paltin

Forms

paltin m (plural paltini)^[1] The variant palten is in the Bucharest Bible of 1688.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin platanus (“plane tree”), which is from Ancient Greek πλάτανος (plátanos).^{[4][3][5][6][1]} Ciorănescu supposes a variant Vulgar Latin *plătinus with metathesis of /l/, which Wiktionary writes with a long vowel.^[4][1] Tiktin and Scriban explain the ending ⟨-in⟩ after other tree names, carpăn and frasin, from Latin carpinus and fraxinus.^[5][7] Candrea–Densusianu place the metathesis in derivatives such as păltinaș, from which it spread to the simple word.^[8]

It survives south of the Danube: Aromanian paltin.^[4][9] The Megleno-Romanian form, platan, has no metathesis.^[8] Romance has French plane (“sycamore maple”) and Italian dialect forms, Piedmontese and Neapolitan, for the maple.^[6] Albanian panjë “sycamore maple” shows the same change of meaning from the plane to the maple.^[1] The Greek word may be Pre-Greek, its link with πλατύς (platús, “broad”) being a later association.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to 1411, in a document.^[5] In Romanian texts it appears in the Slavonic–Romanian lexicon of Mardarie (1649), where paltin glosses Slavonic words for the maple.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The plane tree of Latin became a maple in Romanian, chiefly the sycamore maple Acer pseudoplatanus of the mountain forests, but also the Norway maple, otherwise called arțar.^[12][3] The Bible of 1688 has it in Jacob's rods of walnut and maple (Genesis 30:37).^[5] Its hard wood is used for furniture and musical instruments.^[3][13]

Some 19th-century dictionaries took it for a kind of poplar or aspen: Costinescu describes it as a tree whose leaves stir at the slightest wind, and Antonescu glosses it tremble.^[14][15] The word is frequent in place names: Paltin is a commune in Vrancea and several villages.^[1]

Timeline

• 1411 – first record, in a document.^[5]
• 1649 – paltin in Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[11]
• 1673 – the variant palten in the lexicon Lex.3473.^[16]
• 1688 – paltin in the Bucharest Bible (Genesis 30:37).^[17]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary renders it with Latin Platanus.^[18]
• 1825 – the Lexicon de la Buda gives Acer pseudoplatanus.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. The sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus), a tall tree with deeply cut leaves and winged fruits, growing in mountain forests.^[3][13][1]
2. The Norway maple (Acer platanoides); arțar.^[3][13]
3. The wood of these trees.^[3][13]

Word family

• păltinet
• păltiniș
• păltior

Related words

• platan
• Aromanian paltin
• Albanian panjë

Usage notes

The popular variant is palten.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Sir 24:16
3. ^ a b c d e f g h DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 766
4. ^ 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. paltin
5. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. páltin
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6582
7. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 925
8. ^ a b Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București, p. s.v. paltin
9. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 782
10. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. πλάτανος
11. ^ a b 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. paltin
12. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. páltin
13. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 252
14. ^ Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 235
15. ^ Antonescu, G. M. (1875), Dictionariu romanu-francesu, Bucuresci: Typografia Curții (Lucrători Associați), p. 218
16. ^ 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. palten
17. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 30:37
18. ^ 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. 413
19. ^ 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. 479