{"id":27644,"date":"2024-05-24T16:08:30","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T14:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagecentre.sun.ac.za\/meet-our-eng-teachers-copy\/"},"modified":"2024-05-24T16:30:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T14:30:07","slug":"isixhosa-days-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/isixhosa-days-of-the-week\/","title":{"rendered":"The days of the week in isiXhosa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why do we say \u2018Monday\u2019 for Monday? Where do the names for the days of the week come from in isiXhosa, English and Afrikaans?<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>

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uMvulo (The day opening the week)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Afrikaans and English, the names of the days of the week come from Roman mythology. So, Monday is a loan translation of the Latin \u2018dies lunae\u2019, which means \u2018day of Luna\u2019, because this day is dedicated to the Roman moon goddess Luna.<\/p>\n

In isiXhosa, each day of the week is linked to a specific meaning. The first day of the week in isiXhosa, \u2018uMvulo\u2019, is derived from the verb \u2018-vula\u2019, which means \u2018to open\u2019. In other words, Monday is the day opening the week.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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uLwesibini (The second day)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The amaXhosa also use the seven-day week, however, unlike in Afrikaans or English, they derive the words for Tuesday to Friday from numerals. The word for \u2018two\u2019 in isiXhosa is \u2018-bini\u2019 and that is why we say \u2018uLwesibini\u2019 for Tuesday in isiXhosa.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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uLwesithathu (The third day)<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the remaining days before the weekend, we can simply substitute the numeral part of the word to show which day it is. To create the isiXhosa word for Wednesday, we use the numeral \u2018-thathu\u2019, which means three, to form \u2018uLwesithathu\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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uLwesine (The fourth day)<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the fourth day of the week \u00a0we use the isiXhosa numeral \u2018-ne\u2019, which means \u2018four\u2019, to create \u2018uLwesine\u2019 \u2013 the isiXhosa word for Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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uLwesihlanu (The fifth day)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Friday is the last day of the week derived from numerals in isiXhosa. We use the numeral \u2018-hlanu\u2019, which means \u2018five\u2019 in isiXhosa, to get to \u2018uLwesihlanu\u2019 \u2013 the Xhosa word for Friday.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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uMgqibelo (The day ending the week)<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the seven-day calendar Sunday marks the end of the week. However, in isiXhosa, Saturday is considered the last day of the week or the day that ends or closes the week. Therefore, in isiXhosa we use the word \u2018uMgqibelo\u2019 for Saturday, which is derived from the verb \u2018-gqibela\u2019, meaning \u2018to finish\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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iCawa (Church day)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sunday is \u00a0the day when people traditionally go to church. \u00a0\u00a0European missionaries settled among the amaXhosa in the 1820s, introducing Christian traditions, some of which the amaXhosa have adopted. That is why we use the isiXhosa word for church, \u2018iCawa\u2019, to refer to Sunday in isiXhosa.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve read until this point, congratulations \u2013 you\u2019ve added seven words to your isiXhosa vocabulary!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why do we say \u2018Monday\u2019 for Monday? Where do the names for the days of the week come from in isiXhosa, English and Afrikaans? uMvulo (The day opening the week) In Afrikaans and English, the names of the days of the week come from Roman mythology. So, Monday is a loan translation of the Latin...","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":27701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[368,726,68,69],"tags":[511,78,2271,1987,2375],"class_list":["post-27644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-is-language","category-multilingualism","category-our-languages","category-recent-news","tag-africa-day","tag-isixhosa","tag-learning-isixhosa","tag-life-is-language","tag-names-of-weekdays-in-isixhosa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27644"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30210,"href":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27644\/revisions\/30210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zone.ladybugdigital.co.za\/taalsentrumdebug2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}