ăla

Forms

ăla (feminine aia, masculine plural ăia, feminine plural alea; genitive-dative singular ăluia, ăleia, plural ălora).^[2] Regional variants include ala (Transylvania, Maramureș, Wallachia, Oltenia), aăla (Banat), ahăla (Transylvania, Banat) and, rarely, aiela in southern Transylvania.^[3] Without the final -a, the short form ăl (plural ăi) stands before a noun; an aspirated hăl also occurs.^[3][4]

Etymology

In the traditional view of the dictionaries it is inherited from Latin ille (“that”), in the accusative illum and the feminine illa.^[2][5][6] Wiktionary analyses it as the short demonstrative ăl with the deictic ending -a, and links the ending to hāc (“over here”).^[1]

DELR rejects a direct Latin source.^[3] In its view the Latin pronoun gave Romanian the personal pronoun el and, unstressed, the definite article and the possessive al, while the demonstrative sense passed to the compound of ecce or eccum with the same pronoun, which gave acel.^[3] The short demonstrative would then be a later remaking of the longer one on the model of the pair acest and ăst, and the form with ⟨-a⟩ a remaking of acela on the model of acesta and ăsta.^[3] DELR points out that the short form is rare in the old texts, where the general form is the longer one, and that it is missing from the dialects south of the Danube.^[3] Ciorănescu adds that the demonstrative and the possessive article share their origin and separated only fairly recently.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR finds the word from the 17th century on, first in the masculine plural aia in the Codex Todorescu and the Codex Marțian.^[3] It was a demonstrative of distance, “that one”, from the start.^[3] The short ăl is recorded about 1650 as hăl in the glossary of the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word is the colloquial counterpart of acela and is regional in origin: DELR places it in Wallachia, Oltenia, Dobruja, southern Transylvania and Banat.^[3] Cantemir already called the form ahăla Wallachian.^[4] In the standard language it is marked as popular and familiar.^[2]

Used as a noun, un ăla came to mean a nobody, a person of no account, as in Caragiale.^[7][5] The feminine forms give fixed phrases: altă aia “an oddity, a monster” and toate alea “everything needed”.^[2][7] Vorba ăluia, “as the saying goes”, uses it for an unnamed speaker that everyone knows.^[4]

Timeline

• 17th century – the masculine plural aia in the Codex Todorescu and the Codex Marțian.^[3]
• c. 1650 – the short form hăl in the Anonymus Caransebesiensis.^[3]
• 1688 – aia in the Bucharest Bible.^[8]
• 1787 – ăl, plural ăi, in Văcărescu's grammar.^[3]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (colloquial) That one; the one over there.^[2][1]
2. (colloquial, derogatory) un ăla: a nobody, a person of no importance.^[5][1]
3. altă aia: an oddity, a strange thing;^[2] toate alea: all that is needed.^[2]

Determiner

1. (colloquial) that, placed after the noun: omul ăla “that man”.^[2][1]

Related words

• acela
• ăsta
• al
• el
• Latin ille

Usage notes

Ăla follows the noun, which then takes the definite article (casa aia); the standard language prefers acela or acel.^[2][7] The correlative de ce..., de aia... means “the more..., the more...”.^[5]

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 DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 83
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2011–), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române (DELR), vol. I: A–B (2011), vol. II: C (2015–2018), București: Editura Academiei Române; continued online at delr.lingv.ro, p. s.v. ăl
4. ^ a b c Academia Română (1913–1949), Dicționarul limbii române (DA), ed. Sextil Pușcariu, tom I (A–B, C, D–De) and tom II (F–I, J–Lojniță), București: Socec / Universul / Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului; page scans at cflr-scans.solirom.ro, p. s.v. al
5. ^ a b c d Academia Republicii Populare Romîne (1958), Dicționarul limbii romîne moderne, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 61
6. ^ a b Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001), p. s.v. ăl
7. ^ a b c Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1, 181
8. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 2 Kingdoms 21:8