iuo

Forms

iuo (adverb); variants io, iu, iuă.^[1][2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ubi (“where”), whose beginning was confused with ibi (“there”).^[1][3] Tiktin starts from a spoken Latin *ubĭ with a short final vowel, as the Italian form shows, and finds the initial sound obscure; a compound with dē (“from”) fails because Romanian has unde, not *iunde.^[4] MDA2 calls the word of unknown origin.^[2] The Latin adverb goes back to *kʷuþei or a similar form.^[5]

Aromanian has iu and Istro-Romanian juva.^[1][6][4][3] The Romance cognates include Dalmatian jo, Italian ove, French où, Occitan o and Old Portuguese u.^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The early 16th-century Psaltirea Hurmuzaki has iuo eleven times.^[8] Tiktin dates the word to 1521, Neacșu's letter, where it is written iu.^[4] Coresi's Gospels have „Iuo va amu fi trupul, acolo aduna-se-vor vâlturii” “wherever the body is, there the eagles will gather” (Matthew 24:28).^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the old texts it means “where”, as a question and as a relative; the Psaltirea Scheiană has io: „Io e Dumnezeul lor?” “where is their God?” (Psalm 113:10).^[4] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 still writes iu.^[9] Ciorănescu notes that it is now used only in western Transylvania, and MDA2 marks it as regional and dated.^[1][2]

Timeline

• c. 1500–1520 – iuo in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[10]
• 1521 – iu in Neacșu's letter.^[4]
• c. 1563–1583 – iuo in the Codicele Voronețean.^[2]
• 1664 – iu in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1688 – iu in the Bucharest Bible.^[9]

Meanings

Adverb

1. (obsolete, regional) where.^[2][1][3]

Related words

• unde
• Aromanian iu

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. iuo
2. ^ 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, 1172
3. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
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. iúo
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 567
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9028
8. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 41:3
9. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. 3 Kings 16:1
10. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 13:6
11. ^ 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. iu