șuncă

Forms

șuncă f (plural șunci)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Schunke (“ham”), a dialect form of Schinken, according to Tiktin, MDA2 and Borcia.^[2][3][4] Ciorănescu names both German forms and compares Hungarian sonka and Serbo-Croatian šunka.^[5] MDA2, DEX and NODEX also give the Hungarian word as a source.^[3][6][7] Șăineanu took it from German through a Transylvanian Saxon intermediary,^[8] and Borcia cites the Transylvanian Saxon form.^[4][4] Scriban derives the Transylvanian form șoancă from Hungarian.^[9]

The Hungarian word is itself a loan from the Bavarian-Austrian form, and the TESz notes that the German word reached other languages, among them Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Slovak and Romanian, partly through Hungarian.^[10][11] The dialect form is a variant of the standard one with a different vowel grade, like Dutch schonk (“bone”), and goes back with it to Old High German skinco (“thigh, shank”).^[12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is in Molnar's German–Romanian grammar of 1788, where Borcia reads the form șunc.^[2][4] MDA2 dates it from a document of before 1792 in Iorga's Studii și documente.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word means a leg of pork salted and smoked so that it keeps, and by extension a cut from the fatty parts of a pig; in some regions it is bacon fat, a sense the Muntenia glossary records in many villages.^[3][14] Scriban noted in 1939 that șuncă was the Wallachian word, șoancă the Transylvanian and jambon the Moldavian.^[9] It came to name a pressed ham product as well, șuncă presată or șuncă de Praga.^[3]

Slang uses the plural șunci for full hips and, among teenagers, șuncă as an adjective for “great”.^[15] The derivative șuncar is a pork butcher, regionally a one-year-old pig.^[16]

Timeline

• 1788 – first record, in Molnar's German–Romanian grammar.^[2][4]
• before 1792 – in a document in Iorga's Studii și documente.^[3]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses shúnca with Latin perna and German Schinken.^[17]
• 1825 – the Lexicon of Buda glosses șuncă with Hungarian sónka and German Schinken.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. ham: a leg of pork salted and smoked to keep it a long time; jambon.^[6][1]
2. A piece cut from the fatty parts of a pig, usually salted and smoked.^[3]
3. (regional) Bacon fat; slănină.^[3][14]
4. Pressed ham, șuncă presată or șuncă de Praga.^[3]

Word family

• șuncuță
• șuncar

Related words

• jambon

Usage notes

Regional forms include șoancă, șoncă and soncă, the latter two in Transylvania and the Banat.^[3][2] MDA2 records the old plural șunce beside șunci.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. șuncă
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1140
4. ^ a b c d e Borcia, Ioan (1903–1904), Deutsche Sprachelemente im Rumänischen, Leipzig (in Weigand, Zehnter Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig), p. 76
5. ^ 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. șuncă
6. ^ a b DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1096
7. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. șuncă
8. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 628
9. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1290
10. ^ Benkő, Loránd (ed.) (1967–1976), A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára, 3 vols., Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 3, 572
11. ^ Gerstner, Károly (ed.) (2006–), Új magyar etimológiai szótár, Budapest: Nyelvtudományi Kutatóközpont; online at uesz.nytud.hu
12. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
13. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
14. ^ a b Marin, Maria; Mărgărit, Iulia, Glosar dialectal. Muntenia, București: Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti”, p. 412
15. ^ Volceanov, George (2007), Dicționar de argou al limbii române, București: Niculescu, p. s.v. șuncă
16. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. șuncar
17. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 444
18. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 686