Sonntag

Forms

Sonntag m (genitive Sonntages or Sonntags, plural Sonntage)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German sunnentac, inherited from Old High German sunnūntag, a Germanic loan translation from Latin diēs Sōlis (“day of the sun”), itself a translation of Ancient Greek ἡμέρα Ἡλίου (hēméra Hēlíou, “day of Helios”).^[2][3][4] It is a genitive compound of the words for Sonne and Tag, Proto-West Germanic *sunnōn dag.^[3][1] The same rendering is Old Saxon sunnundag, Old English sunnandæg, Old Frisian sunnandei and Old Norse sunnudagr, and today Dutch zondag, English Sunday and Swedish söndag.^[2][3]

The loan translation must be old, from before the 4th century, because from that time the Church's name for the Lord's day, with dominicus (“of the Lord”), spread in Latin; it is the source of French dimanche and Italian domenica.^[2][3][4]

From the 15th century the Central German form with /o/ prevailed, first in the full form Sonnentag (15th century) and then in the short one (16th century).^[3] In the 16th century the full form came to be used only for “sunny day”.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German sunnūntag is recorded from the 9th century,^[2][3] in Otfrid, several confessions (Fulda, Lorsch, Mainz, Reichenau), Notker and the glosses.^[5] Adelung dates a form Sununtag to the 8th century.^[6] Notker also uses frôntag “the Lord's day”, formed to translate Latin dies dominicus.^[7][6]

Semantic evolution

The Sunday was originally the first day of the week and has been counted as the last since the 1970s; it is the day of rest and worship, set against the working day.^[8] As the first part of compounds it marks festivity, as in Sonntagsbraten and Sonntagskleid, or, disparagingly, the amateur: Sonntagsjäger in the 19th century, Sonntagsfahrer and Sonntagsmaler today.^[8]

A Sonntagskind, a child born on a Sunday, was believed to have special powers, such as seeing ghosts (16th century); from the 18th century the word means a lucky person.^[3][4] Paul finds it first in Fischart, 1574.^[8]

Timeline

• Before the 4th century – The Germanic loan translation of Latin diēs Sōlis is made.^[2][3]
• 9th century – Old High German sunnūntag is recorded.^[2][3]
• 15th century – The form Sonnentag, with /o/, spreads.^[3]
• 16th century – Sonntag appears, and Sonnentag comes to mean “sunny day”.^[3]
• 1574 – Sonntagskind is used by Fischart.^[8]
• 1616 – sonntäglich is recorded by Hulsius.^[8]
• 1970s – Sunday comes to be counted as the last day of the week.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Sunday, the seventh day of the week that begins on Monday, the usual day of rest: Am Sonntag hat die Bäckerei geschlossen.^[9][1]

Word family

• sonntags
• sonntäglich
• Sonntagskind
• Sonntagsbraten
• Sonntagsfahrer
• Sonntagsmaler
• Palmsonntag

Related words

• Sonne
• Tag
• Sonnabend
• English Sunday

Usage notes

The Weißer Sonntag is the Sunday after Easter, on which Catholic children traditionally receive their first communion; the name renders Church Latin dominica in albis, after the white robes that those baptised at Easter wore until that day.^[9][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 858
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
4. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
5. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 321
6. ^ a b c Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
7. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 16, 1710
8. ^ a b c d e f Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
9. ^ a b Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag