The day was gray and wet. I watched people outside as they dashed across puddle-filled intersections, hiding underneath umbrellas. It was a good day to study, which is what I mostly did.
It felt like a Monday. Or I guess, segunda-feira, as they say in Portuguese.
Which leads me to a question of the language of days. In Spanish learning the days of the week was a snap. But, in Portuguese - even years later - it's a different story.
The days of the week are as follows:
Monday = Segunda-Feira [Translating literally to second-fair/market - essentially second market day]The weekends I get. No big deal. (Besides, they're the same in Spanish, so I'm really covered there).
Tuesday = Terça-Feira [Third market day]
Wednesday = Quarta-Feira [Fourth market day]
Thursday = Quinta-Feira [Fifth market day]
Friday = Sexta-Feira [Sixth market day]
Saturday = Sábado
Sunday = Domingo
However...when some is saying to me, for example, "Let's meet on Fourth-Market day," I truly have to take a few seconds to count through the days in my head to arrive at what day that might actually be, "The second day is Monday, the third day is Tuesday then so ah, right, Quarta-Feira would have to be Wednesday. Got it!" Sometimes I have the desire to start counting the days on my fingers.
I always feel a little worried in the back of my mind that I'm going to mix up the days and show up on the wrong day for something because these days of the week just don't stick in my head.
The problem - according to The-Man-Who-Came-From-Italia (who counts Spanish as his favorite language) is that these numbered days could be perfectly acceptable, but why, why, why did they have to begin on the second day?!
I would assume that Sunday is/was a day for God and so, clearly not a day for going to the market. Hence it doesn't have feira in its name. Even if you want to believe that Sunday starts the week, it doesn't count in the numbering of market days.
And, it's not just foreigners (Italians, Salvadoreños and Americans at least) who take umbrage at Monday being a Second-Market day. I was pleased to discover in the poetry of Mario Quintana, that he too, in all his Brazilian-ness, might also be sometimes taken aback by Mondays. As he wrote in his poem titled, "To Awaken the Imagination" (Para Despertar a Fantasia):
"O pior da segunda-feira é que a gente sempre chega atrasado: "Meu Deus! como é que eu fui a perder a primeira feira?!"
"The worst of all about second market day (Monday) is that we always arrive late: "My God! How is that I went and missed the first market day?!"
I now feel properly vindicated in my slowness to understand the movement of the days of the week.
Wishing a wonderful whatever-you-want-to-call-this-day to you all!
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In Chinese, Monday is "day of the week one," and so on. That's where the language stops making sense.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the whole segunda-feira thing always confused me too! Whenever my Portuguese teacher announced a due date for an assignment I had to count off my fingers--for almost two years ;-)
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