Breakdown of Sjötti dagurinn er laugardagur.
vera
to be
dagurinn
the day (m)
laugardagur
Saturday
sjötti
sixth
Questions & Answers about Sjötti dagurinn er laugardagur.
Why does "sixth" end in -i here (sjötti)?
Ordinal numbers in Icelandic act like adjectives and must match the gender, number, and case of the noun they describe. Because dagurinn (the day) is a masculine noun in the nominative case, the ordinal "sixth" takes the masculine nominative ending -i, making it sjötti.
Where is the word for "the" before sjötti?
In Icelandic, ordinal numbers like sjötti (sixth) naturally use a "weak" (definite) form, meaning the idea of "the" is already built into how they decline. You don't need to add a separate freestanding word for "the" before the number. The noun itself, dagurinn, still takes its attached definite article -inn.
Why is dagurinn definite but laugardagur isn't?
This matches how we speak in English! We say "The sixth day is Saturday," not "The sixth day is the Saturday." Dagurinn has the definite article suffix -inn because we are pointing out a specific day in a sequence. Laugardagur is left indefinite because it is just stating the name of the day.
What is the literal meaning of laugardagur?
While days like sunnudagur (Sunday) and mánudagur (Monday) are named after the sun and moon, laugardagur literally translates to "pool day" or "bath day." It comes from the old Viking tradition of washing and bathing on Saturdays, often in a hot spring (laug).
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