Lingotopia

What is the first day of the week? As in the picture above, often Monday is regarded as the first day of the week because in many countries it is the start of the working week. And in Chinese, the days of the week are numbered from Monday as literally "first day of the week" (星期一/周一 xingqiyi/zhouyi) to Saturday as the "sixth day of the week" (星期六/周一). Only the Sunday has a special name as "sunday" or "heaven day" (星期日/星期天/周日). Ok, problem solved. But, wait a minute. Isn't in Christian church Sunday regarded as the first day of the week? That would make Monday the second day of the week. Yes, so the Portuguese are right. In Portuguese, the days of the week are counted as in Chinese, but Monday is as "segunda-feira" the second day of the week and Friday is as "sexta-feira" the sixth day. Saturday (sábado) and Sunday (domingo) have separate names. Well, it must be a Christian thing then to count the days of the week like...

My history with Persian goes way back as I have a Persian uncle. I have always been fascinated by Persian culture and wanted to travel to Iran and Afghanistan one day. Unfortunately, in recent years, this has been easier said than done. Actually around 20 years ago, I made my first attempt to learn Persian. It didn't last long, though, because I decided to study Japanese and Chinese at university and so I put my Persian books away. Last year, when I decided to do some volunteering work for refugees and heard that there is quite a number of Iranians and Afghans living in Germany, I remembered my Persian books and dusted them off. The Persian language is divided into several varieties which are mutually intelligible: Farsi in Iran, Dari in Afghanistan and Tajik in Tajikistan. Farsi and Dari are written with the Persian alphabet, which is a modification of the Arabic alphabet. It has four letters, which don't exist in Arabic:  پ (pe),  چ (che), گ (ge) and ژ (zhe). Several le...