You still sound offensive, Zulis, even if you have your reasons (towards Japanese). IMHO, no need to express your attitude to a nation in a linguistic forum.
Then again I am sorry, but it was very mild, like I don't plan to learn the weekdays in every languages on Earth?
And yes I agree with the method of counting 7 weekdays using planets It is from the West, not from Asia, not China, not Japan, but probably not Babylon.
I will try my best to explain what I found and believe, do not take it as a lesson, it is only an opinion.
The original Chinese calendar focuses on the relationship between the moon, the earth and the sun, and possibly the Mars too, which we are still using.
If you want to focus on the linguistic aspect, we call Monday in Chinese as 星期一, or 禮拜一. If you break it off, "星期" means the period of stars, "禮拜" means weekly worship. Neither are originated in Asia.
"禮拜", or weekly worship, is closely related to the Sabbath in the Bible, which on the seventh day no one works. So bascially the concept of "7 days a week" itself came from the West. So "禮拜天" or "禮拜日" , the day of weekly worship, means Sunday, and the word "日" means day, as well as the sun.
If you look at the Japanese way of weekdays, it is exactly the Western method if using the planetary system for weekdays.
月(曜日) moon ---- Monday , Old English root: Mona = Moon
火(曜日) mars-----Tuesday,Old English root: Tiwes dæg, "named after the Nordic god Tyr, who was the equivalent of the Roman war god Mars, and Greek god Ares." - wikipedia
水(曜日) mercury---Wednesday, Old English Wēdnes dæg, day of Wodan, Germanic root.
木(曜日) jupiter----Thursday, its name seems to root from Old Norse
金(曜日) venus-----Friday - Old English root: frigedæg, day of Frige, Germanic root
土(曜日) saturn ----SATURday, it came from dies Saturni, day of Saturn, then into Old English : Sæternesdæg
日(曜日) sun-------SUNday, enough said.
and even more closely related to the French (I know French), and possibly other Latin languages like (those I don't know)Spanish/Itatian/etc.
月(曜日) 月= moon ------------Lundi ---la lune, thats the moon
火(曜日) 火星= planet Mars-----Mardi ---le Mercure, thats Mercury
水(曜日) 水星= planet Mercury--Mercredi, root in Latin, Mercurii dies, French: le Mercure, thats Mercury
木(曜日) 木星 = planet Jupiter---Jeudi, root in Latin: Jovis dies, day of Jupiter
金(曜日) 金星= Venus----------Vendredi - root in Latin: Veneris dies, day of Venus
土(曜日) 土星 = saturn --------Samedi, root in Latin: sambati dies/dies Saturni (I found 2 names associated with this), day of Sabbath/day of Saturn, and it was the Romans who associated this day with the Saturn
日(曜日) sun------------------Dimanche, root in Latin: Dies dominicus, also the Romans who associate this day with the sun.
Take note that the Japanese weekdays are associated with planets, i.e. 月,火,水,木,金,土, and it means the same thing in Chinese. I agree that it is possible that the Chinese used this kind of method long ago but have already abandoned (since we don't use it now), but the Japanese is still using it. But I don't think it is a Babylonian method though. Nothing I have read that mentioned the Babylonians, but then again, wikipedia will not be 100% correct.
Again, I do not know Korean, so I can't make a similar comparison. People who knows Korean are invited to add something as regard to this.
That's the pattern, in the most simplified form of course, to show that this method of counting weekdays we are using now is not originated in Asia.
But it seems that the Japanese weekdays is more related to the Latin root, rather than the Germanic/Norse root like those in English.
Sources are from wikipedia which I only had a quick glance, on both the English and French version.
Hope this helps to complicate things.
