vorbi

Forms

vorbi (present vorbesc, third-person singular vorbește, past participle vorbit), 4th conjugation.^[1][2] Old and regional texts also have vorovi and horbi; the Codicele Voronețean has „Nu vorovireți” “make no ado” (Acts 20:10).^[3]

Etymology

It is formed from Romanian vorbă + -i, from the noun for “word, talk”.^[2][4][1][5] The noun itself is of uncertain origin.^[5] Tiktin and Candrea derived it from Old Church Slavonic дворьба (dvorĭba), a word formed on the Slavic word for “court”, and Ciorănescu finds this the likelier source.^[5] Others took it from Latin verbum (“word”), which Ciorănescu thinks improbable, and Wiktionary gives both explanations.^[5][1]

Ciorănescu lists Aromanian vãrghescu and Megleno-Romanian vrighies beside the Romanian verb.^[5] Tiktin treats old ⟨vorovi⟩ as a form of ⟨vorbi⟩, while MDA2 takes ⟨vorovi⟩ from Ukrainian говорити (hovoryty, “to speak”).^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tiktin quotes it from a manuscript of 1654: „Satana când vede pre om că stă cu rugă și vorbește cătră Dumnezeu” “when Satan sees a man standing in prayer and speaking to God”.^[3] MDA2 has its first record in Dosoftei's lives of the saints (1682–1686).^[7]

Semantic evolution

The verb covers both the ability to speak and the act of talking to someone.^[2][7] Used with an object it means “to speak ill of someone”, as in the folk line „Oamenii ne vorbesc” “people talk about us”.^[3] Tiktin quotes the reflexive a se vorbi “to arrange together, to agree” from folk poetry.^[3][2] In recent colloquial use, to be talking with someone means to be going out with them.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1563-1583 – the old form vorovi in the Codicele Voronețean.^[3]
• 1654 – vorbește “speaks” in a manuscript.^[3]
• 1660 – vorbesc in a Slavonic–Romanian lexicon.^[9]
• 1682–1686 – vorbi in Dosoftei's lives of the saints.^[7]
• 1688 – vorbești in the Bucharest Bible.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To speak: to have the faculty of speech, to put thoughts and feelings into words.^[2][7]
2. (transitive) To say, to utter words: a vorbi verzi și uscate “to talk nonsense”.^[2]
3. To address someone: Îi vorbesc, dar nu mă aude.^[2]
4. To speak a language: vorbește bine franceza.^[2][11]
5. (figurative) To testify, to bear out: faptele vorbesc de la sine.^[2]
6. To talk, to converse, to discuss.^[2]
7. (reflexive) To agree, to come to an arrangement.^[2]
8. To give a speech or a talk.^[2]
9. (colloquial) To be going out with someone.^[8]

Word family

• vorbăreț
• vorbitor
• convorbi

Related words

• vorbă
• vorovi

Usage notes

Common expressions are a vorbi în barbă “to mutter to oneself” and a vorbi cu gura altuia “to speak without conviction”.^[2] Ciorănescu notes that convorbi “to converse” was formed after French converser.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m DEX (2009), Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române [Explanatory dictionary of the Romanian language], Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, p. 1, 1207
3. ^ a b c d e f g Tiktin, Hariton (2000–2005), Rumänisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., revised by Paul Miron and Elsa Lüder, 3 vols., Cluj-Napoca: Clusium, p. s.v. vorbi
4. ^ Academia Română (1965–2010), Dicționarul limbii române (DLR), serie nouă, tom I–XIX, București: Editura Academiei Române, p. s.v. vorbi
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. vorbă
6. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1514
7. ^ a b c d Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2010), Micul dicționar academic, 2nd ed., 4 vols., București: Univers Enciclopedic Gold, p. 2, 1512
8. ^ a b Dimitrescu, Florica (1997), Dicționar de cuvinte recente, 2nd ed., București: Logos (with the 3rd ed., 2013, in CLRE), p. s.v. vorbi
9. ^ 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. vorbesc
10. ^ Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a ceii vechi și a ceii noao leage, București, 1688 (ed. 1988, tricentennial edition), p. Exodus 22:28
11. ^ Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. vorbi