Names of the days of the week is followed by a number indicating the day: "Monday" is literally "star day one", "Tuesday" is "star day two", etc. The exception is Sunday, where rì (日), meaning "sun" or "day", is used instead of a number. In Swahili, the day begins at sunrise, unlike in the Arabic and Hebrew calendars where the day starts at sunset (therefore an offset of twelve hours), and unlike in the Western world where the day starts at midnight (therefore an offset of six hours). Saturday is therefore the first day of the week, as it is the day that includes the first night
Names of the days of the week of the week closely parallels that of the Latin system and is ordered after the "Seven Luminaries" (七曜 "qī yào"), which consists of the Sun, Moon and the five planets visible to the naked eye. The Chinese seem to have adopted the seven-day week from the Hellenistic system by the 4th century, although by which route is not entirely clear. It was again transmitted to China in the 8th century by Manichaeans, via the country of Kang (a Central Asian polity near Samarkand). The 4th-century date, according to the "Cihai" encyclopedia, is due to a reference to Fan Ning (範寧/范宁),