ljau

Forms

ljau (third-person singular lja, participle loatã or luatã)^[1]

• First conjugation; aorist loai, participle loatã, infinitive loari or loare;^[2] Wiktionary gives the third person singular lja and the participle loatã or luatã.^[1]
• Other spellings: ljeau in Wiktionary;^[1] L'EAŬ, aorist loái, participle loát, infinitive loáre, in Papahagi's dictionary;^[3] l'au in Weigand's glossary, with the aorist luai and the participle luat;^[4] l'au in Vrabie's English–Aromanian dictionary.^[5]
• Pascu heads the verb by the long infinitive LUARE, with the present l'aŭ, and quotes the gerund londa from Boiagi.^[6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin levō (“to lift, raise”).^[3][6][1] Pascu traces each form of the paradigm to its Latin source, the aorist to the Latin perfect and the participle to levātus.^[6] The verb is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian lua, Megleno-Romanian leau and Istro-Romanian l'au.^[7][8] In the west the Latin verb gave Italian levare, French lever and Spanish llevar;^[7] Candrea–Densusianu note that the sense “to take”, from “to take away, remove”, also appears in Late Latin and in Sardinian leare (“to take”).^[8][7] The Latin verb is derived from levis (“light in weight”);^[9] de Vaan traces levis to Proto-Italic *leχu- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁legʷʰ-u- (“light”), the source also of Ancient Greek ἐλαχύς (elakhús, “small”) and Lithuanian lengvas (“light”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pascu quotes the gerund londa and the phrase loare și dare “trade, commerce” (literally “taking and giving”) from Boiagi's grammar of 1813.^[6]

Semantic evolution

From the Latin sense “to lift, raise” the verb came to mean “to take”, by way of “to take away”.^[9][8] Aromanian has “to take” (in the hand), “to receive”, and “to begin” (to do something).^[2][3] Ciorănescu compares the use as an auxiliary meaning “to begin” and the sense “to marry” with the same uses of Modern Greek πιάνω (piáno, “to take”) in Modern Greek.^[7] Papahagi lists many further senses: “to conquer, seize”, “to understand” (ljau di ureaclji), “to set out for”, “to rest, breathe”, “to recover”, “to catch fire” and “to cast the evil eye”.^[3][2] Dalametra also records “to buy”.^[6]

Timeline

• 1813 – the gerund londa and loare și dare “trade” in Boiagi's grammar, as cited by Pascu.^[6]
• 1894 – l'au “I take” in Weigand's glossary.^[4]
• 1925 – Pascu derives it from Latin levāre.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take, to take hold of.^{[11][3][1][4]}
2. To receive, to accept.^[2][3]
3. To begin (to do something).^[2][3][6]
4. (reflexive and transitive) To marry.^[2][3][6]
5. To conquer, to seize.^[3]
6. To buy.^[6]
7. (with di ureaclji) To hear, to understand.^[2][3]
8. (u ljau) To set off, to run away.^[2]

Related words

• Romanian lua

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 595
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 646
4. ^ 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. 315
5. ^ Vrabie, Emil (2000), An English-Aromanian (Macedo-Romanian) Dictionary, University, Mississippi: Romance Monographs, p. 119
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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, 109
7. ^ a b c d Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001)
8. ^ a b c Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net)