ĵaŭdo

Seven of seven. The week is complete.

The mardo page, back at rank 2,397, counted six days on the board and said that only Thursday was missing, sitting at rank 2,620, in the next chapter but one. Here it is. That promise is now kept, and the full set reads:

Five planets, then two days the church renamed. Zamenhof took the whole set from the Romance languages without arguing with any of it, which is why ĵaŭdo is French jeudi with an Esperanto ending bolted on and nothing else changed.

Thor and Jupiter, the same day twice. Latin Jovis dies is the day of Jupiter, the sky god who throws the lightning. When Germanic speakers took the Roman week they translated the gods rather than the names, and Jupiter's opposite number in their own pantheon was Thor, who throws a hammer and makes the thunder. So ĵaŭdo and Thursday do not look remotely alike and mean precisely the same thing: the thunder god's day, named twice, from two directions.

This is the second time the week has done this to us. The mardo page tells the identical story about Mars and Tiw. If you ever wondered why the English and the Romance weekday names refuse to resemble each other while lining up perfectly day for day, that is the answer, and it is the same answer both times.

Lowercase, always. Esperanto does not capitalise weekdays, months, languages or nationalities. It is ĵaŭdo, januaro, la angla. A capital letter on any of them is straight interference from English or German, and it is the single most common thing to correct in a beginner's diary entry.

The accusative of time, one more time. A noun in the accusative can do adverbial duty and answer "when?" with no preposition at all:

• ĵaŭdon - on Thursday
• ĉiun ĵaŭdon - every Thursday
• la venontan ĵaŭdon - next Thursday
• ĵaŭdon vespere - on Thursday evening

En ĵaŭdo and dum ĵaŭdo are understood, but the bare -n is the idiomatic form and the one Zamenhof used. The time expressions article has the full picture.

Say it properly. Two syllables, not three: ĵaŭ-do. The aŭ is one diphthong, and the ĵ is the sound in English measure or French je - softer than the ĝ in ĝardeno. It is one of the harder openings in the language for an English speaker, and it is worth getting right on a word you will say every week.

Grava ĵaŭdo. Maundy Thursday is Sankta Ĵaŭdo, and here the capital does appear, because it is a feast name rather than a weekday. Which is the exception that proves the lowercase rule.