țară

Forms

țară f (plural țări)^[1] The older form țeară occurs in the 16th-century psalters: Coresi's psalter of 1570 has it at Psalm 136:5, where the Psaltirea Voronețeană of 1551 has țară.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin terra (“earth, dry land”).^{[3][4][5][6][1]} De Vaan traces the Latin word to Proto-Indo-European *ters- (“to dry out”), so that it first meant “dry land”.^[7]

The southern branches have Aromanian tsarã, meaning “earth, soil, clay”, and Megleno-Romanian țară, meaning both “country” and “earth”.^{[3][8][9][10]} The Romance cognates keep the sense “earth”: Italian terra, Portuguese terra, Occitan terra, Catalan terra, French terre and Spanish tierra.^[3][6] Ciorănescu calls the shift to “country” a development found only in Romanian.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1515, in the Slavonic–Romanian documents.^[11] MDA2's first record is the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century.^[4] Seventeenth-century texts already use it for a land or country: „Moisi de în pustie trimease să caute țara cea făgăduită” “from the desert Moses sent men to seek the promised land” (1642), and the preface of the 1648 New Testament notes that „Rumânii nu grăiescu în toate țărâle într-un chip” “the Romanians do not speak alike in all the lands”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The old senses “earth, dry land, soil” are those of the Latin word.^[4] From them came “a stretch of land”, “a region” and “a territory under one authority”, and then “a state” and “the people of a state”.^[4][12][3] The names of the principalities were formed with it: Țara Românească “Wallachia”, Țara Moldovei, and the old Țara de Sus and Țara de Jos for northern and southern Moldavia.^[11] Transylvanians called Wallachia simply țara.^[13] Historic regions of Transylvania keep the word in their names: Țara Maramureșului, Țara Lăpușului, Țara Codrului.^[14]

Other senses are “homeland” (a muri pentru țară) and “the countryside” as against the town (a trăi la țară).^[13][11] In the speech of the mountain villages țară is the plain or the lowland villages.^[4][15] Ciorănescu lists loans from Romanian in Ruthenian, cara “crowd”, in Polish, and in Russian and Ruthenian caranin “cultivator”.^[3]

Derivatives include țăran “peasant” and țărână “earth, dust”.^[3] Ciorănescu, following Tiktin, takes țărână as formed in Romanian with a suffix of Slavic origin, and finds Pușcariu's Latin *terrina less likely.^[3]

Timeline

• 1515 – first record, in a Slavonic–Romanian document.^[11]
• early 16th century – țară in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[4]
• 1551 – țară in the Psaltirea Voronețeană.^[2]
• 1570 – țeară in Coresi's psalter.^[2]
• 1642 – „țara cea făgăduită” “the promised land”.^[11]
• 1649 – Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon uses țară in its glosses.^[16]
• 1688 – țară, țări throughout the Bucharest Bible.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A country: a territory inhabited by a people organized as a state, by extension a state.^[12][1]
2. The inhabitants of a country, the people as a whole.^[18][19]
3. Homeland, one's native country.^[3][13][11]
4. The countryside, as opposed to the town: la țară.^[13][19]
5. A region with its own character: Țara Maramureșului, Țara Lăpușului.^[4][14]
6. (regional, in mountain villages) The plain, the lowland villages.^[4][15]
7. (archaic) The earth, land, dry land, soil.^[4][1]

Word family

• țăran
• țărancă
• țărănesc
• țărănește
• țărănime
• țărănism
• țărănist
• țărână
• țărișoară

Related words

• terasă
• teren
• terestru
• teritoriu
• Aromanian tsarã
• Latin terra

Usage notes

The plural is țări; older texts also have țari and the genitive țăriei.^[4] Common phrases include a pune țara la cale “to run the country”, ironically “to talk big about politics”, Țara lui Cremene “a place where everyone does as he pleases”, and peste nouă mări și nouă țări “very far away”.^[12] A proverb says Bună țară, rea tocmeală “a good land, badly governed”.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 136:5
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. țară
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1314
5. ^ Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 157
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8668
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 1065
9. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 175
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 306
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. țară
12. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1158
13. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1362
14. ^ a b Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica
15. ^ a b Cazacu, Boris (coord.) et al. (1967), Glosar dialectal. Oltenia, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 118
16. ^ Ungureanu, Mădălina; Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Moruz, Alexandru (eds.), eRomLex: The First Romanian Bilingual Dictionaries (17th century), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. s.v. țară
17. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Esdras 5:8
18. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional
19. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 1, 640