personaj

Forms

personaj n (plural personaje)^[1] The variant personagiu was common in the 19th and early 20th century and is now rare;^[2][3] Sadoveanu wrote „Erau personagii din Revizorul și Suflete moarte” “they were characters from The Government Inspector and Dead Souls”.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French personnage, with Italian personaggio as a second model, a neologism of the 19th century.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} Wiktionary notes that it also reads as from Romanian persoană + -aj inside Romanian.^[1] The French word is formed personne + -age, and the Italian one was taken from French.^[1] Both go back to Latin persōna (“mask; character, person”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Iordache Golescu's manuscript dictionary Condica limbii rumânești, about 1832, with the sense of a notable person.^[4][5][6]

Semantic evolution

Two senses appear together in the 1830s and 1840s: a person of rank or influence, and a character in a play or a novel.^[6] The theatre sense is in the Gazeta Teatrului Național of 1836, which speaks of the characters of a comedy.^[6] Șăineanu also listed the role an actor plays and, figuratively, the part someone plays in the world, as in un trist personaj “a sorry figure”.^[9] By analogy it came to mean anyone who plays a part in some event, and the press of the late 20th century formed personaj-cheie “key figure”.^[3][10]

Timeline

• c. 1832 – first record, in Iordache Golescu's Condica limbii rumânești.^[4][5]
• 1836 – the characters of a play, in the Gazeta Teatrului Național.^[6]
• 1893–1895 – personaj in Damé's dictionary, glossed French personnage.^[11]
• 1971 – personaj-cheie “key figure” in the literary press.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who holds an important position in political, social or cultural life; a personage, a personalitate.^[3][4]
2. A character in a work of literature, music, film or art;^[3][7] personaj alegoric is the personification of an idea or feeling.^[3][7]
3. By analogy, a person who plays a part in some event.^[3][12]

Related words

• persoană
• personal

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 392
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. 807
4. ^ 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, 354
5. ^ a b c Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. personaj
6. ^ a b c d e Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. personaj
7. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. personaj
8. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 477
10. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. personaj
11. ^ Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. personaj
12. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. personaj