The word miércoles
‘Wednesday’, descends from the Latin phrase diēs mĕrcŭrī
‘day of Mercury’ by dropping of the diēs
part. However, the change from mĕrcūrī
to miércoles requires even more explaining
than the word lunes did, for in
addition to the analogical change of the final ‑s, there are a few more sound changes that need explaining, as we
shall see.
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This day of
the week was consecrated in the Roman calendar to the god known as Mercurius in the nominative case
wordform (mĕrcŭrĭŭs,
/mɛɾ.ˈkʊ.ɾi.ʊs/). The name of the week diēs mĕrcŭrī was a calque of Ancient Greek ἡμέρᾱ Ἑρμοῦ
(hēmérā Hermoû) ‘day of Hermes’.
Mercury was the son of the god Jupiter and the goddess Maia
(Hermes was the son of Zeus and Maia, the corresponding gods in the Greek
pantheon). The genitive or possessive form of this name was Mĕrcŭrī ‘of Mercury’ in earlier texts and Mĕrcŭriī in later ones (this is important, as
we shall see) and the regular stem of the word was Mercuri‑. The stress was on the ŭ
in Mercurius, in the antepenultimate syllable,
since the penultimate syllable, rĭ, was
light.
The name of this god is thought to contain the root merc‑ of Lat. merx ‘merchandise, commodity, goods’, a root that is found in words
such as the cognates Eng. market ~
Sp. mercado and Eng. commerce ~ Sp. comercio, all ultimately derived from the noun merx. As for the suffix -urius,
it may be of Etruscan origin (OED), for many of the Etruscan gods had such a
suffix in their names. The root merc‑ may also be of
Etruscan origin.
Mercurius is known as Mercury in English and as Mercurio in Spanish. He was originally the
Roman god of commerce and travel. This god was most likely a calque or copy of an
Etruscan god. When Rome came in closer contact with Greece in the 3rd century
BCE, Mercury became associated with the Greek god Hermes and some of this god’s
attributes were copied to Mercury, such as being messenger of the gods,
mediator with the afterlife, patron of the arts, etc.
Figure 108: Statue of Mercury and
Minerva, in Blüherpark, Dresden[i]
Let us look now at the sound changes in the word mĕrcūrī as it became miércoles. In total, there are five sound
changes that we need to account for:
1. The
final long ī changed to es
2. The
short ĕ changed to ie
3. The
short ŭ changed to o
4. The
stress on the antepenultimate syllable
5. The
second r changed to l
The final s
must be an analogical addition, as in the case of lunes, for there is no other explanation. In other
words, because the names of the other days of the week (martes, jueves, viernes) end in ‑s, a final ‑s was added to miércoles,
by analogy, just as in the case of lunes.
Again, this is not something that happened in Spanish, for this addition is
already found in Latin inscriptions reflecting popular (Vulgar) Latin speech. But
in the case of miércoles the analogy
went further than in the case of lunes,
for if the addition of the ‑s was all
that was analogized, we would have expected the word for Wednesday to be miércolis, all other things being equal.
That is because a Latin long ī always became i in Spanish. However, what we find here
is an e preceding the s. In other words, what was
analogized here were the two final sounds, not just one, that is, the ‑es ending found in the names of other
days of the week: lunes, martes, jueves, viernes.
There are two sound changes in this word that are fully
regular, in the sense that (unless there were other factors involved) they
occurred without exception in the change from Latin to Spanish. The two sound
changes are that Latin short ŭ always became o in Spanish and Latin short ĕ
always became ie when it was stressed
(cf. Part I, Chapter 10,
§10.3.2).
The only thing that we need to explain with regards to the last one of these changes is how come the Latin short ĕ happened to be stressed, for in the
nominative form, it is the ŭ that is
stressed, as we mentioned earlier. That is also where the stress goes in the
regular genitive wordform Mĕrcŭriī (Mĕr.cŭ.ri.ī). However, in the irregular genitive
form that collapses the last two syllables, Mĕrcŭrī (Mĕr.cŭ.rī), the stress gets shifted one
syllable to the left, for Latin stress followed very regular and predictable
rules. Basically, in Latin, stress was penultimate if the penultimate syllable
was heavy (it had a long vowel or ended in a consonant) and antepenultimate if
it was not (cf. Part I, Chapter 8, §8.3.3.4).
Finally, we need to explain the l in Spanish miércoles,
for the Latin word has an r there instead.
