june

Forms

june m or n (feminine singular jună, masculine plural juni, feminine/neuter plural june)^[1] Dosoftei writes giune: „Giune curat” “a pure youth”, of John the Evangelist.^[2] Giune is also the Banat form.^[3]

Etymology

The noun “young man” is inherited from Latin iuvenis (“young man; young”).^{[4][2][3][5][6][1]} Its use as an adjective “young” is newer: Ciorănescu calls it a neologism taken from French jeune, Tiktin says the sense follows French, and Wiktionary calls it a likely calque.^[4][3][1]

Its relatives are Aromanian gione “strong, brave” and Istro-Romanian žure “young man”.^[4][7][8] Tiktin explains the ⟨o⟩ of the Aromanian word by a later contraction.^[3] Its Romance cognates include Italian giovane, Occitan jove, Spanish joven and Portuguese jovem.^[4][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to a Slavo-Romanian document of 1510.^[3] In Romanian texts the plural junii “the young men” appears in Coresi's Psalter, in Psalm 148: „Junii și fetele” “the young men and the maidens”.^[3] The form is in its 1570 edition.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The old noun meant a young man of marrying age, not yet married.^[2] A law code of 1652 defines the age: a man is june from twenty-three to forty-two.^[2] Regional senses grew from it: in the Banat and Bukovina june is the fiancé or the bridegroom, and elsewhere an old bachelor, june bătrân.^[5][3][11] Regionally the juni are the young men's companies that hold processions at Easter.^[5][2] In Aromanian the word took the sense “brave, valiant”.^[2][7]

The adjective “young” is a later, literary use modelled on French.^[4][3] Today the word is archaic or familiar, and survives in the theatre term june-prim.^[6][12]

Timeline

• 1510 – the first record, in a Slavo-Romanian document.^[3]
• 1570 – junii and the diminutive junel in Coresi's Psalter.^[10][13]
• 1577 – june in Coresi's Psalter of 1577, MDA2's first record.^[5]
• 1652 – a law code defines the june as a man aged 23 to 42.^[2]
• 1688 – junii in the Bucharest Bible (Psalm 77:69).^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (archaic or familiar) young.^[6][1]

Noun

1. (archaic or familiar) A youth, a young man;^[6][5][1] june-prim, an actor who plays young lovers.^[6][5][1]
2. (regional) A bachelor.^[6][1]
3. (regional, Banat and Bukovina) A fiancé or bridegroom.^[5][11]

Word family

• junețe
• junie
• junime

Related words

• Aromanian gione
• Latin iuvenis

Usage notes

The feminine jună “young woman, maiden” is used in irony.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. june
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. june
4. ^ a b c d e 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. june
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, 1293
6. ^ a b c d e f DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 569
7. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 534
8. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4642
10. ^ a b 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 148:12
11. ^ a b Costinescu, Mariana; Georgescu, Magdalena; Zgraon, Florentina (1987), Dicționarul limbii române literare vechi (1640–1780): termeni regionali, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, p. 163
12. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 720
13. ^ 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 67:29