The Manx week is ny laghyn ny shiaghtin. Every day name begins with the same element, Je-, meaning “day of”, so once you have the prefix you are really learning seven second halves.
Every entry below carries its pronunciation in the International Phonetic Alphabet, a plain English approximation, and the source it is attested in. [H] marks a form attested in the historical record; [R] marks a revived or modern standard form. Manx spelling is an unreliable guide to Manx sound, so the pronunciation is not decoration here. See Manx Words & Grammar for the method.
The seven days
| English | Manx | Pronunciation | English approximation | Attested in | Tag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Jelune (also Jyluain) | /dʒeˈləːnʲ/ | “je-LOON” | Kelly 1866 | [H] |
| Tuesday | Jemayrt | /dʒeˈmaːrt/ | “je-MAART” | Kelly 1866 | [H] |
| Wednesday | Jecrean | /dʒeˈkrəːnʲ/ | “je-KRAIN” | Cregeen 1835 | [H] |
| Thursday | Jerdein | /dʒarˈdəːnʲ/ | “jar-DAIN” | Cregeen 1835 | [H] |
| Friday | Jeheiney (also Jyheiney) | /dʒeˈhəːnʲə/ | “je-HAY-nyuh” | Kelly 1866 | [H] |
| Saturday | Jesarn | /dʒeˈsaːrn/ | “je-SAARN” | Cregeen 1835 | [H] |
| Sunday | Jedoonee | /dʒeˈduːni/ | “je-DOO-nee” | Cregeen 1835 | [H] |
How we know these are old
Four of the seven sit as clean entries in Cregeen’s 1835 dictionary, sometimes in a revealing phrase. He glosses Sarn as “a contraction of Jesarn, Saturday”, and notes that Oie Jedoonee is Sunday night. Jerdein appears in his note on Ascension Day.
The other three, Monday, Tuesday and Friday, were harder. They are not clean headwords in Cregeen, which left us unable to say for certain whether they were historical or later revival forms. We have now confirmed all three in Kelly’s Manx Dictionary of 1866, working from the English side of the book: “Monday, s. jyluain, jelune”, “Tuesday, s. jemayrt”, “Friday, Jyheiney”. All seven day names are therefore historically attested.
Kelly also hands us two variant spellings, Jyluain for Monday and Jyheiney for Friday. That is not an error in either book. Manx spelling was never fully standardised, and the same word can appear differently in Cregeen, in Kelly, and in the Bible. Recording the variants is part of recording the language honestly.
⚠️ Still to come on this page: the months, and the vocabulary for telling the time.