Unlike in many other languages, Polish names of the days of the week do not take their names after Greek or Roman gods, they do not really relate to religion, either, with two exceptions that will be discussed later on. Instead, their names are closely linked to the order in which they appear one after another in what we call a week. Perhaps that’s the reason why the students of Polish do not find it very difficult to memorise the names of weekdays.
CZWARTEK and PIĄTEK (Thursday and Friday) seem relatively easy to remember, as they are the fourth (czwarty) and the fifth (piąty) days of the week.
Actually, it’s also the case with the second day of the week, WTOREK (Tuesday), which takes its name after the ancient Proto-Slavic adjective „wtóry“, which means... second.
It is just as easy to explain the meaning of the word ŚRODA (Wednesday), which comes from „środek“ (middle), so the middle day of the week. This is supposedly a calque (loan translation) from German, in which Mittwoch means the central part of the week.
Another loanword is the word SOBOTA (Saturday), which is derived from the Hebrew word shabbath, that is the holy day of rest. The word remained in the Polish language despite the changes introduced by the church, one of which was making the seventh day of the week the most imporant one. In fact, it is the word NIEDZIELA (Sunday) that students ask most questions about in Polish classes. Where did that word come from?
WE DO NOT WORK ON SUNDAY (NIEDZIELA)
NIEDZIELA is derived from an ancient Proto-Slavic verb ne delati, which simply means... do not work, do not do anything, do not act. Since the Synod of Laodicea (in 364 AD), this very day (not Saturday) has been the day of rest, i.e. a holy day. Therefore, the first day of the week that follows niedziela is called PONIEDZIAŁEK (i.e. dzień po niedzieli – the day after niedziela).
DAYS OF THE WEEK AND GRAMMAR
When using the names of the days of the week the student needs to remember that they usually collocate with the following prepositions:
• „w“ (on) – and then we must use the accusative case, which is especially important in case of feminine forms, so we say w środę, w sobotę, w niedzielę;
• „do“ (to) and „od“ (from) – we have to use the genitive case here;
And do remember that the use of the word „tydzień“ (week) itself is not at all easy, as we say 2,3,4 tygodnie but 5,6,7 etc. tygodni (you can practise Polish declensions in here)
