viață

Forms

viață f (plural vieți)^[1] Old texts often write viiață: Miron Costin says that there was no other way to save one's life, „nu era altă cale de viiață”.^[2] MDA2 records viiață as an old spelling, and Wiktionary gives vieață as an alternative form.^[3][1]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[4][3] Wiktionary and MDA2 take it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *vīvitia, a noun formed on vīvus (“living, alive”) with the suffix -itia.^[1][3] Pușcariu (1910) and Candrea also started from this Latin form, while Cipariu derived the word from vivācem.^[4] Ciorănescu, following Iordan, and the DLR see a derivative from Romanian viu + -eață, formed like roșeață from roșu and negreață from negru.^[4][2] MDA2 gives both explanations, and Wiktionary calls the word a synchronic derivative of the adjective.^[3][1] Scriban explains the modern form from an older ⟨viiață⟩, in which the suffix ⟨-eață⟩ became ⟨-iață⟩ after the vowel.^[5]

The sister branches have the same formation: Aromanian yeatsã and Megleno-Romanian vață, which means “animal”.^[1][6][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Hurmuzaki Psalter of the early 16th century, in the sense “life”, the state of being alive.^[3][7][2]

Semantic evolution

From “life” as the state of being alive the word came to mean a lifetime and the events of it, a way of living, and the means of living.^[8][5] A viață is also a biography: the church book Viețile Sfinților, the Lives of the Saints, was printed again and again.^[9][8] In religious language it is the life after death, as in the Bible of 1688, where the righteous go „în viața veacinică” “into life eternal”.^[9][8]

In Aromanian the word took the concrete sense “living being”, and in Megleno-Romanian vață means “animal”.^[9][4] Phrases such as pe viață și pe moarte “desperately, at the risk of one's life” and a fi în viață “to be alive” are common.^[8][3]

Timeline

• early 16th century – viață “life” in the Hurmuzaki Psalter.^[3][7]
• 1570 – viață in Coresi's psalter.^[10]
• 16th century – viață in the Codicele Voronețean (1 Peter 3:7).^[9]
• 1649 – Mardarie's Slavonic–Romanian lexicon uses viață to gloss Slavonic words for life.^[11]
• 1688 – viața veacinică “life eternal” in the Bucharest Bible (Matthew 25:46).^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. life: the set of processes that mark living beings; the state of being alive.^[8][1]
2. (figurative) A living being, especially a person.^[8]
3. (religion) The life after death, usually with de apoi or de veci.^[8]
4. A way of living; the conditions in which a person or a community lives; daily livelihood.^[8][5]
5. A lifetime and the events in it; a biography.^[8]

Related words

• viu
• viețui
• vietate
• Aromanian yeatsã
• Latin vīvus

Usage notes

Common phrases: plin de viață “full of life, lively”, pe viață “for life”, în viața mea “never in my life” (with a negation) and a trece din viață “to die”.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. viață
3. ^ a b c d e f g Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1469
4. ^ a b c d e 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. viu
5. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 1, 1404
6. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 1107
7. ^ 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 33:12
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1196
9. ^ a b c d e Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. viață
10. ^ 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 15:11
11. ^ 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. viață