hartă

Forms

hartă f (plural hărți)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Modern Greek χάρτης (chártis), a Greek loan of the 17th century.^[2][3][1][4] MDA2 and DA give the Greek source as χάρτα (chárta).^[5][6] The Greek word goes back to Ancient Greek χάρτης (khártēs, “papyrus leaf, roll”), recorded from the 5th century BC.^[7][8] Beekes calls its origin unexplained, probably Egyptian like the papyrus plant itself.^[8] The Latin charta is a loan from the Greek.^[8]

The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian hartã, “map”.^[9][10] Romanian has the same Greek word in other forms in hârtie, carte and cartă.^[1][11][3] Scriban saw a different history: the old sense “document” from Polish karta under the influence of the word for paper, and the sense “map” as a neologism from about 1793, after Italian carta and French carte.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Dosoftei's Viața și petrecerea sfinților (1682–1686), in the sense “document”: „Luând din mâna lui harta testamentului” “taking from his hand the document of the will”.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

The old sense “document, deed” is now obsolete.^[3][5][2] The sense “map” appears in documents of the 1790s: in 1793 a geographical map of five counties, in 1796 two maps of Wallachia and two of Moldavia.^[6] Negulici's dictionary of neologisms (1848) still lists the word, defined as a drawing of a country on paper.^[13] Modern usage has many technical phrases, such as hartă geologică “geological map” and harta fusurilor orare “time-zone map”.^[14][5]

Timeline

• 1682–1686 – harta testamentului “the document of the will” in Dosoftei's lives of the saints, the first record.^[5][2]
• 1793 – a geographical map of five counties.^[6]
• 1796 – maps of Wallachia and of Moldavia.^[6]
• 1848 – listed in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A map: a drawing on a plane of the earth's surface, whole or in part, reduced to a scale;^[14][5][1] hartă geologică “geological map”.^[14][5][1]
2. (obsolete) A document or deed.^[3][5][2]

Word family

• hărțulie

Related words

• hârtie
• carte
• cartă
• Aromanian hartã

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. hartă
3. ^ 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. hartă
4. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. hartă
5. ^ 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, 1043
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. hartă
7. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 1646
8. ^ a b c 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
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 544
10. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 531
11. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 73
12. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 591
13. ^ 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. hartă
14. ^ a b c DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 460