Language reflects the customs of the culture that speaks it. Nearly every culture, from Babylon through modern times, rested on the seventh day. As languages developed, the name for the seventh day of the week remained rest day. In the mid 19th century, Dr. William Meade Jones created this Chart of the Week, listing the name for the seventh day in 160 languages, including some of the most ancient (shown below). Babylonian, in use hundreds of years before Abraham or the giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai, calls the seventh day of the week sa-ba-tu, meaning rest day.
Even today more than 100 languages worldwide, many of them unrelated to ancient Hebrew, use the word Sabbath for Saturday-and none of them designate any other day as a day of rest. Though the world's language groups have evolved so as to be unintelligible from each other, the word for the seventh day of the week has remained fairly recognizable.
Very few realize that the word Sabbath and the concept of resting from work on the seventh day of the week (Saturday) is common to most of the ancient and modern languages of the world. This is evidence totally independent of the Scriptures that confirms the biblical teaching that God's seventh-day Sabbath predates Judaism. The concept of a Saturday holy day of rest was understood, accepted, and practiced by virtually every culture from Babylon through modern times.
In the study of the many languages of mankind, you will find two important facts:
In the majority of the principal languages the last, or seventh, day of the week is designated as Sabbath.
There is not even one language that designates another day as the day of rest.
From these facts we may conclude that not only those people who called the last day of the week Sabbath, but all other peoples and races, as far as they recognized any day of the week as Sabbath, rested on the seventh day. In fact, it was recorded by the great historian Sozomen that in his time the whole known world, with the exception of Rome and Alexandria, observed the seventh day of the week.
The people of Constantinople, and almost everywhere, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the first day of the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria (Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, Book 7, chap.19).
Another interesting fact is that the words in the original languages that are used to designate the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath have continued to be very similar while the other words have been so changed over time that they are unintelligible to people of other language groups. This is another proof that the Sabbath and the words used to designate the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath day originated at Creation in complete harmony with the biblical record found in Genesis 2:1ndash;3.
Language List
LanguageWord for Saturday/7thDayMeaning
GreekSabbatonSabbath
Latin (Italy)SabbatumSabbath
Spanish (Spain)SábadoSabbath
Portuguese (Portugal)SabbadoSabbath
Italian (Italy)SabbatoSabbath
French (France)SamediSabbath day
High German (Germany)SamstagSabbath
Prussian (Prussia)SabaticoSabbath
Russian (Russia)SubbotaSabbath
PolishSobotaSabbath
HebrewShabbathSabbath
AfaghanShambaSabbath
HindustaniShambaSabbath
PersianShambinSabbath
ArabicAssabtThe Sabbath
TurkishYomessabtDay Sabbath
MalayAri-SabtuDay Sabbath
AbyssinianSanbatSabbath
Lusatian (Saxony)SobotaSabbath
BohemianSobotaSabbath
Bulgarian (Bulgaria)SubbotaSabbath
New Slovenian (Illyria, in Austria)SobotaSabbath
Illyrian (Dalmatia, Servia)SubotaSabbath
Wallachian (Roumania or Wallachia)SambataSabbath
Roman (Sapin, Catalonia)DissapteDay Sabbath
Ecclesiastical Roman (Italy)SabbatumSabbath
D'oc. French (ancient and modern)DissataDay Sabbath
Norman French (10th -11th Centuries)SabbediSabbath Day
Wolof (Senegambia, West Africa)Alere-AsserLast Day Sabbath
Congo (West Equatorial Africa)Sabbado or KiansbulaSabbath
Orma (South of Abyssiania)Zam-ba-daSabbath
Kazani - TARTAR (East Russia)SubbotaSabbath
Osmanlian (Turkey)Yome-es-sabtday of the Sabbath
Arabic (Very old names)Shi-yarChief or rejoicing day
Ancient SyriacShab-ba-thoSabbath
Chaldee Syriac (Kurdistan,Urumia,Persia)ShaptuSabbath
Babylonian Syriac (A Very Old Language)Sa-Ba-tuSabbath
Maltese (Malta)Is-sibtthe Sabbath
Ethiopic (Abyssinia)San-batSabbath
Coptic (Egypt)Pi sabbatonthe Sabbath
Tamashek (Atlas mountains, Africa)A-hal es-sabtthe Sabbath
Kabyle (North Africa, Ancient Numidan)Ghas assebtthe Sabbath day
Hausa (Central Africa)Assebatuthe Sabbath
Pasto (Afghanistan)ShambaSabbath (pleasantest day of the week)
Pahlivi (ancient Persian)ShambidSabbath
Persian (Persia)ShambahSabbath
Armenian (Armenia)ShapatSabbath
Kurdish (Kurdistan)ShambaSabbath
Ndebele (Zimbabwe)SabathaSabbath
Shona (Zimbabwe)Sabata
