atsel

Forms

atsel m (feminine atsea or atsa, masculine plural atselj or atsei, feminine plural atseali or atseale or atseli)^[1]

• Cunia gives the feminine atsea, the plurals atselj and atseali or atseale, and the variants tsel, atseu and tseu.^[2]
• Other spellings: Wiktionary lists atselu, tsel, tselu, atseu and tseu;^[1] Papahagi writes AȚÉL, feminine ațeá, and records țel and țeá too;^[3][4] ațelu in DIARO;^[5] ațâl in Dalametra;^[6] ατσέλου, feminine ατσεά, plural ατσέλι, ατσεάλε (atselu, atseá) in Nikolaidis;^[7] Meyer reads the form in Kavalliotis's word list as atselu.^[8]
• Regional forms: ațéu beside ațél in Samarina;^[3] Samarina is one of the Pindus villages.^[9] Capidan quotes atsăl from Gopeș,^[10] and Weigand a form with a reduced vowel from Albania.^[11] The ALAR glossary has aţélŭ.^[12]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *eccum ille (“that one there”),^[1][10] from eccum (“here he is”) and ille (“that”).^[1][13] Papahagi and Pascu give the first part as ecce (“look!”), with a Late Latin *illus;^[4][14] Pușcariu allows atque (“and also”) in place of the first part.^[15] De Vaan explains ecce as Proto-Italic *ek + *ke.^[13]

The word is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian acel, Megleno-Romanian țelea and Istro-Romanian țel.^[16][15] Pușcariu compares Italian quello, Spanish aquel and Old Occitan aquel.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Kavalliotis's word list of 1770, where Meyer reads atselu as the translation of Modern Greek αυτός (aftós, “he, that one”).^[8]

Semantic evolution

It points to someone or something further away, as opposed to aestu “this”.^[2][1] Placed before an articled adjective it forms the superlative or picks out a person: Papahagi quotes lóclu ațél ma búnlu (the best place),^[4] and DIARO omlu ațelu bunlu (the good man).^[5] Ațél-din-vále, the one from the valley, is the devil.^[4] The feminine atseä before al contracts to tseal or tsal, meaning the wife of a man.^[11][14]

Timeline

• 1770 – atselu “that one” in Kavalliotis's word list, as Meyer reads it.^[8]
• 1894 – atsel in Weigand's glossary.^[11]
• 1906 – ațâl “that” in Dalametra's dictionary.^[6]
• 1925 – Pascu derives it from Latin ecce illus.^[14]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. That, that one; the one who.^[2][1][3]

Adjective

1. That (pointing to something further away).^[2][3]
2. (before an articled adjective) The; forming the superlative.^[4][5]

Word family

• atselaclo

Related words

• Romanian acel

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. 159
3. ^ a b c d Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 239
4. ^ a b c d e Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 177
5. ^ a b c Caragiu Marioțeanu, Matilda et al. (1997), Dicționar aromân (macedo-vlah) DIARO, A–D, București, p. 8
6. ^ a b Dalametra, I. (1906), Dicționar macedo-român, București: Academia Română, p. 32
7. ^ Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 101
8. ^ 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. 24
9. ^ Caragiu Marioțeanu, Matilda (1968), Dialectul aromân, in Crestomație romanică III/1, București: Editura Academiei
10. ^ a b Capidan, Theodor (1932), Aromânii: dialectul aromân. Studiu lingvistic, București: Academia Română (Academia Română, Studii și cercetări XX), p. 231
11. ^ a b c Weigand, Gustav (1894), Die Aromunen: ethnographisch-philologisch-historische Untersuchungen, vol. II: Volksliteratur der Aromunen (with a glossary), Leipzig: J. A. Barth, p. 295
12. ^ Saramandu, Nicolae (2023), Glosar aromân, Fonetică și dialectologie XLII: 103–176, p. 113
13. ^ 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
14. ^ 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, 83
15. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
16. ^ Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001)