un

Forms

un m or n (feminine singular o, plural niște)^[1] The genitive-dative forms are unui (masculine and neuter) and unei (feminine), and unor in the plural.^[2] Besides niște, the plural unii, unele is used, as in Friulian.^[3][2] The old feminine was ună, as in Dosoftei: „ună Dumnezeire, ună putere” “one Godhead, one power”.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ūnus (“one”).^[5][3][2][1] The Latin numeral continues Old Latin oinos, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos.^[1]

The word survives in all four branches: Aromanian un, Megleno-Romanian un, and Istro-Romanian un, with ur as its numeral.^[5][3][6] Its Romance cognates include Italian uno, Spanish uno, Occitan un, Catalan un and French un.^[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin dates the first record to Neacșu's letter of 1521.^[4] The Hurmuzaki Psalter, of the early 16th century, already has the word eight times.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The forms un, feminine o, serve as the article and the numeral, and the longer unul, una as the pronoun;^[5] Ciorănescu compares the final -a of the pronoun with that of acel.^[5] In the old texts the pronoun could also stand before a noun for emphasis, meaning “the only, the sole”: Coresi writes „cine poate lăsa păcatele, fără unul Dumnezeu?” “who can forgive sins but God alone?”.^[5] The feminine una used as a neuter pronoun means “something, a thing; a blow”, and it also serves as an adverb meaning “the same, level with”: te fac una cu pământul “I will flatten you”, literally “make you one with the earth”.^[5][3] Ciorănescu notes that some phrases built on the word, such as unul și același “one and the same”, have exact parallels in Modern Greek.^[5]

Romanian formed the verb uni “to join”, which Pușcariu instead derived from Latin unire.^[5] The noun unealtă “tool” seems to come from the phrase une-alte “some and others”, according to Hasdeu, Philippide, Iordan and Tiktin, whom Ciorănescu cites.^[5]

Timeline

• 1521 – the first record, in Neacșu's letter.^[4]
• 1570 – Coresi's Psalter has the word eleven times.^[8]
• 1620 – the old feminine on a church inscription: „Această ună piatră aceste trei țărâne acopere” “this one stone covers these three bodies”.^[4]
• 1688 – the Bucharest Bible uses un more than 950 times.^[9]
• 1801 – Klein's dictionary glosses Un, a with Latin unus, a, um and quidam “a certain”.^[10]

Meanings

Article

1. a, an: the indefinite article, before a noun that names something not yet identified: un prieten “a friend”.^[2][1]
2. Stresses the idea expressed by the noun: o liniște adâncă “a deep silence”.^[2]
3. Gives the noun a general sense, “any”: un medic trebuie să asculte “a doctor must listen”.^[2]
4. Before a proper name, suggests a comparison, “someone like”: un Eminescu “a new Eminescu”.^[2]
5. Turns the word that follows into a noun: un leneș “a lazy fellow”.^[2]

Numeral

1. one: the first number in counting, before a noun.^[5][4]

Word family

• uni
• unealtă
• întruni
• uneori
• totdeauna
• întotdeauna

Usage notes

As a pronoun the word takes the longer forms unul (masculine) and una (feminine).^[5][4] Unu is the form of the numeral used on its own, in counting.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 1170
3. ^ a b c d e Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 169
4. ^ 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. un
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. un
6. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 315
7. ^ 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 20:9
8. ^ 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 18:5
9. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Facerea 6:16
10. ^ Gáldi, László (ed.) (1944), Samuel Klein: Dictionarium valachico-latinum. Primul dicționar al limbii române, Budapest: Királyi Magyar Pázmány Péter Tudományegyetemi Román Intézet (Klein's dictionary of 1801, with Gáldi's etymological study), p. 464
11. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1371