oare

Forms

oare^[1]

Etymology

It is most often explained as inherited from Vulgar Latin *volet (“he wants”), a popular form used instead of the classical vult, from volō (“to want, wish”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][1]} Tiktin and Scriban explain the sounds: the /v/ of an older *voare was lost before /o/, as in oi beside voi, while the old variant vare lost its /o/ after the labial, as in afară.^[3][4] Tiktin thus sees in the word the same verb as the short va of cineva “somebody”.^[3]

DEX and the DLR compare Albanian vallë, a particle with the same use, and Wiktionary allows that the Romanian word may be borrowed from an early form of it.^[5][7][1] Candrea derived the word from oară “time, occasion”, which Ciorănescu finds hard to accept for the meaning.^[2] Ciorănescu gives Aromanian ori as the form south of the Danube.^[2] For the indefinite compounds (oarecine, oarecare) he compares -vult, Spanish quiera and Old Church Slavonic аште (ašte).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to about 1404, among the Romanian words of the Slavonic charters.^[3] MDA2 gives the Psaltirea Scheiană (c. 1573–1578) as its first Romanian text.^[6] In the 16th and 17th centuries oare ... oare also meant “whether ... or”: a homiliary of 1580 says of those who live virtuously, „oare să vor avea bogăție oare meserătate” “whether they have wealth or poverty”.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

The interrogative use is recorded from 1644 on, as in a Gospel text of 1648: „Oare cine iaste acesta, că și vântul și marea ascultară pre el?” “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”^[7] The Bucharest Bible of 1688 has it more than forty times.^[9] The disjunctive “or”, and the old indefinites oare-cine, oare-ce, oare-cât “whoever, whatever, however much”, belong to the old language.^[3][6] Today oare stresses the question or the doubt of a sentence, while its variant ori took over the alternation ori ... ori “either ... or”.^[5][2]

The word also formed indefinite pronouns and adverbs that are still in use: oarecare “some, any”, oarecine “someone”, oarecum “somehow”, oarecând “at some time”.^[2][4] Scriban records de oare ce “since, because”, the source of the conjunction deoarece.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1404 – the first record, among the Romanian words of the Slavonic charters.^[3]
• c. 1573–1578 – in the Psaltirea Scheiană.^[6]
• 1580 – oare ... oare “whether ... or” in a homiliary.^[3]
• 1644 – oare in a question: „Nu știu oare fi-m-vor mie aceastea au ba?” “I do not know whether these things will be mine or not”.^[7]
• 1649 – Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon glosses Slavonic question particles with oare.^[10]
• 1688 – more than forty times in the Bucharest Bible.^[9]

Meanings

Adverb

1. An interrogative particle that stresses the question or the doubt of a sentence: “I wonder”, “then”: Oare a plecat deja? “Has he left already, I wonder?”^[5][11][1]
2. Introducing an indirect question: “whether”.^[6]

Conjunction

1. (archaic) “or”; doubled, oare ... oare “whether ... or”.^[6][3][1]

Word family

• oarecare
• oarecine
• oarece
• oarecum
• oarecând
• oarecât
• oareunde
• doar

Related words

• ori
• Albanian vallë

Usage notes

Oare usually opens the question (Oare unde e?), but it can also follow the verb; with a subjunctive it expresses wondering: Oare să plec? “Should I leave, I wonder?”^[5][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. oare
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. oare
4. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 882
5. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 727
6. ^ a b c d e f Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 180
7. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. oare
8. ^ Drăganu, Nicolae (1914), Două manuscripte vechi: Codicele Todorescu și Codicele Marțian, București: Socec (Academia Română, Studii și cercetări), p. 241
9. ^ a b Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 18:13
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. oare
11. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. oare