carte

Forms

carte f (plural cărți)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin charta (“papyrus leaf, paper; letter”), a word found in all the Romance languages.^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} The Romanian form was rebuilt from the plural ⟨cărți⟩ of an older singular *cartă, on the model of parte, plural ⟨părți⟩.^[2][5][6][7] The sense “card”, a piece of cardboard used for games, visits or as a pass, comes from French carte.^[2][5] Latin had borrowed the word from Ancient Greek χάρτης (khártēs, “papyrus leaf, roll”), which Beekes calls unexplained and probably of Egyptian origin, like the papyrus plant itself.^[8][9]

The word survives in Aromanian carte and Megleno-Romanian carti.^[3][10][11] Its Romance cognates include Italian carta, Occitan carta, Catalan carta, Spanish carta, Portuguese carta and French charte.^[3][12] Ciorănescu also compares Albanian kartë (“paper”).^[3] The same Latin and Greek word reached Romanian again as cartă, hartă and hârtie.^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to about 1500.^[2] The Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, from the early 16th century, has cartea “the book” in Psalm 68.^[13] MDA2 cites the Codicele Voronețean (c. 1563–1583) first, and Tiktin the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[4][14]

Semantic evolution

Latin charta meant a sheet of papyrus, then a written sheet, a letter or a document.^[8][15][2] In old Romanian and in folk speech the main sense was “letter”, and also “document, deed, written order”.^[4][5] Maramureș still uses it for a letter.^[16] Ciorănescu notes great disagreement on how these senses developed, and the REW compares Serbo-Croatian, where one word also means both “letter” and “book”.^[3][12] From “book” came “learning, the art of reading and writing”: a ști carte is to be literate, and the proverb Ai carte, ai parte promises success to the educated.^[5][17][6]

The modern senses of cards (visiting cards, postcards, playing cards, identity cards) follow French carte.^[2][5] In the plural cărți also names the third stomach of ruminants, the omasum.^[3][18] Ciorănescu records that Bulgarian borrowed a word for “visiting card” from Romanian.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1500 – the first record.^[2]
• early 16th century – cartea “the book” in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[13]
• c. 1563–1583 – in the Codicele Voronețean.^[4]
• 1597 – the diminutive cărțulie.^[2]
• 1643 – the diminutive cărțăluie.^[2]
• c. 1650 – the diminutive cărticea.^[2]
• 1691–1697 – the diminutive cărticică.^[2]
• 1848 – cărțar “card player”.^[2]
• 1885 – the diminutive cărtișoară.^[2]
• 1975 – decarta “to discard (cards)”.^[2]
• 2001 – e-carte, a translation of English e-book.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A book: a written work printed and bound or stitched as a volume.^[5][1]
2. (figurative) knowledge of reading and writing; learning, education: a ști carte “to be literate”.^[5]
3. A register.^[5]
4. (followed by de) a booklet or document recording a person's rights: carte de membru “membership card”, carte de muncă “employment record book”.^[5]
5. A card: a piece of cardboard with writing or print, such as a postcard (carte poștală) or a visiting card (carte de vizită); a playing card.^[5][1]
6. (dated or popular) a letter.^[5][4]
7. (dated or popular) a written order from an authority; a deed, a document.^[5]
8. (in the plural) the omasum of ruminants.^[3]

Word family

• cărticea
• cărticică
• cărtișoară
• cărțar
• cărțaș
• cărțăluie
• cărțoi
• cărțulie
• decarta

Related words

• cărturar
• card
• hârtie
• cartă
• hartă
• Aromanian carte
• Latin charta

Usage notes

Playing-card idioms are common: a da cărțile pe față “to lay one's cards on the table” and a-și juca ultima carte “to play one's last card”.^[5] Carte albă is an official report, a white paper.^[5][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. carte
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. carte
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 302
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 148
6. ^ a b c d 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. carte
7. ^ 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, 58
8. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. charta
9. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 249
11. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 62
12. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1866
13. ^ a b 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 68:33
14. ^ Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. carte
15. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. carte
16. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. carte
17. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. carte
18. ^ Cihac, A. de (1870), Dictionnaire d'étymologie daco-romane I: Éléments latins comparés avec les autres langues romanes, Frankfurt am Main, p. 44
19. ^ Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. carte