ianuarie

Forms

ianuarie m (uncountable)^[1] Older texts have the forms ghenarie, ghenar, ghenuariu and ghenvariu;^[1] ghenuariu stands in the title of the New Testament of 1648.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Church Slavonic иꙗноуарии (ijanuarii), the church-calendar name of the month.^[3][4][5][1] The DA calls it a literary borrowing from Old Church Slavonic.^[6] The Slavonic word is from Byzantine Greek Ιανουάριος (Ianouários), from Latin Iānuārius, the month of Iānus.^[1][7]

Ciorănescu treats it as a doublet of the older ghenar (also ghenarie), which comes from the Slavonic forms in ⟨gen-⟩ that render the spoken Greek Γενάρης (Genáris).^[3][2] Wiktionary also counts the folk name gerar as a doublet.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is in Grigore Ureche's chronicle of about 1640, in the phrase în luna lui ianuarie “in the month of January”.^[2] MDA2 dates the word only from a newspaper of 1950, a much later quotation.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word has only ever named the first month of the year.^[3][5] For a long time it shared that role with ghenar and its variants, which Ciorănescu marks as obsolete since the 17th century, and with the folk names gerar and cărindar.^[3][5][4] The DA records ianuar as a variant, and ianuariu in Costinescu's dictionary.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1640 – ianuarie in Grigore Ureche's chronicle.^[2]
• 1648 – ghenuariu in the title of the New Testament.^[2]
• 1950 – the first record in MDA2, from the weekly Contemporanul.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. January: the first month of the year, with 31 days; also called gerar.^[5][4][1]

Related words

• ghenar
• gerar
• Latin Iānuārius

Usage notes

The word is pronounced with four syllables, -nu-a-ri-e, or with three, -nua-rie.^[5][8] Dates are written with it as with the other month names: pe 8 ianuarie “on 8 January”.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ianuarie
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. ianuarie
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, 1098
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 484
6. ^ 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. ianuarie
7. ^ Wikționar (Romanian Wiktionary), ro.wiktionary.org
8. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 478