Number 7 in languages

Linguist   Sun Aug 28, 2005 7:30 pm GMT
I read in many books, herad from many people that number 7 is a magic one and it has kind of mistery in it, like 7 days of week, 7 wonders of the world, 7 colours of rainbow, seven notes, 7 days of world creating, 7 circles of hell....OK, so some people say that the code of Earth is 7. So i just wonder are there any proverbs/words in your language consisting number 7?

I thought and found some of them in Russian:
1. Semero odnogo ne zhdut - seven people don't wait for one man.
2. Sem' raz otmer', odin raz ortezh - measure seven times, cut only once.
3. Semero po lavkam - seven people sitting on benches (it means that a person has many children)
4. Sem'ya =family
sem'(seven)+ya(I,me), so family=seven of me

what about other languages?
Sander   Sun Aug 28, 2005 7:41 pm GMT
1 In geen zeven sloten tegelijk lopen. (not walking in seven streams at the same time/ meaning: that you can take care of yourself.)

2 Een kat met zeven levens. (a cat with seven lives / meaning: being resiliant)

3 Hij is in de zevende hemel. (he's in the seventh heaven / meaning: He's extremely happy)

4 Hij schijt zeven kleuren. (He's shitting seven colours /meaning: he's really scared)

5 Hij zoekt de zevende dag (He's searching the seventh day /meaning: He's lazy)

6 De zeven zeeën bevaren hebben. (haven sailed the seven seas / meaning: seen the world)
Paul V   Sun Aug 28, 2005 8:27 pm GMT
There are 7 planets that you can see with the naked eye, including earth.
I don't include Neptune or Pluto.

There are seven senses.
1. Sight
2. Hearing
3. Smell
4. Taste
5. Touch
6. Balance -Inner Ear (Perpindicular to gravity)
7. And the most important, Common

Sommon people call intuition or ESP the Sixth sense,
but I haven't seen it confirmed by science.

Regards, Paul V.
Uriel   Sun Aug 28, 2005 9:22 pm GMT
We say that a cat has 9 lives (your Dutch kitties need to upgrade, Sander!), and "Measure twice, cut once." (More impatient than the Russians, I guess.)

I believe that there is a biblical legend about the "seven seals" that must be opened before the return of Christ.

Being "at sixes and sevens" is a bad thing, but seven is a lucky roll of the dice in craps (I think; I've never played), as is eleven, which is supposedly what the old 7-11 stores commmemorated in their name.
Xatufan   Sun Aug 28, 2005 9:40 pm GMT
In Spanish los gatos tienen SIETE vidas.
Sanja   Mon Aug 29, 2005 3:37 pm GMT
"measure seven times, cut only once."

We say "measure three times, cut only once" ("Triput mjeri, jednom sijeci").


"he's in the seventh heaven / meaning: He's extremely happy"

We have that one too: "On je na sedmom nebu".
Sanja   Mon Aug 29, 2005 3:39 pm GMT
"There are 7 planets that you can see with the naked eye, including earth.
I don't include Neptune or Pluto."

You can see Uranus with the naked eye? Wow! :)
Cro Magnon   Mon Aug 29, 2005 4:02 pm GMT
<=You can see Uranus with the naked eye? Wow! :) =>

You can if you have good eyes. However, the view isn't that good. ;)
Deborah   Tue Aug 30, 2005 1:34 am GMT
And then there's

"As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with 7 wives", etc.
Geoff_One   Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:11 am GMT
There is:

007 James Bond
Geoff_One   Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:32 am GMT
From our perspective (and originally from the perspective of the Ancient Egyptians I think), there are seven main celestial objects (using poetic licence, one may say 7 planets) and each of these have had a day named after them, as follows:

Sunday = Sun's Day

Monday = Moon's Day

Tuesday = Mar's Day

Wednesday = Mercury's Day

Thursday = Jupiter's Day

Friday = Venus's Day

Saturday = Saturn's Day

Saturday, Sunday & Monday are Latin based.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday are Germanic based
(Northern Germanic?).

I am most likely telling the majority of people what they already know.
Sander   Tue Aug 30, 2005 7:27 am GMT
=>Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday are Germanic based <=

Yep, Germanic based.

Tuesday = Tiw's day
Thursday =Thor's day
Wednesday =Odin's day
Friday = Freya's day

Although it can differ a bit from language to language.For instance, Dutch uses 'Donderdag' (thunder day) for thursday.While most other ger. languages based it completely on Thor (or west.cont.ger. 'Donar').But the meaning is still more or less the same.Because Thor, was afterall the God of thunder.

Oh yeah,

Monday and Sunday are of unknown origin ;-)
Easterner   Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:58 am GMT
We have a saying in Hungarian referring to any group of seven persons - it is "They are seven as the wicked." This apparently derives from an old superstition that evil spirits form groups of seven. and if a child is very naughty, then we say: "He has seven devils in him."

As for the names of the weeks, Hungarian has them in different origins: Sunday to Tuesday are of Finno-Ugric origin, Wednesday to Friday are of Slavic, while Saturday is apparently a form of "sabbath" borrowed through Slavic.

Monday - hétfő, lit. "head (beginning) of the week"
Tuesday - kedd, lit. "the second (day)", modification of "kettő" ("two")
Wednesday - szerda (from Old Slavic "sereda", "middle")
Thursday - csütörtök (from Old Slavic "cetvrtek", "the fourth")
Friday - péntek, from Old Slavic "pentek", "the fifth"
Saturday - szombat, apparently a nasalised form of "sabat", taken from Old Slavic
Sunday - vasárnap (from "vásárnap", i.e. Fair Day, this was the day when fairs were normally held)
Linguist   Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:57 pm GMT
Thank you all for your answers, In Russian there is also expression "to be on the 7th sky" , yes it's also "to be very happy", and "to be behind 7 seals" and "seventh feeling", it's when you could predict future.

But what about english? everyone uses it, but nobody wrote any "english" proverbs....
greg   Thu Sep 01, 2005 3:07 am GMT
"Touner sept (7) fois sa langue dans sa bouche" = réfélchir à deux (2) fois avant de s'exprimer.

"Les jeunes de sept (7) à soixante-dix-sept (77) ans".