umbla

Forms

umbla (third-person singular present umblă, past participle umblat, third-person subjunctive umble), 1st conjugation^[1] The older form is îmbla, still used in popular speech, with the regional variants imbla and imla.^[2][3][1] The Codicele Voronețean has it: „în curmedzișu îmblându” “going across”.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ambulō (“to walk”),^[5][2][3][4] through a shortened Vulgar Latin form *amblō.^[1] The older Romanian form was îmbla, which later became umbla.^[1][6] Ciorănescu cites Diez, Candrea, Pușcariu and the REW for this source.^[5][7] De Vaan explains the Latin verb as ambi- combined with an old verb continuing Proto-Indo-European *h₂elh₂- (“to wander”).^[8][1]

The verb survives in all four branches: Aromanian imnu, Megleno-Romanian amnu and Istro-Romanian omnu.^{[5][9][10][11]} Its Romance cognates are Italian ambiare, Occitan amblar, Spanish amblar, Portuguese amblar and French ambler;^[5] the REW notes that the Italian, French and Occitan verbs mean “to amble, to pace”.^[7] Graur traces plimba to the Latin compound perambulō.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki of the early 16th century, where îmbla means “to walk, to go” (Psalm 14:2).^[12][2] Tiktin also cites the Codicele Voronețean of the 16th century (1 Peter 5:8–9).^[13]

Semantic evolution

The first sense is moving on foot, which led to travelling and roaming, going somewhere regularly, and moving about in general: Tiktin quotes ships that sail the sea and eyes that wander to see everything.^[13][3] Said of tools and machines, the verb means “to work, to run”, and said of money “to circulate”.^[3][5] A further group of senses is about the hands: to search, to rummage, to handle something, and figuratively to try to obtain something.^[3][5] In Transylvania it also meant “to attend a course, to study”.^[5]

The old language used a umbla cu Dumnezeu for living in the fear of God.^[2] Popular wishes and idioms are built on it: umblă sănătos! “go in good health”, said to someone leaving, and a umbla pe două cărări “to be drunk”, literally “to walk on two paths”.^[2][3]

Timeline

• early 16th century – îmbla in the Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, the first record.^[12][2]
• 16th century – îmblându in the Codicele Voronețean.^[13][4]
• 1551 – îmbla in the Voroneț psalter.^[14]
• 1570 – in Coresi's psalter.^[15]
• 1648 – îmblând pre mare “walking on the sea” in the New Testament of Bălgrad.^[4]
• 1688 – când vor îmbla în cale “when they walk by the way” in the Bucharest Bible.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To walk, to move from one place to another, to go about.^[3][2][1]
2. To roam, to travel through a place, to wander from place to place.^[3][5]
3. (popular) To go somewhere regularly, to attend: Fata umblă la liceu în oraș. Also, to be busy with a trade.^[3]
4. To go about dressed or behaving in a certain way.^[3]
5. (popular, of tools and machines) To work, to function.^[3]
6. (popular) To pass from hand to hand, and of money, to be in circulation.^[3][5]
7. To search, to rummage; to touch or handle something.^[3][5]
8. (figurative) To try hard to obtain something: a umbla după cai verzi pe pereți “to chase the impossible”.^[3]

Word family

• umblăreț
• umblat
• umblător
• umblătură
• umblet
• umblare

Related words

• plimba
• Aromanian imnu
• Latin ambulō

Usage notes

Old and regional texts have short imperative plurals such as blem, blemi and bleți, and regional present forms such as umblui and umbu.^[2]

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 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 f g h i j k l m n DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1169
4. ^ 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. umbla
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. umbla
6. ^ a b Graur, Alexandru (1980), Cuvinte înrudite, București: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 412
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 575
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 12
11. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 558
12. ^ a b Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 14:2
13. ^ 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. umbla
14. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 100:8
15. ^ Gînsac, Ana-Maria; Ungureanu, Mădălina; Moruz, Alexandru et al., roPsalt: Re-evaluating the Sixteenth Century Romanian Psalters (aligned corpus), Iași: Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, https://scriptadacoromanica.ro, p. Ps 118:45