Etymologically
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anya

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Pronunciation

Forms

anya (plural anyák)[1]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Proto-Uralic *ańa (“wife of an older male relative; mother?”), a Uralic stem with a Hungarian ending.[2][3][4][5][1] TESz reconstructs the base with a plain /n/ and allows the Finno-Ugric or the Uralic period.[6] The related words are Mansi āńī (“wife of the father's brother”), Khanty ăńəki̮ (“wife of the elder brother; stepmother”), Komi-Zyrian ań (“woman, wife”), Erzya nizańa (“mother-in-law”), Moksha ańaka (“elder sister”), Tundra Nenets ńeje (“mother's younger sister”) and Selkup ońa (“wife of the elder brother”).[2][3][5] Their different meanings can be explained by metonymy; ángy “sister-in-law” comes from the same stem.[2][6]

A Uralic meaning “mother” is uncertain, because similar words for “mother” occur in many unrelated languages, among them Mansi āŋkw, Old Turkic and Tungusic words; these are mostly words of children's speech, so the age of the Hungarian word cannot be fixed.[2][3][6] The words in the related languages may in part be later, separate developments.[2][6] Budenz already argued against a loan from Turkic, pointing to the many kinship terms the Ugric languages share.[7]

The final ⟨-a⟩ is either a diminutive suffix or the 3rd-person singular possessive suffix.[6][2][8] The MSzFE notes that the Mansi and Komi vowels point to an older */ä/, which may have arisen from */a/ before the palatal /ń/.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first certain record is in the Old Hungarian Lament of Mary, which TESz dates about 1300 and ÚESz to the middle of the 13th century: fyrou aniath thekunched, “look upon your weeping mother”; the sense is “mother”.[6][2][8] A place name Ana of 1181, known from later copies, may be an earlier record.[6][2]

Semantic evolution

According to TESz, all the later senses developed in Hungarian from “mother”: “female superior, head of a community” (1529, from the mother's leading place in the family), “origin, source” (1531, figurative), “female ancestor” (1552, the mother of an ancestor), and “mother animal” (1650, applied to all living things).[6] ÚESz dates the animal sense from 1602.[2] In some dialects the word also meant “mother-in-law”, as apa meant “father-in-law”.[8]

The sense “nut (of a screw)”, from 1869, may be a metaphor, but German played a part: anyacsavar (1835) and csavaranya (1865) are loan translations of German Schraubenmutter and Mutterschraube, and the simple word may have taken over their meaning.[2]

The diminutives and pet forms are many: anyácska (1585), anyó (1787), which came to mean any old woman (1790), anyus (1788), anyuka (1878), anyuci (1895) and anyu (1911), perhaps a back-formation from anyuka or anyuci.[2][6] In the countryside a husband could address his wife as anyja “its mother”.[9][10][11]

Timeline

  • 1181 – Ana, perhaps the word, in a place name known from later copies.[6][2]
  • c. 1300 – aniath “mother” in the Old Hungarian Lament of Mary (ÚESz: mid-13th century).[6][2]
  • c. 1405 – anya glossing Latin mater in the Schlägl word list.[12]
  • c. 1493 – anyay “motherly” in the Festetics Codex.[6][2]
  • 1519 – anyaság “motherhood”.[6][2]
  • 1529 – “female superior”.[6][2]
  • 1531 – “origin, source”.[6][2]
  • 1552 – “female ancestor”.[6][2]
  • 1602 – “mother animal”.[2]
  • 1787 – anyó.[6][2]
  • 1869 – “nut (of a screw)”.[2]
  • 1878 – anyuka.[2]
  • 1911 – anyu.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. mother: a woman who has given birth to or has a child; also used to address one's mother or mother-in-law.[11][13][1]
  2. (dated) A husband's form of address to his wife, especially in a family with children.[11]
  3. A female ancestor.[11][13]
  4. A woman who takes a mother's place for someone.[11][13]
  5. An older woman, from the point of view of someone young enough to be her child; the title of a mother superior, or a pupil's way of addressing a nun.[11]
  6. A mother animal; a female kept for breeding.[11][13]
  7. The source or origin of something.[11][13]
  8. (vulgar) In swearing and curses.[11][13]
  9. (engineering) A nut, screwed onto a bolt.[11][13][1]

Word family

  • anyó
  • anyus
  • anyai
  • anyaság
  • anyányi
  • anyás
  • anyáskodik
  • anyátlan
  • anyuka

Usage notes

The possessive is anyja “his, her mother”, but anyája in some senses and phrases.[11] A short form any appeared in 1803–1804 as a conscious archaism, and dialects also have any.[2][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
  3. ^ a b c d Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1993–1997), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Ungarischen, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 88
  4. ^ Zaicz, Gábor (ed.) (2006), Etimológiai szótár: magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete, Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó
  5. ^ a b Rédei, Károly (ed.) (1986–1991), Uralisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó / Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz; online as Uralonet, uralonet.nytud.hu
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 1, 159
  7. ^ Budenz, József (1873–1881), Magyar–ugor összehasonlító szótár, Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, p. 745
  8. ^ a b c d Lakó, György (ed.) (1967–1978), A magyar szókészlet finnugor elemei, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 1, 88
  9. ^ Bálint, Sándor (1957), Szegedi szótár, 2 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 1, 73
  10. ^ Kiss, Géza (1952), Ormánysági szótár, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 15
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Bárczi, Géza; Országh, László (eds.) (1959–1962), A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára, 7 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó; online at ertelmezo.oszk.hu
  12. ^ Szamota, István (1894), A schlägli magyar szójegyzék a XV. század első negyedéből, Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, p. 17
  13. ^ a b c d e f g Ittzés, Nóra (ed.) (2006–), A magyar nyelv nagyszótára, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó / Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at nagyszotar.nytud.hu