chema

Forms

chema (third-person singular present cheamă, past participle chemat, third-person subjunctive cheme), 1st conjugation^[1] The Codicele Voronețean has the old form cl'ema: „cleamă-se vătahul” “let the chief be called”.^[2][3] Old texts also write chiema: „Chiemaiu cu toată înema me[a], audzi-me, Doamne” “I cried with my whole heart; hear me, O Lord”.^[4][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin clāmō (“to shout, cry out; to call”).^{[2][5][3][1][6]} The Latin verb looks like a derivative of a lost noun meaning “shout”, and Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *kelh₁- (“to shout”).^[7][1] The old form cl'ema of the Codicele Voronețean still kept the cluster with /l/.^[2] For the change of the vowel /a/ to /e/ Ciorănescu refers to Densusianu and Pușcariu.^[5]

The word survives in all four branches of Romanian: Aromanian acljem, Megleno-Romanian cl'em and Istro-Romanian cl'em.^[5][2][8][1] Its Romance cognates include Italian chiamare, Old French clamer, Occitan clamar, Spanish llamar and Portuguese chamar.^[5][6] Romanian later borrowed the same Latin verb through French as clama, a doublet.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR dates the first record to about 1500, and the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki has chemară “they cried” (Psalm 13).^[2][9] There, as in the Codicele Voronețean, the verb means “to cry out, to call”.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense “to shout” survives in the old language: the DA quotes chiema “to cry aloud, to raise the alarm” from the Codicele Voronețean and the psalters.^[4][3] From “to cry out” came “to call for help, to invoke”, then “to call someone to come”, “to invite (to a meal, to a wedding)” and “to summon”, also before a court.^[4][3][10]

The reflexive and impersonal use mă cheamă Ion “my name is Ion”, literally “they call me Ion”, gave the sense “to be named”, and se cheamă că means “that is to say”.^[11][10] The noun chemare “call, vocation” is as old as the verb;^[2][11] Transylvanian weddings have a chemător, the man who invites the guests.^[2][11]

Timeline

• c. 1500 – the first record;^[2][9] chemară in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki.^[2][9]
• c. 1500 – the nouns chemare and chemat.^[2]
• 1563 – chemătură “calling”.^[2]
• c. 1563–1583 – the old form cl'ema in the Codicele Voronețean.^[2][3]
• c. 1567 – nechemat “uninvited”.^[2]
• 1683 – chemător “the man who invites the wedding guests”.^[2]
• 1688 – Mulți sunt chemați, iară puțini aleși “many are called, but few are chosen” in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]
• 1867 – the learned conchema “to convoke”, modelled on Latin and French.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To call someone to come near or to a place.^[10][3][1]
2. To invite, to urge someone to take part in something;^[10] (poetic) to evoke.^[10]
3. To summon officially: a chema la ordine “to call to order”, a chema sub arme “to call up, mobilize”.^[10][12]
4. (reflexive, impersonal) To be called, to be named;^[10][11] se cheamă că “that means that”.^[10][11]

Word family

• chemare
• chemat
• chemătură
• conchema
• nechemat
• nechemăcios
• prechema
• rechema
• chemător

Related words

• clama
• Aromanian acljem
• Latin clāmō

Usage notes

To ask someone's name, Romanian says Cum te cheamă? “What is your name?”.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. chema
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 372
4. ^ 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. chema
5. ^ a b c d 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. chema
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1961
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. 298
9. ^ 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 13:6
10. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 176
11. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. chema
12. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. chema