Jonlang wrote: ↑Tue Jul 14, 2020 12:10 pm
So today I learnt that Finns are a bit mental when it comes to times of the day - apparently they actually have official times for when morning, afternoon etc is:
Aamu - morning 06:00-09:00
Aamupäivä - morning 09:00-12:00
Iltapäivä - afternoon 12:00-18:00
Itla - evening 17:00-22:00
Yö - night 22:00-06:00
German is a bit more complicated, with six periods instead of five, but less strictly defined:
Morgen - early morning
Vormittag - literally "before mid-day", late morning
Mittag - literally "mid-day", noon
Nachmittag - literally "after mid-day", afternoon
Abend - evening
Nacht - night - which, as the contrast to
Tag "day" might sometimes, by some people, not be seen as one of the "times of the day" at all. Anyway, as Linguoboy indicated, if you're still up late, you'll think of that time as late in the
Abend, while, if you have to rise very early, you'll think of that time as very early in the
Morgen.
(Personally, as part of my mental problems, I had times when my day-night cycle was so messed up that I basically spent the days asleep and the nights awake. During those times, IIRC my own definitions were something like "
Abend - until about 2 am;
Nacht - about 2-4 am;
Morgen - from about 4 am".)
Related: there's a traditional German children's lullaby called "
Guten Abend, Gute Nacht" ("Good Evening, Good Night").
I have no idea how strictly people adhere to these, like if referring to 09:15 as
aamu gets you shot or something
My guess is that it's probably as if you'd point at a bird and say "Look at that mouse!" - you won't get shot, but people might look at you with a funny look on their face. Or perhaps the truth is simply that the compilers of the source where you got your information from for some reason felt that they had to assign specific times?