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I'm planning to give a speech in Russian where I'll say something like "imagine there's an eighth day of the week--let's call it ______."

Представьте, что прибавился еще день недели--назовем его восьмятница.

What I'm struggling with is how to make up a name for the eighth day in a way that rings true for Russians in order to make the illustration more memorable. However, I know I'm in dangerous territory as what a non-native speaker makes up as logical may not be what a native speaker would think of.

What would you name the eighth day of the week? I would like to incorporate the number eight somehow.

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  • what would you call it in English? coming up with an English name takes some creativity as well – Баян Купи-ка Jul 17 '18 at 15:18
  • I guess it's more difficult in English as none of actual weekdays refer to a number (like пятница in Russian refers to number 5). So it's unclear what would be the right way to embed a number into a weekday name. – Alissa Jul 17 '18 at 15:21
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    Восьмёрник (?) By analogy with понедельник and вторник The logical problem with the name of the newly introduced eighth day is that понедельник in fact means after sunday (old Slavic name for sunday is неделя, and нэдиля in modern Ukrainian in particular, that is inaction). When you introduce the eighth day after sunday the name of понедельник becomes redundant as it would no longer follow воскресенье aka неделя. – Баян Купи-ка Jul 17 '18 at 15:32
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    @amerikashka: Terry Pratchett's Discworld's Octeday is usually translated as осьмица, albeit I like восьмятница or осмятница better for its obviously parody tone – Quassnoi♦ Jul 17 '18 at 18:00
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    @amerikashka by the way, the names of the eighth day of week are a thing, so should you ask for their actual usage in Russian it would make an on-topic question. – Quassnoi♦ Jul 17 '18 at 18:57
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Восьмятница sounds good actually. Maybe not for a case like "something happened and we have to have 8-day week, we need a name for the new day" (official name to be put into calendars and stuff). But for cases like you've described – just about perfect.

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  • Thanks! Восмерник was a close second but I stuck with the original and got good feedback afterwards. – amerikashka Jul 30 '18 at 18:55

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