Hans Christoph Schöll (1936: Die drei Ewigen) and Richard Fester (1962: Sprache der Eiszeit), whose theses are rejected by linguists practically without exception.
Saturday
The term Sonnabend (Old High German: sunnunaband, Old English sunnanæfen) came into the German-speaking world from Old English, probably with the Anglo-Saxon mission. The second part originally meant "(pre)evening". In the early Middle Ages the denomination extended to the whole day, as with the whole day before Christmas Day (Christmas Eve or before New Year's Day, compare also English New Year's Eve (New Year's Eve) or fortnight = 14 days from ags. feorwertyne niht). "Sonnabend" is used especially in Northern Germany and East Central German.
"Sonnabend" was the official term in the GDR (according to the prevailing regional distribution). The term "Sonnabend" is also used in some German legal texts (e.g. in § 193 BGB or in shop closing laws of some northern and eastern German Länder).
In Austria, Switzerland and southern Germany, the term is largely uncommon and is known at most in the passive vocabulary as typically northern German.
Other forms
In Westphalia and in East Frisian Platt, the Low German Saterdag (compare Dutch Zaterdag, Afrikaans Saterdag, and English Saturday), a loan translation of Latin Dies Saturni ("Day of Saturnus"), has survived.
Sonnamt in some places in the colloquial language and in the Berlin dialect.
From the Russian word for Saturday, Subbota (Russian Суббота), the Subbotnik is derived, the voluntary unpaid work on Saturday. At times, such work assignments were also more common in the GDR.