italian

Forms

italian m or n (feminine singular italiană, masculine plural italieni, feminine/neuter plural italiene)^[1] An older form ital occurs in the chronicles: „Acest Filip Calimah era ital, din Florenția” “this Filip Callimachus was an Italian, from Florence”.^[2][3] Popular and older speech also has talian and tălian.^[2][4][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian italiano.^[5][4][6][1] Tiktin adds that the Italian word may also have come in through other languages.^[2] Nocentini derives the Italian word from the name Italia.^[7] Wiktionary notes that within Romanian the word can also be analysed as Italia with the suffix -an.^[1]

The older form ital has another source: Ciorănescu takes it from Latin italus in the 17th century, while Tiktin and Scriban derive it from Modern Greek Ιταλός (Italós).^[5][2][8] The popular talian matches Serbo-Croatian Talijan, which the DA names as its source.^[3] Scriban traces the whole group of such forms to Venetian taliano.^[3][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record of the word is from 1694.^[2] MDA2 dates the word only from before 1808.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word names a person of Italy and, as an adjective, what belongs to Italy or the Italians; used as a feminine noun, italiana is the Italian language.^[6][4] The older ital of the chronicles fell out of use, and talian survives in popular speech.^[2][3] MDA2 also records a regional sense, “a well-built man”.^[4]

Timeline

• 1694 – the first record cited by Tiktin.^[2]
• before 1808 – the first record in MDA2.^[4]
• 1886 – Barcianu glosses it “Italian (man); Italian (adjective)”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. An Italian: a person who belongs to the people of Italy or comes from there.^[6][4]
2. (feminine, as italiana) The Italian language.^[6][4]

Adjective

1. Of or relating to Italy or the Italians: un restaurant italian “an Italian restaurant”.^[6][10]

Word family

• italiancă
• italienesc
• italienește
• italienism

Related words

• italic
• Italian italiano

Usage notes

The feminine noun is italiancă (plural italience), besides italiană.^[5][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. italián
3. ^ a b c d e 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. italian
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, 1170
5. ^ a b c 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. italian
6. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 526
7. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 664
9. ^ Barcianu, Sava Popovici (1886), Dicționar român-germân și germân-român, revised by D. P. Barcianu, part I: român-germân, Sibiu: Institut tipografic, p. 289
10. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 2, 554