umanitate

Forms

umanitate f (uncountable)^[1] MDA2 records an obsolete spelling humanitate, closer to the Latin, and a regional omanitate.^[2] The DLR explains omanitate as the word reshaped after om “man”.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French humanité, with Latin hūmānitās (“human nature; kindness”) as a second source: DEX, MDA2, the DLR and Marcu name the two together.^[4][2][3][5] Scriban gives the Latin word alone, CADE the French one alone.^[6][7] By surface analysis it is uman with the suffix -itate.^[1]

The Latin noun is formed hūmānus (“human”) and -tās, and Cicero is said to have coined it as a calque of Ancient Greek φιλανθρωπία (philanthrōpía).^[8][1] The French word is a learned borrowing from the same Latin noun.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

MDA2 takes its first record from Ion Heliade-Rădulescu, in a passage the DLR quotes: „Până acum nu mă adresai decât la o singură jumătate a umanității, la bărbați” “until now I spoke only to one half of humanity, the men”.^[2][3] MDA2 gives no year for it.^[2] The first dated record is Negulici's dictionary of 1848, which defines the word as human nature and all people, and also as honesty, kindness and sensitivity.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The word came in with the meanings of its models: human nature, mankind and humane feeling.^[9][10] Costinescu's dictionary of 1870 also gives the French phrase a plăti tributul umanității, literally “to pay the tribute of humanity”, meaning to die or to show human weakness.^[10] Negulici already had a plural for the studies that led up to philosophy, and Scriban in 1939 still glossed the plural as classical secondary education.^[9][6] MDA2 marks that sense as obsolete.^[2]

The DLR's quotations show “mankind” as the main sense through the 19th and 20th centuries, from Bolliac and Bolintineanu to Caragiale and Blaga.^[3] The 1998 DEX put “mankind” first, while the 2009 edition leads with kindness and compassion.^[11][4]

Timeline

• 1848 – in Negulici's dictionary of neologisms, the first dated record.^[9]
• 1859 – „spre scopul umanităței” “towards the aim of humanity” in a periodical quoted by the DLR.^[3]
• 1870 – Costinescu records the phrase a plăti tributul umanității “to die”.^[10]
• 1871–1876 – Laurian and Massim's dictionary gives human nature, human culture and kindness.^[12]
• 1939 – Scriban glosses the plural as classical secondary education.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. humaneness, kindness: goodwill and compassion for the misfortunes of others.^[4][1]
2. mankind: all people taken together.^[4][2][1]
3. A community or group of people.^[4][2]
4. Human nature, the quality of being human.^[2][13]
5. (obsolete, in the plural) Classical secondary education, the humanities.^[2][6]

Related words

• uman
• om
• Latin humanitas

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1365
3. ^ 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. umanitate
4. ^ a b c d e DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1168
5. ^ Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual
6. ^ a b c d Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1374
7. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Adamescu, Gh. (1926–1931), Dicționarul enciclopedic ilustrat „Cartea Românească”, București: Cartea Românească
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. hūmānitās
9. ^ a b c d Negulici, I. D. (1848), Vocabular romînesc de toate vorbele streine întroduse pînă acum în limba romînească și de toate cuvintele ce s-ar mai putea introduce încă, București
10. ^ a b c Costinescu, Ion (1870), Vocabularu romano-francesu, 2 vols., Bucuresci, p. 2, 656
11. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan” (1998), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, 2nd ed., București: Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1132
12. ^ Laurian, A. T.; Massim, I. C. (1871–1876), Dictionariulu limbei romane, 2 vols., Bucuresci: Noua Typographia a Laboratoriloru Romani
13. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional