român

Forms

român m or n (feminine singular română, masculine plural români, feminine/neuter plural române)^[1] In the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet the word was written ромын; from 1953 to 1964 the standard spelling was romîn.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rōmānus (“Roman”), an adjective that Latin formed on Rōma (“Rome”).^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][1]} The form with the regular sound changes is rumân, kept in popular speech; the form with ⟨o⟩ is a Latinizing one, modelled on roman “Roman” and in use from the late 16th century.^[2][5] Gabinschi describes it as the inherited form reshaped under the influence of the learned word to set the ethnic name apart.^[8] Both that learned word and aromân are its doublets.^[2][1]

The name survives south of the Danube and in Istria: Aromanian armãn (also arumân) and Istro-Romanian rumăr.^{[2][5][9][10]}

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2's first record is in Coresi's Psalter of 1577.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Beside the ethnic sense, the word long had social senses.^[2][4] In Wallachia rumân was the dependent peasant bound to the land of a lord, who owed him tithes and labour;^[2][4] Moldavia called him vecin, Transylvania iobag.^[2][4] Ciorănescu notes that Latin romanus carried a nuance of low social rank as early as the laws of the Franks.^[2] Scriban explains the Wallachian sense by the free peasants who, from the 16th century, sold themselves into bondage.^[11] A 17th-century Slavonic–Romanian lexicon glosses rumîn with a Slavonic word for “the ruled, the subject”.^[12] Popular speech also used it for “peasant”, “husband” and “man” in general, and regionally for “Orthodox Christian”: l-am făcut rumân meant “I had him christened”.^[3][4][2]

Writers hesitated for a long time between â and î in the word, but român was preferred even by those who otherwise dropped â.^[2] The ethnic name passed into other languages from Romanian: Albanian rëmër “shepherd”, Hungarian román and Gagauz romın.^[2][1] Çabej doubts that the Albanian word continues Latin directly, since it is sporadic and is the Albanian name for the Aromanians.^[13]

Timeline

• 1577 – Coresi's Psalter, the first record.^[3]
• 1660 – rumîn “subject, serf” in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[12]
• 1825 – Romảnu glossed with Latin valachus and Hungarian oláh in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[14]
• 1953 – the spelling romîn introduced, then given up in 1964.^[1]

Meanings

Noun

1. A Romanian: a person who belongs to the people of Romania or comes from there.^[4][3][1]
2. (popular) a peasant; a husband; a man in general.^[4]
3. (historical, in the form rumân) in medieval Wallachia, a peasant dependent on a feudal lord; a serf.^[4]

Adjective

1. Of or relating to Romania or the Romanians;^[4][1] Romanian.^[4][1]
2. (as a feminine noun) the Romanian language;^[4][3] româna comună “Common Romanian”, the stage before the split into dialects.^[4][3]

Word family

• româncă
• românesc
• românește
• românime
• românism
• româniza
• străromân

Related words

• rumân
• roman
• aromân
• Aromanian armãn
• Latin rōmānus

Usage notes

The feminine noun is româncă.^[1] The phrase mintea românului cea de pe urmă “the Romanian's afterthought” describes someone who sees too late that he was wrong.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. român
3. ^ 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. 2, 723
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 961
5. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 132
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7371
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Gabinschi, Marcu (2001), Dicționar de dublete etimologice ale limbii române, 2nd ed., Chișinău: Litera, p. 154
9. ^ Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 40
10. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 122
11. ^ Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1136
12. ^ 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. rumîn
13. ^ Çabej, Eqrem (2002), Studime etimologjike në fushë të shqipes VI (N–Rr), Tiranë, p. 292
14. ^ 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. 593