civilizație

Forms

civilizație f (plural civilizații)^[1] The older variant civilizațiune follows the Latinising pattern of the 19th century: Hasdeu wrote of „legile universale în cadrul civilizațiunii engleze” “the universal laws within English civilisation”.^[2][3] An old variant with a German pronunciation, țivilizație, occurs in Stamati.^[2][4][5] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written чивилизацие.^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French civilisation.^{[5][3][4][6][7]} The DA calls it a formation after the French model.^[2] The French noun is formed on civiliser (“to civilise”) with -ation,^[1] and the verb on civil, a borrowing of Latin cīvīlis (“of citizens”), from cīvis (“citizen”).^[5] The old variant with ⟨ț⟩ reflects German Zivilisation.^[5] Wiktionary also notes that the word can be analysed within Romanian as civiliza with the suffix -ție.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELR and Tiktin date the first record to 1789.^[5][4] Tiktin cites it from Victor Vascenco's study of the language of Mihail Strilbițchi's prints.^[4] MDA2 gives Marcovici's Datoriile omului creștin of 1839 as its first record: „Întocmirile unui norod se fac... potrivit cu înaintarea civilizației lui” “a people's institutions are shaped according to the advance of its civilisation”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

In the 1840s the word meant the whole of a people's social, political, economic and moral development, often in contrast with barbarism: Bălcescu wrote of martyrs “for the defence of civilisation against barbarism”, and Russo traced civilisation from Asia to Egypt, Greece and Rome.^[2] Negulici's dictionary of 1848 defined it as the act and effect of civilising, the state of a people that is no longer barbarous, and as sociability.^[8] Costache Negruzzi wrote that “we still have far to go before we reach this degree of civilisation”.^[2][4]

The modern dictionaries add a sense “material or spiritual culture” and, by extension, a high level of development,^[6][3] and MDA2 records a figurative use for a highly developed society itself.^[3] The verb civiliza is recorded from 1821 and civilizat from 1829.^[5] Later Romanian formed semicivilizație (1931), supercivilizație (1970) and etnocivilizație (1979).^[5]

Timeline

• 1789 – first record, in a print of Mihail Strilbițchi.^[5][4]
• 1821 – the verb civiliza.^[5]
• 1829 – the adjective civilizat.^[5]
• 1839 – civilizație in Marcovici's Datoriile omului creștin.^[3][2]
• 1848 – defined in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[8]
• 1931 – semicivilizație.^[5]
• 1970 – supercivilizație.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Civilisation: the level of material and spiritual development of a society in a given period, of a people or a state: civilizația antică.^[6][3][9]
2. Material or spiritual culture.^[6][3]
3. (by extension) A high level of development of a society: Satul acela de munte e departe de civilizație.^[6][3]
4. (figurative) A highly developed society: o civilizație extraterestră.^[3]

Related words

• civil
• civiliza
• civilizat
• French civilisation

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. civilizație
3. ^ 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. 1, 427
4. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. civilizație
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. civil
6. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 192
7. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. civilizație
8. ^ a b Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București, p. s.v. civilizație
9. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. civilizație