fârtat

Forms

fârtat m (plural fârtați)^[1] The variant fărtat is common in the old texts;^[2][3] Dosoftei has the vocative: „Fărtate, când ti-i întoarce?” “friend, when will you come back?”^[2][3] In the Banat the word is furtat.^[4][2]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian frate + -at, from an older ⟨frătat⟩ “made a brother”, on the model of Old Church Slavonic побратимъ (pobratimŭ), from братъ (bratŭ, “brother”).^[5][4][2] MDA2 records ⟨frătat⟩ as an old spelling, and the personal name Frătatu of 1526 shows the earlier order of the sounds.^[4][2] Pușcariu and the DA explain it as frate with the participial suffix -at;^[6] Schuchardt and Skok as frate formed on a Slavic model they do not name.^[6]

Ciorănescu takes it instead as the participle of Latin frātrāre, a verb lost in Romanian, and points to the Aromanian verb mfărtare (“to become sworn friends”); he thinks the custom itself of Slavic origin.^[6] Pascu also derives that verb, written nfãrtedz by Wiktionary, from the same Latin verb, which Festus records of a girl's breasts swelling in pairs.^[7][8] Wiktionary gives the Latin participle as possible.^[1]

The word survives south of the Danube: fãrtat “companion”, which Papahagi derives from ⟨frătat⟩, and Megleno-Romanian fărtat, which Capidan derives from frate.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the personal name Frătatu in 1526.^[2] As a common noun it appears in the Pravila of 1640, in a rule on marriage: „Fârtatu-tău sora ta să nu o ia, … că se grăiesc frați sufletești” “your sworn brother shall not marry your sister …, for they are called brothers in spirit”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is a sworn brother.^[5][11] Young men in all Romanian lands made themselves fârtați or frați de cruce, and in Transylvania, the Banat and Hungary they did so on St Theodore's Day, with an oath on bread and salt.^[11] Ciorănescu describes the bond as a spiritual kinship sealed by oath and the mingling of blood, which in folk belief made the friends kin.^[6] The feminine counterpart is surată, and the verbs înfârtăți and însurăți mean to enter such a bond.^[2]

From the vocative fârtate between sworn brothers the word became a familiar address between friends of an age, and so “comrade, mate”.^[2][5] In Maramureș it named a member of a band of shepherds sworn to keep the secrets of the sheepfold.^[12] From Maramureș the word passed into Hungarian as fertát.^[12] The devil is called Nefârtatul, “the one who is no brother”.^[2][6]

Timeline

• 1526 – the personal name Frătatu, the first record.^[2]
• 1640 – fârtat “sworn brother” in the Pravila.^[4][2]
• c. 1660–1670 – fîrtat glossing Slavonic “friend” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. (popular) A blood brother, a friend bound to another by an oath until death;^[5][4][1] frate de cruce.^[5][4][1]
2. A comrade, a mate;^[5][3] ortac.^[5][3]
3. A friendly form of address to a friend or to someone one wants to treat as a friend.^[5][4]
4. (regional, Maramureș) A member of a band of shepherds.^[12][14]

Word family

• înfârtăți

Related words

• frate
• surată
• Aromanian fãrtat

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. fârtat
3. ^ a b c d Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 300
4. ^ 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, 888
5. ^ 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. 385
6. ^ a b c d e 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. fîrtat
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, 87
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 453
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 126
11. ^ a b 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. fârtat
12. ^ a b c Ștef, Dorin (2011), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din Maramureș, Baia Mare: Ethnologica, p. s.v. fârtat
13. ^ 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. fîrtat
14. ^ Ștef, Dorin (2021), Dicționar de regionalisme și arhaisme din județul Maramureș, 3rd ed., Baia Mare, p. s.v. fârtát