hiu

Forms

hiu (third-person singular easti, participle futã)^[1]

• Aorist fui, imperfect earam or iram, participle futã, infinitive hiri or hire (class IV, auxiliary).^[2][3]
• Other citation forms: escu, which Papahagi labels northern;^[4][5][1] and est (3rd person singular esti, participle fute).^[1]
• Other spellings: éscu in Mihăileanu's Romanian-based spelling, with the two presents escu, esci, este, himu, hiţi, suntu and hiu, hii, este, himu, hiți, suntu;^[6] HIÙ and ÉSCU in Papahagi's dictionary;^[3][4] έσκου and χίου in Nikolaidis's Greek script, transcribed ésku and híu.^[7]
• Regional forms: híu (aorist fúi, participle fútă) in the dialect of Metsovo.^[8]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sum (“I am”), combined with fīō (“to become, happen”):^[3][1] the present escu continues the forms of sum, while the citation form and the other h- forms come from fīō.^[1][9] Nikolaidis already derived escu and the citation form from these two Latin verbs.^[7] Pascu derives each h- form of the present from the matching form of fīō, and the infinitive from *fīre, which replaced the classical infinitive; the aorist continues fuī; and escu is an analogical form built on the 3rd person, with the -c- of the many verbs of that ending.^[9]

The verb is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian fi, Megleno-Romanian săm and Istro-Romanian escu;^[10] Ciorănescu explains the Romanian infinitive by the same replacement of the infinitive of sum with that of fīō.^[10]

In Latin, sum goes back to Proto-Italic *es- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁es- (“to be”).^[11] The f- forms are of another root: fīō is from *fwije/o- and *bʰh₂u-ie/o- (“to become”),^[11] the root *bʰuH- (“to grow, become”) that also gave the perfect fuī of sum.^[1][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record is in Kavalliotis's Greek–Aromanian–Albanian word list of 1770, where the 1st person escu translates είμαι (eímai, “I am”).^[13]

Semantic evolution

Besides “to be”, the verb means to be found somewhere or in some state, and to exist.^[14][8] It is the auxiliary of the passive and of compound tenses, and Papahagi quotes a proverb that tells the anvil to endure and the hammer to strike.^[3] In Metsovo the gerunds fúndale and híndale render the participle “being”.^[8]

Timeline

• 1770 – the 1st person escu for Greek “I am” in Kavalliotis's word list.^[13]
• 1901 – éscu with the parallel present hiu, hii in Mihăileanu's dictionary.^[6]
• 1909 – έσκου and χίου in Nikolaidis's dictionary, derived from Latin sum and fīō.^[7]
• 1925 – Pascu derives the h- forms from fīō and escu from the forms of sum.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. to be.^[1][14][3]
2. to be found, to be (somewhere or in some state).^[14][8]
3. to exist.^[8][15]
4. (auxiliary) forming the passive and compound tenses.^[3][2]

Related words

• Romanian fi

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. 545
3. ^ a b c d e f Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 559
4. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 443
5. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 436
6. ^ a b Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 183
7. ^ a b c Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 164
8. ^ a b c d e Δασούλας, Φώτης (2013), Το βλαχικό ιδίωμα του Μετσόβου, 2nd ed.
9. ^ 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, 101
10. ^ a b Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001)
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. ^ a b 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. 46
14. ^ a b c Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net)
15. ^ Bara, Mariana (2024), Dictsiunarlu ti cathi dzuuã, online at dixionline.net