Sunday (Latin: dies solis meaning "day of the sun") is the day of the week between Saturday and Monday. Sunday is a day of rest in most Western countries and a part of the weekend. In some Arab countries, Sunday is a weekday.
For most Christians, Sunday is observed as a day of worship and rest, holding it as the Lord's Day and the day of Christ's resurrection; in the United States, Canada, Japan, as well as in parts of South America, Sunday is the first day of the week. According to the Islamic calendar, Hebrew calendar and traditional calendars (including Christian calendars) Sunday is the first day of the week; Quaker Christians call Sunday the "first day" in accordance with their testimony of simplicity. The International Organization for Standardization standard ISO 8601 puts Sunday as the seventh day of the week."Monday shall be identified as calendar day of any calendar week, and subsequent calendar days of the same calendar week shall be numbered in ascending sequence to Sunday (calendar day )." Further discussion: UK National Physical Laboratory: "Which is the first day of the week? And which is week 1 of the year? (FAQ - Time)": |http://www.npl.co.uk/science-technology/time-frequency/time/faqs/which-is-the-first-day-of-the-week-and-which-is-week-1-of-the-year-(faq-time) (Archive here:
Etymology
The name "Sunday", the day of the Sun, is derived from the traditional astronomical naming system for days of the week. This system likely originated in the Neo-Babylonian Empire during the Jewish exile in Babylon, though the first direct evidence of it dates to the Roman Empire. The order has been explained in Hellenistic astrology as relating to planetary hours. Each of the hours of the day was assigned to one of the seven classical planets – Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon – and the planet of the first hour of each day gave its name to that day.
The astronomical weekday names spread throughout Europe, including to the Germanic peoples. The names of Sunday and Monday were translated to the corresponding Germanic words, hence dies Solis became "Sunday". The other days took the names of corresponding Germanic deities.
The English noun Sunday derived sometime before 1250 from sunedai, which developed from Old English (before 700) Sunnandæg, literally meaning "sun's day". This is cognate to other Germanic languages, including Old Frisian sunnandei, Old Saxon sunnundag, Middle Dutch sonnendach (modern Dutch zondag), Old High German sunnun tag (modern German Sonntag), and Old Norse sunnudagr (Danish and Norwegian søndag, Icelandic sunnudagur and Swedish söndag). The Germanic term is a Germanic interpretation of Latin dies solis ("day of the sun"), which is a translation of the ancient Greek Ἥλίου ημέρα" (Hēlíou hēméra).Barnhart (1995:778).
In most Indian languages, the word for Sunday is derived from Sanskrit Ravivāra or Adityavāra — vāra meaning day and Aditya and Ravi both being names for Surya, the Sun and the solar deity. Ravivāra is the first day cited in Jyotisha, which provides logical reason for giving the name of each weekday. In the Thai solar calendar, the name ("Waan Arthit") is derived from Aditya, and the associated colour is red.
In most Slavic languages other than Russian, the words for Sunday reflect the Christian commandment to abstain from work. Belarusian (), Bulgarian (), Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian nedjelja / , Czech neděle, Macedonian (), Polish niedziela, Slovak nedeľa, Slovenian nedelja and Ukrainian () are all cognates literally meaning "no work" or "day with no work".
In Russian, the word for Sunday is () meaning "resurrection" (that is, the day of a week which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ). In Old Russian, Sunday was also called (), "free day", or "day with no work", but in the contemporary language this word means "week".
The Modern Greek word for Sunday, , is derived from (Kyrios, Lord) also, due to its liturgical significance as the day commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, i.e. The Lord's Day.
The name is similar in the Romance languages. In Italian, Sunday is called , which also means "Lord's Day" (from Latin ). One finds similar cognates in French, where the name is , as well as Romanian , and in Spanish and Portuguese, .
In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, Sunday is called (), (), and () respectively, which all mean "sun day of the week".
The Arabic word for Sunday is (), meaning "the first". It is usually combined with the word () meaning "day".
The Latvian word for Sunday is svētdiena, literally "holy day", while the Lithuanian word is sekmadienis (< sekma 'seventh' + diena 'day'). The fossil word sekmas (male), sekma (female) has been displaced by septintas (septinta) in contemporary Lithuanian.
Position in the week
ISO 8601 The international standard ISO 8601 for representation of dates and times states that Sunday is the seventh and last day of the week. This method of representing dates and times unambiguously was first published in 1988.
Culture and languages
In the Judaic, Christian, and most Islamic traditions, Sunday has been considered the first day of the week. A number of languages express this position either by the name of the day or by the naming of the other days. In Hebrew it is called יום ראשון yom rishon, in Arabic الأحد al-ahad, in Persian and related languages یکشنبه yek-shanbe, all meaning "first".
In Greek, the names of the days Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (, , , and ) mean "second", "third", "fourth", and "fifth", respectively. This leaves Sunday in the first position of the week count. Similarly in Portuguese, where the days from Monday to Friday are counted as "segunda-feira", "terça-feira", "quarta-feira", "quinta-feira" and "sexta-feira".
