jumătate

Forms

jumătate f (plural jumătăți)^[1] Colloquial and southern jumate and juma, shortened by haplology.^[2][3] Old texts also write giumătate: „Buceagul pe giumătate” “the Budjak by half” in a folk poem collected by Alecsandri.^[4] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written жумэтате.^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[5] DEX and MDA2 call it of unknown origin.^[6][2] Ciorănescu and Tiktin take it as inherited, inherited from Late Latin medietās (“half, middle”), through a form with the consonants swapped, Vulgar Latin *diemitātem, whose /dj/ gave Romanian /ʒ/ as in ajunge, ajuta and jos.^[5][4] Wiktionary calls this the likeliest view and adds dīmidietās (“half”) as a possible source of the form.^[1] The Latin word is formed on medius (“middle”), which gave French moitié and Italian metà.^[7][5]

Another view, held by Miklosich, Capidan, Philippide and Rosetti, takes the first part of the word from Albanian gjysmë (“half”), with the ending of dīmidietās or the Romanian suffix -ate.^[5][1] Candrea and Densusianu and Scriban give a blend of the Albanian word and the Latin one.{CD}^[3] Ciorănescu rejects the Albanian source on phonetic grounds, and Tiktin says the word has nothing to do with it.^[5][4]

The word survives south of the Danube: Aromanian giumitate and Megleno-Romanian jimitate.^[5] Papahagi derives the Aromanian form from the Albanian word with dīmidietās.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1404, from DERS, the dictionary of the Romanian words in the Slavonic charters.^[4] In Romanian texts it appears in Coresi's Carte de învățătură of 1581, in the phrase „doao mile și jumătate” “two miles and a half”.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

The core sense, one of the two equal parts of a whole, is the oldest; it is used with și after a number for “and a half”, as in Coresi's „doao mile și jumătate”.^[9][4] The adverbial phrase pe jumătate “half, partly” and the point halfway along a road or through a span of time grew out of it: „când a fost la jumătate(a drumului)” “when he was halfway”.^[4][6]

Later senses are a half litre or half kilogram, a jocular “wife”, and in the north a small stook of sheaves counted as half a rick.^[6][5] The intensifying phrase un măgar și jumătate “a donkey and a half”, said of someone who outdoes all others in a fault, has parallels in Greek, Albanian and Bulgarian.^[9][4]

Timeline

• 1404 – the first record, in a Slavonic charter, as Tiktin dates it from DERS.^[4]
• 1581 – jumătate “half” in Coresi's Carte de învățătură.^[2][9]
• 1660 – in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon, glossing Slavonic words for coins and measures.^[10]
• 1688 – over a hundred times in the Bucharest Bible.^[11]
• 1801 – jumatáte glossed with Latin medietas in Klein's dictionary.^[12]
• 1825 – in the Lexicon de la Buda, glossed with Latin medium, dimidium, medietas.^[13]
• 1862 – the verb jumătăți “to halve” in Pontbriant's dictionary.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A half: one of the two equal parts into which a whole can be divided; a part of a whole split into two roughly equal parts.^[6][2]
2. The midpoint of a distance or of a span of time.^[6]
3. A half litre or half kilogram.^[6]
4. (jocular) One's wife.^[6][3]
5. (regional) A small stook of sheaves set crosswise.^[6][5]

Word family

• înjumătăți
• jumătăți

Related words

• miez
• Aromanian giumitate
• Megleno-Romanian jimitate
• Albanian gjysmë
• Latin medietas

Usage notes

Pe jumătate or în jumătate means “in two equal parts” and also “partly, incompletely”: Treaba e făcută pe jumătate.^[6] Jumătate de măsură is a half-measure, and cu jumătate de gură “half-heartedly, in a low voice”.^[6][2] After a word și jumătate is a superlative: un om și jumătate “a capital fellow”.^[6][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 1, 1292
3. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 719
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. jumătáte
5. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. jumătate
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 568
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 537
9. ^ 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. jumătáte
10. ^ 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. jumătate
11. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Ieșirea 24:6
12. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 471
13. ^ Lesicon românescu-latinescu-ungurescu-nemțescu quare de mai mulți autori, în cursul a trideci și mai multor ani s-au lucrat (1825), Buda: Typographia Universității (the Lexicon of Buda, ed. Petru Maior et al.), p. 338