Re: First day of the week

From: Otto Stolz (Otto.Stolz@uni-konstanz.de)
Date: Wed Jun 30 1999 - 18:59:06 EDT


G. Adam Stanislav scripsisset:
> Does ISO say anything about this? If not, is there a most commonly used
> system for determining the first day of the week in "most of the world"?

Cf. "Numbering of weeks" ISO/R 2915-1971 (and possibly newer editions).

Am 1999-06-27 um 10:23 h hat Lars Henrik Mathiesen geschrieben:
> [in] Denmark, about 1970[,] I was taught [...] about Sunday being the
> first day of the week [...] and I think Danish calendars back then were
> printed that way too [...]
> the practice in Denmark changed (to using the ISO standard) sometime
> while I wasn't looking

In Germany, the German Standard "Zeit: Kalender, Wochennummerierung,
Tagesdatum, Uhrzeit" (Time: Celendar, Numbering of Weeks, Date, Wall-
Clock Time), DIN 1355, Blatt 1, of 1975-03, assigns the numbers 1 through
7 to the weekdays Munday through Sunday, respectively. The notion of
"Monday as the 1st day of the week" is also used in the definition of
the week number (within a year).

I haven't found a copy of the superseeded standard "Zeit: Zeiteinheiten,
Wochentage, Wochen, Monate" (Time: Units of Measurement, Weekdays, Weeks,
Months), DIN 1355 of 1943-01. However, I remember that, in my youth,
Sunday was considered the 1st day of the week, hence "Mittwoch" (=Wednes-
day), as has been already remarked in this thread.

I vaguely remember having read somewhere that 1976-W01 had eight days (in-
cluding two Sundays) to make the transition to the new start of the week,
however I cannot remember any reference I could cite. Over lunch, I looked
up the issue in a series of books on "Introduction to German Industry
Standards" (or some such): The latest pre-1976 edition has only one short
paragraph on DIN 1355, stating the units of measurement. The 1976 edition
has a fairly thorough adaption of DIN 1355's (then) new edition.

Neither those books nor DIN 1355 (of 1975) say anything about the trans-
ition from Sunday-Saturday to Monday-Sunday weeks. They only recommend
to start the new week-numbering at 1976-01-01. (Note, however, that this
numbering is defined in terms of the Monday-Sunday week.)

Best wishes,
   Otto Stolz



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