Interpretatio germanica is the practice by the
Germanic peoples of identifying Roman gods with the names of
Germanic deities. According to
Rudolf Simek, this occurred around the 1st century AD, when both cultures came into closer contact.
Names of week days
Some evidence for ''interpretatio germanica'' exists in the Germanic translations of the Roman
names for the days of the week from Roman deities into names of approximately equivalent Germanic deities:
*
Sunday, the day of
Sunnǭ ( on, Sunna, ''Sól''; ang, Sunne; goh, Sunna), the sun (as female), was earlier the day of
Sol
Sol or SOL may refer to:
Astronomy
* The Sun
Currency
* SOL Project, a currency project in France
* French sol, or sou
* Argentine sol
* Bolivian sol, the currency of Bolivia from 1827 to 1864
* Peruvian sol, introduced in 1991
* Peruvian sol ...
, the sun (as male)
*
Monday
Monday is the day of the week between Sunday and Tuesday. According to the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 8601 standard, it is the first day of the week and in countries that adopt the "Sunday-first" convention, it is t ...
, the day of
Mēnô (Máni; Mōna; Māno), the moon (as male), was earlier the day of
Luna, the moon (as female)
*
Tuesday, the day of
Tīwaz (Týr; Tīw; Ziu), was earlier the day of
Mars, god of war
*
Wednesday, the day of
Wōdanaz
Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, ...
(Odin, Óðinn; Wōden; Wuotan), was earlier the day of
Mercury, god of travelers and eloquence
*
Thursday, the day of
Þūraz/Þunraz (Thor, Þórr; Þunor; Donar), The name is derived from
Old English ''þunresdæg'' and
Middle English ''Thuresday'' (with loss of -n-, first in northern dialects, from influence of
Old Norse ''Þórsdagr'') meaning "Thor's Day". It was named after the Norse god of Thunder,
Thor. It was earlier the day of
Jupiter, god of thunder; the
hammer-wielding Þunraz may elsewhere appear identified with the club-wielding
Hercules
Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
The Romans adapted the Gr ...
*
Friday, the day of
Frijjō (
Frigg; Frīg; Frīja), was earlier the day of
Venus, goddess of love
In most of the
Romance languages, which derive from Latin, days of the week still preserve the names of the original Roman deities, such as the Italian for Tuesday, ''martedì'' (from the Latin ''Martis dies'').
The exception to the use of Germanic gods is Saturday, which retains the name of the foreign god, possibly because there was no obvious Germanic substitute.
The name of the day after Saturn occurs in many
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into t ...
; such as the English "Saturday", the
West Frisian ''
Saterdei'', the
Low German ''
Saterdag'', and the
Dutch ''
zaterdag'' all meaning
Saturn's day.
Dissenting view
Simek emphasizes the paucity of evidence for a widespread ''interpretatio germanica'', as opposed to the well-attested opposite ''
interpretatio romana'', and notes that comparison with Roman gods is insufficient to reconstruct ancient Germanic gods, or equate them definitively with those of later
Norse mythology.
See also
* ''
Interpretatio graeca
''Interpretatio graeca'' (Latin, "Greek translation") or "interpretation by means of Greek odels is a discourse used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures; a comparative methodology using ancient Gr ...
''
* ''
Interpretatio romana''
References
{{reflist, 22em
Germanic mythology
Religious interpretation