In Vietnamese, the working days in the week are named as: Thứ Hai (Second), Thứ Ba (Third), Thứ Tư (Fourth), Thứ Năm (Fifth), Thứ Sáu (Sixth), and Thứ Bảy (Seventh). Sunday is called "Chủ Nhật"(chữ Hán: 主日) meaning "Lord's Day". Some colloquial text in the south of Vietnam and from the church may use a different reading of "Chúa Nhật". In contemporary Vietnamese, "Chúa" means God or Lord and "Chủ" means own. The week still runs from Monday to Sunday. In German, Wednesday is called Mittwoch, literally "mid-week", implying the week runs from Sunday to Saturday.
In the Yoruba culture of West Africa, Sunday is called Oj̣ó ̣Aikú. Ojó Aiku is the day that begins a new week known as "Day of Rest". It is the day Orunmila, the convener of Ifá to earth, buried the mother of Esu Odara and his wife, Imi. Since that occurrence, Yoruba people decided to refer to the day as Ojó Aiku.
Slavic languages implicitly number Monday as day number one. Polish Slovak Czech Ukrainian Belarusian Bulgarian RussianSerbianCroatian literal or derived meaning Monday poniedziałek pondelok pondělí понеділок панядзелак понеделник понедельникponedeljak / понедељакponedjeljak (day) after not working Tuesday wtorek utorok úterý вівторок аўторак вторник вторникutorak / уторакutorak second (day) Wednesday środa streda středa середа серада сряда средаsreda / средаsrijeda middle (day) Thursday czwartek štvrtok čtvrtek четвер чацвер четвъртък четвергčetvrtak / четвртакčetvrtak fourth (day) Friday piątek piatok pátek п'ятниця пятніца петък пятницаpetak / петакpetak fifth (day) Saturday sobota sobota sobota субота субота събота субботаsubota / суботаsubota sabbath Sunday niedziela nedela neděle неділя нядзеля неделя воскресеньеnedelja / недељаnedjelja not working (day) Russian воскресение (Sunday) means "resurrection". Hungarian szerda (Wednesday), csütörtök (Thursday), and péntek (Friday) are Slavic loanwords, so the correlation with "middle", "four", and "five" are not evident to Hungarian speakers. Hungarians use Vasárnap for Sunday, which means "market day".
In the Maltese language, due to its Siculo-Arabic origin, Sunday is called Il-Ħadd, a corruption of wieħed, meaning "one". Monday is It-Tnejn, meaning "two". Similarly, Tuesday is It-Tlieta (three), Wednesday is L-Erbgħa (four), and Thursday is Il-Ħamis (five).
In Armenian, Monday is Yerkoushabti, literally meaning "second day of the week", Tuesday Yerekshabti "third day", Wednesday Chorekshabti "fourth day", Thursday Hingshabti "fifth day". Saturday is Shabat coming from the word Sabbath or Shabbath in Hebrew, and Kiraki, coming from the word Krak, meaning "fire", is Sunday, referring to the sun as a fire. Apostle John, in Revelations 1:10, refers to the "Lord's Day", (kyriakḗ hēmera), that is, "the day of the Lord", possibly influencing the Armenian word for Sunday.
In many European countries, calendars show Monday as the first day of the week, which follows the ISO 8601 standard.
In the Persian calendar, used in Iran and Afghanistan, Sunday is the second day of the week. However, it is called "number one" as counting starts from zero; the first day - Saturday - is denoted as day zero.
Sunday in Christianity
Christian usage
The ancient Romans traditionally used the eight-day nundinal cycle, a market week, but in the time of Augustus in the 1st century AD, a seven-day week also came into use.
In the gospels, the women are described as coming to the empty tomb "",Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2 which literally means "toward the first of the sabbath" and is often translated "on the first day of the week".
Justin Martyr, in the mid-2nd century, mentions "memoirs of the apostles" as being read on "the day called that of the sun" (Sunday) alongside the "writings of the prophets.". Some scholars believe this "was interpolated into his work at some later time".
On 7 March 321, Constantine I, Rome's first Christian emperor, decreed that Sunday would be observed as the Roman day of rest:
Despite the official adoption of Sunday as a day of rest by Constantine, the seven-day week and the nundinal cycle continued to be used side by side until at least the Calendar of 354 and probably later.The Chronography of 354, Part 6: The calendar of Philocalus A–G is the seven day week and A–H is the nundinal cycle.
In 363, Canon 29 of the Council of Laodicea prohibited observance of the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday), and encouraged Christians to work on Saturday and rest on the Lord's Day (Sunday). The fact that the canon had to be issued at all is an indication that adoption of Constantine's decree of 321 was still not universal, not even among Christians. It also indicates that Jews were observing the Sabbath on Saturday.
Modern practices First-day Sabbatarians, including Christians of the Methodist, Baptist and Reformed (Presbyterian and Congregationalist) traditions, observe Sunday as the sabbath, a day devoted to the worship of God at church (the attendance of Sunday School, a service of worship in the morning and evening), as well as a day of rest, meaning that people are free from servile labour and should refrain from trading, buying and selling except when necessary.
For most Christians the custom and obligation of Sunday rest is not as strict. A minority of Christians do not regard the day they attend church as important, so long as they attend. There is considerable variation in the observance of Sabbath rituals and restrictions, but some cessation of normal weekday activities is customary. Many Christians today observe Sunday as a day of church attendance.