Signing Savvy, Your Sign Language Resource

In this series of articles, I discuss how to sign dates in American Sign Language. In this article, in particular, I discuss how to sign the days of the week.

Signs for the Days of the Week

Each day of the week has its own sign, as follows:

The Five Similar Day Signs

Five of the days of the week look very similar: MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY, and SATURDAY. They look similar because they all use the same movement and palm orientation. You can think of the circular motion representing the concept of a day being a cycle.

The handshape for each sign is different. You can remember how to sign each of these since they each use the handshape that matches the first letter of the word.

• MONDAY uses the M handshape.
• TUESDAY uses the T handshape.
• WEDNESDAY uses the W handshape.
• FRIDAY uses the F handshape.
• SATURDAY uses the S handshape.

Thursday Does NOT Follow the Pattern

THURSDAY is signed by fingerspelling the abbreviation T-H, the first two letters of the day name. Why isn't THURSDAY signed like the rest of the days of the week? The T handshape moving in the circular motion is already used for the sign for TUESDAY. There is also another sign variation for THURSDAY where you use the H handshape in a circular motion, like the other five days of the week. However, this variation is less commonly used than the T-H version.

Sunday Does NOT Follow the Pattern Either

SUNDAY is signed with both hands in the 5 Handshape starting on both sides of the upper half of the face with the palm facing out. The hands bounce forward once and move down to the lower half of the face and bounce forward again.

If you know how to sign all of the days of the week, you may have always wondered why SUNDAY is signed differently from all of the other days (the signs for the other days of the week incorporate the first letter of the word, or in the case of THURSDAY, the first two letters). Historians as far back as 1885, described the sign for SUNDAY originating from thinking of SUNDAY as a holy day. Some say the two raised, open hands represented the large, opened doors of a church. Others have described the sign as a gesture of praise to God.¹ So, to remember the sign for SUNDAY, you may think of how church is often on SUNDAY and the hands represent two big church doors, and/or think of raising your hands up to the Lord in praise.