altu

Forms

altu m (f altã, m plural altsã, f plural alti)^[1]

• Feminine altã, plural altsã, feminine plural alti or alte.^[1][2]
• Other spellings: alt in Wiktionary;^[1] ÁLT (U), feminine áltă, in Papahagi's dictionary;^[3] âltu in Dalametra;^[4] altu, plural alțâ, in DIARO;^[5] Altu, plural alţi, feminine altă, in the glossary to P. Papahagi's tales;^[6] άλτου, read altu, feminine άλτα, in Nikolaidis's Greek script;^[7] alt[u] in Weigand's notation.^[8]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *altru,^[9][1] the spoken form of Latin alter (“the other (of two), second”):^[3][7] Pascu gives its feminine and neuter in the spoken forms altra and altrum, for classical altera and alterum.^[10] De Vaan traces alter to Proto-Italic *al-tero- (“the other”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂el-tero- (“the other (of two)”), formed like alius (“other”) from *h₂el-io-;^[11] Ancient Greek ἄλλος (állos) is a cognate of alius.^[11] The OLD compares Oscan alttram, and Greek ἕτερος (héteros) for the suffix.^[12]

The word is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian alt, Megleno-Romanian altu and Istro-Romanian ǫt.^[9][13] Its western cognates include Italian altro, French autre, Spanish otro and Portuguese outro.^[14][9][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest dated record in the sources is Weigand's glossary of 1894, where alt[u] means "other";^[8] Mihăileanu's dictionary of 1901 has it as an indefinite pronoun, "another".^[15]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense "the other" widened to "another, other, different".^[16][10] As a pronoun it means "another one, someone else"; in the plural, set against a first group, it means "the others, some": DIARO and Papahagi quote alțâ yinu, alțâ fugu ("some come, others leave").^[5][3] The phrase ni ună, ni altă ("neither one nor the other") means "without further thought, at once",^[3][6] and Weigand records alttsiva "something else".^[8] The derivative alantu means "the other one".^[10][17]

Timeline

• 1894 – alt[u] “other” in Weigand's glossary.^[8]
• 1901 – áltu-a “another” in Mihăileanu's dictionary.^[15]
• 1906 – âltu “other” in Dalametra's dictionary.^[4]
• 1909 – άλτου in Nikolaidis's dictionary, derived from Latin alter.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. other, another, different.^[16][3][1]

Pronoun

1. Another one, someone or something else.^[2][4][15]
2. (plural) the others; some (as against others).^[5][3]

Word family

• alantu

Related words

• Romanian alt

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 49
3. ^ a b c d e f Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 128
4. ^ a b c Dalametra, I. (1906), Dicționar macedo-român, București: Academia Română, p. 11
5. ^ a b c Caragiu Marioțeanu, Matilda et al. (1997), Dicționar aromân (macedo-vlah) DIARO, A–D, București, p. 41
6. ^ a b Papahagi, Pericle (1905), Basme aromâne și glosar, București: Academia Română, p. 519
7. ^ a b c d Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 26
8. ^ a b c d Weigand, Gustav (1894), Die Aromunen: ethnographisch-philologisch-historische Untersuchungen, vol. II: Volksliteratur der Aromunen (with a glossary), Leipzig: J. A. Barth, p. 291
9. ^ a b c Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001)
10. ^ a b c 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, 32
11. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Papahagi, Pericle (1902), Megleno-românii: studiu etnografico-filologic I, București: Academia Română (with a glossary), p. 52
14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
15. ^ a b c Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 22
16. ^ a b Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net)
17. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 39