WHY ARE POLISH CALENDARS SKEWED?

Different countries different customs. Neither is right or wrong. Inches, cm, Celcius, Farenheit, pounds, kilos dollars, złoty... who cares. Travels broaden your horizons and you learn something new from every country.

Monday is the first day of the week according to international standards, ISO 8601.
Monday is also the beginning of the work week and even in a North American office you will hear people complaining first thing on Monday morning that the week has just began. On Sundays you may hear people complaining about the beginning of the week on the following day.

As for the time format DD.MM.YYYY makes more sense in daily use than MM.DD.YYYY. The former has some justification in its order, but I can see a logical explanation for the latter. Anybody?

I use YYYY.MM.DD which follows the ISO 8601 and is more useful than any other when it comes to computerized record keeping. Incidentally, that was the format Poland, at least officially, adhered to since around mid 1970's but that was following ISO 2014 which was later superseded by others with the 8601 being the current standard.

We must remember, however, that ISO is a modern standard. That's why Polish pre-war calendars and contemporary American ones, as explains Polonius, set Sunday as the first day of the week; they seemed/seem to stick to the standard set in the Bible which is much older than the ISO standard, and where Sunday is explicitly stated as the first day of the week.

Both Sunday and Monday as the first day of the week are arbitrary and not given by nature (especially for non-Chrisitans comme moi).

For me, Monday as the first day makes sense. The very religious might have different opinions.


there are fewer months than days of the month and fewer days of the month than years. Month day year makes sense from that viewpoint (going from the set with the smallest number to the set with the largest). That said, I've come to prefer day-month-year (by length of period instead of number of discrete members).

I have always been told that Sunday is the first day of the week, but don't really know where that has come from as we're not a particularly religious family. But have just checked my desk calendar, and the week starts on Monday!

As for the date, it has to be day, month, year. I get really confused when they are the other way round! But that could just be me lol ;)

On my Mac calendar the week starts with Sunday.



You can thank the Jews for the whole idea of a 7 day week with a day of rest. We got the idea from G-d, Jesus kept shabbat, you guys got the idea from him, although someone changed it to Sunday, and the Muhamad liked the idea too and used it in Islam, changing it to Friday. The 7 day cycle has no astronomical logic. It was a gift from the creator.

What Is the First Day of the Week?

The Bible clearly makes the Sabbath the last day of the week, but does not share how that corresponds to our 7 day week. Yet through extra-biblical sources it is possible to determine that the Sabbath at the time of Christ corresponds to our current ‘Saturday.’

Therefore it is common Jewish and Christian practice to regard Sunday as the first day of the week . However, the fact that, for example, Russian uses the name "second" for Tuesday, indicates that some nations regard Monday as the first day.

In international standard ISO-8601 ----the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has decreed that Monday shall be the first day of the week.

When in Poland start your day off with Monday. When in US, start with Sunday.

Sunday is the first day of the week for Jews and the US is following the Jewish system whereas Europe has the Christian Sabbath on a Sunday.

Reading some comments made me laugh with tears :) HUGs to everyone! XXX

it's not broke so we did not care to change it

Who cares about the origins...? At present, the weekend (an English word, please remember!) is obviously the end of the week. After it ends, the new one starts with Monday. It's the beginning of the five-day work/business period, after which the two days of rest again follow. That's how it is now. Let the churches and the synagogues use whatever calendars they deem appropriate in their religious contexts. Perhaps they see it necessary to appease god by offering him the first bite... But it seems much more logical to start the week cleanly, with renewed energies, afresh - with a Monday!