The calendar has Sunday as the first day of the week. Interesting.
Monday was later adopted internationally (and there is an ISO [1] for which is the first day of the week too) for business reasons, as it's the first office work begins again, banks open, etc in most places.
I once booked a flight on the wrong day because part way through the booking process the first day of the week in the calendar changed.
Nursery rhymes with this order: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday%27s_Child http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Grundy
Chinese use 星期一 / "weekday one" for Monday.
Well... it's true that Chinese generally consider Monday the beginning of the week, but that's not evidence. The days of the week are 一 (1)、二 (2)、三 (3)、四 (4)、五 (5)、六 (6) and 天 or 日 (day). Does day come before 1 or after 6 when you count?
edit: the map lower down in the thread ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#/media/File:First_Day_of_... ) shows China as beginning its week on Sunday. That does not agree with my experience, or with the Chinese people I've asked this question of.
Sure, Monday through Saturday are numbered 1 to 6, but Sunday is "weekday Sky" or "weekday Heaven", which is considered to come before "weekday one".[1]
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#/media/File:First_Day_of_...
Interestingly, there's no first day: Saturday and Sunday are sábado and domingo, respectively.
- That map is factually incorrect. Sunday is considered the end of the week in China, not the beginning. I note in passing that the image file is attributed to "own work" -- we all make mistakes.
- The 天 of 星期天 doesn't have the sense of "sky" or "heaven". It has the sense (well, originally had the sense) of "day", the unit of time. Compare 天天 "every day"; 今天 "today"; 明天 "tomorrow". We know that this is the original sense because the name descends from the Christian term 礼拜天 "the day of worship". Consider also that 周天 alternates with 周日, and while 日 shares the sense "day" it does not share the sense "sky".
When we hear that in other countries Sunday is considered the first day of the week, sounds almost as weird as being told that they consider "z" to be the first letter of the alphabet.
Also, it is very frustrating when a UI uses Sunday as the first day of the week, and I encounter that quite often.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#/media/File:First_Day_of_...
> it's true that Chinese generally consider Monday the beginning of the week
My cousin comment responds to the claim that you can tell China begins the week on Monday because its name is "week one", 星期一. That claim is problematic; China does begin the week on Monday, but the name doesn't prove so.
oops!
Monday is the first day.