Etymologically
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ahãntu

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Forms

ahãntu[1]

  • Adjective and adverb: feminine ahãntã, plurals ahãntsã and ahãnti.[2]
  • Other spellings: ahãt, ahãtu, ahtãntu, ahtãt and ahtãtu in Wiktionary;[1] AHÎ'NTU and AHĂ'NTU, with the shorter ahît and ahăt, in Papahagi's dictionary;[3][4] ahâtu, with the variants ahântu and ahtântu, in DIARO;[5] ahatu in Mihăileanu.[6] Pascu lists ahît from Nikolaidis, Dalametra and Papahagi's folk tales and ahtäntu from Boiagi.[7]
  • Regional forms: Papahagi heard ahtî'nt in 1927 in Laca, in the Pindus.[8] In Kavalliotis's word list of 1770 its editor reads ahätu.[9]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *eccum tantum (“so much”),[1][3][7] from eccum (“here he is”) and tantus (“so great, so much”).[7][1] Pascu explains the Aromanian forms through intermediate stages in which ⟨ct⟩ became ⟨ht⟩, as in ahtare, one of the two ⟨t⟩ was lost by dissimilation, and, in the short form, the ⟨n⟩ fell, as in cât from quantum.[7] Candrea and Densusianu also see the form with ⟨ht⟩ as the older one, kept in Aromanian, while Romanian lost the ⟨h⟩.[10]

Romanian has atât.[11][10] The other Romance languages have only the simple word: Italian tanto, French tant and Spanish tanto.[12][10] Latin eccum is from ecce (“look!”) and probably hunc (“this one”);[13] tantus is from tam (“so”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *tām and Proto-Indo-European *teh₂m.[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Kavalliotis's word list of 1770 the word translates Modern Greek τόσος (tósos, “so much”); its editor reads the Aromanian form as ahätu.[9]

Semantic evolution

As an adjective it means "so much, so many", and as an adverb "so, to such a degree".[3][2] Cunia records the phrase ahãnti sh-ahãnti "so many".[2]

Timeline

  • 1770 – ahätu (Meyer's reading) for Greek “so much” in Kavalliotis's word list.[9]
  • 1813 – ahtäntu in Boiagi's grammar, as cited by Pascu.[7]
  • 1901 – ahatu in Mihăileanu's dictionary.[6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. So much, so many; as much, as many.[2][3][1]

Adverb

  1. So, to such a degree; so much.[3][1]
  • Romanian atât

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 36
  3. ^ a b c d e Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 125
  4. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 124
  5. ^ Caragiu Marioțeanu, Matilda et al. (1997), Dicționar aromân (macedo-vlah) DIARO, A–D, București, p. 93
  6. ^ a b Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 15
  7. ^ a b c d e Pascu, Giorge (1925), Dictionnaire étymologique macédoroumain, 2 vols. (I: Les éléments latins et romans; II: Les éléments grecs, turcs, slaves, albanais, germaniques, magyars, néologismes, créations immédiates, obscurs), Iași: Cultura Națională, p. 1, 30
  8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 126
  9. ^ a b c Meyer, Gustav (1895), Albanesische Studien IV: Das griechisch-südrumänisch-albanesische Wörterverzeichnis des Kavalliotis, Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, phil.-hist. Classe 132, p. 115
  10. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
  11. ^ Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001)
  12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  13. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill