sală

Forms

sală f (plural săli)^[1] The plural is săli;^[2][3] sale is rare.^[2][3] Old and Moldavian popular speech also had șală.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French salle (“room, hall”), the source DEX and Wiktionary give.^[6][1][4] MDA2 and NODEX name several models at once, Modern Greek, French, German Saal and Italian sala, a case of multiple etymology.^[2][7] Tiktin takes it, indirectly, from the Italian word or Spanish sala, and compares the older Romanian sense “entrance hall” with Modern Greek σάλλα (sálla).^[8] Șăineanu saw Italian behind it through a Modern Greek intermediary.^[9]

The variant șală is hard to explain.^[8] Ciorănescu thinks it was made by analogy with Oriental words that have /ʃ/ in Turkish but /s/ in Greek, such as șal beside σάλι (sáli).^[4]

Aromanian sală is a separate loan, from Italian, with the Greek word compared.^[10][4] The French word goes back to Frankish *sal (“dwelling, hall”), of the same family as the German word.^[11][12] The Italian word has the same Germanic source, and σάλα (sála) comes from Italian.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin's first record is of 1803, in the sense “entrance hall, corridor” of a set of rooms.^[8] MDA2's first record is Budai-Deleanu's lexicon of 1818.^[2] The Lexicon de la Buda of 1825 defines sală as a court, a hall for guests or a gallery, and as the audience room of a palace.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The older popular sense is a vestibule or passage: Tiktin's first sense is the hall of a flat, and Scriban still records sală as popular for the front room through which one enters a house.^[8][5] The sense “large room for gatherings” came with the neologisms of the 19th century: Tiktin labels it Latinist, and Costinescu in 1870 explains the word with French salle as the main room of a flat, a dining room and an audience hall.^[8][15]

Today the main sense is a large hall for shows, sports, meetings or exhibitions, and by metonymy the people gathered in it; the senses “corridor” and “anteroom” survive beside it.^[6] MDA2 records many set phrases, sală de așteptare, sală de mese and sală de arme among them, and the theatre idiom a face sală plină “to play to a full house”.^[2] In recent Romanian a merge la sală means going to the gym, and sală de forță is a weight room.^[16]

Timeline

• 1803 – the first record, in the sense “entrance hall”.^[8]
• 1818 – in Budai-Deleanu's Romanian–German lexicon.^[2]
• 1825 – sală “hall; audience room” in the Lexicon de la Buda.^[14]
• 1870 – Costinescu's dictionary gives the senses of French salle.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large hall for shows, sports events, meetings or exhibitions; by extension, the audience gathered in it: Sala a aplaudat îndelung.^[6][2]
2. A corridor.^[6]
3. A vestibule, an entrance hall or anteroom.^[6][17]
4. (colloquial) A gym: Merg la sală de trei ori pe săptămână.^[16]

Word family

• salon

Related words

• Aromanian sală
• French salle

Usage notes

A separate regional word sală “lard, bacon fat”, recorded in Moldavia and in the Banat, is borrowed from Ukrainian сало (salo) and Russian сало (salo).^[2][18]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 748
3. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 4, 6
4. ^ a b c d 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. sală
5. ^ a b Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1149
6. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 972
7. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. sală
8. ^ a b c d e f Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. sală
9. ^ Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 560
10. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. salle
12. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
13. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας, p. 1298
14. ^ a b 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. 603
15. ^ a b Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 460
16. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. sală
17. ^ Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. sală
18. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. sală²