It turns out that it was very common for Latin words that had two r’s to undergo a dissimilatory change in
Old Spanish. Sometimes, one of the r’s
was dropped, as in the word orquesta
‘orchestra’, from Lat. orchēstra
(from Gk. ὀρχήστρα
‘the area of the stage where the chorus danced’; cf. Eng. orchestra). Other times, the second r changed to l, as in
this case. Another example of such a change is in the word Spanish árbol ‘tree’, which comes from Latin word
arborem (with two r’s; nominative case: arbor) (cf. Part I, Chapter 10,
§10.4.5).
Ever since the 14th century this Roman god’s name came to be
used in Latin for the silvery, very toxic, metallic element that is liquid at
room temperature, which we now know as Eng. mercury
~ Sp. mercurio. The reason for giving
this liquid metal this name was presumably its slippery nature. Note that
another name for this element in English is quicksilver,
which comes from Old English cwicseolfor,
which literally means ‘living silver’ (Old English cwic, the source of Mod.Eng. quick,
meant ‘alive’, not ‘fast’ as it does now). This English name for the metal was
a calque of Latin argentum vīvum.
The Romans also called this liquid metal hydrargyrum,
which was a loanword from Greek ὑδράργυρος (hydrargyros), a compound word
meaning literally ‘water-silver’, from ὑδρ‑ (hydr-), the root of ὕδωρ
(húdōr) ‘water’ and ἄργυρος (argyros) ‘silver’. This name is the source of
the symbol Hg for this element used
in chemistry (cf. Eng. hydrargyrum
/haɪ̯.ˈdɹɑɹ.ʤəɹ.əm/).[2]
The word for Wednesday in other Romance languages also stems
from the Latin phrase mĕrcŭrī
dies. In French it is mercredi, in standard Italian, mercoledì (mèrcore in Venetian and mércuri
in Sicilian), in Catalan dimecres, and
in Galego and Old Portuguese mércores
(in Modern Portuguese, the name is quarta-feira).
Eng. Wednesday
English Wednesday /ˈwɛnz.ˌdeɪ̯/
comes from Old English Wōdnesdæg (among
other spellings), which meant literally ‘Wodan’s day’. Wōdnes is the genitive case wordform of the name Wodan, the name of a Germanic god. The
name of this god in the North Germanic languages was Odin, cf. Old Norse Óðinn, from Proto-Germanic *Wod-enaz‑. In English, Odin is a loanword from Old Norse.
Wodan had a similar soul-guiding job in Germanic mythology as
the Roman god Mercury. He was the messenger god and was associated with speed and
trade. He was also in charge of guiding souls to the underworld, that is, the afterlife.
Therefore, when translating or calquing the Roman system for naming the days of
the week, Wodan was chosen as the equivalent of Mercury.
[GO TO PART 5]
[GO TO PART 5]
[1] Images of Mercury also often have him as well as carrying a caduceus, a
herald’s wand or staff. Heralds were gods and others in Greek mythology who
delivered messages, made proclamations known, or conducted negotiations. The
caduceus is sometimes represented with two snakes wrapped around it and with
wings. The caduceus is a symbol that goes back to Ancient Mesopotamia and it
became symbol of commerce and negotiation since these two areas rely on
balanced exchange and reciprocity. In North America, the caduceus is sometimes
used as a symbol of medicine because of a confusion with the Rod of Asclepius,
which only has one snake, has no wings, and is the traditional symbol for
medicine. Sometimes Mercury and his Greek counterpart Hermes are also depicted
with a lyre (Sp. lira), a musical
instrument this god is supposed to have invented, out of a tortoise’s shell.
According to Ancient Greek mythology, Hermes gave the lyre to Apollo, who in
turn, gave him the caduceus.
[2] The ancients, going back to Babylon, recognized seven metals, which they
associated with certain heavenly bodies (the ‘seven classical planets’) and to
which they ascribed certain curative powers. They were also associated with
certain days of the week, as well as certain colors, and certain foods. The
metal-planet-day combinations were the following: Sun-gold-Sunday,
Moon-silver-Monday, Mars-iron-Tuesday, Mercury-mercury-Wednesday,
Jupiter-tin-Thursday, Venus-copper-Friday, and Saturn-lead-Saturday.
[i] Source https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Merkur_und_Minerva_im_Blueherpark_Dresden-1.jpg
(retrieved: 2017.06.14)
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