Etymologically
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lumi

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Forms

lumi f (definite articulation lumea)[1]

  • No plural;[2] definite form lumea.[1]
  • Other spellings: lume and alumi in Wiktionary;[1] Cunia heads it lumi/lume;[3] LÚME in Papahagi's dictionary;[2] LUME in Pascu, with alume from Mihăileanu;[4] lumi in Dalametra,[5] lume in Weigand[6] and P. Papahagi's tales;[7] λούμι (lumi) in the Greek script of Nikolaidis's dictionary.[8]
  • Regional forms: lúme in the dialect of Metsovo.[9]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lūmen (“light”),[2][4][1] through the sense "light of life".[1] The word is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian lume, Megleno-Romanian lumi and Istro-Romanian lúme, all "world".[10][11][12] Old Romanian and Istro-Romanian still have the older sense "light".[13][12] Elsewhere the Latin word kept that sense: Italian lume, Portuguese lume "hearth fire", Catalan llum, Spanish lumbre.[14][10]

The change from "light" to "world" is shared by the Eastern Romance languages.[10] Meyer-Lübke attributes it to the model of the Slavic word Proto-Slavic *světъ (“light; world”);[14][15] Ciorănescu reports this view of Rosetti but thinks the change could have been spontaneous, comparing Hungarian világ (“world”), which also once meant "light".[10] Nikolaidis gives the same Slavic explanation after Cihac, and also compares Albanian ljume (“happy, blessed”).[8]

Latin lūmen is from Proto-Italic *louksmən, from Proto-Indo-European *léwk-s-mn̥, a derivative of the root *leuk- (“light, bright”), which also gave lūx (“light”).[16][1][17]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pascu quotes the word from Boiagi's grammar of 1813, with the senses "world; society; people".[4]

Semantic evolution

From the "world" sense the word came to mean the people in it: Papahagi glosses it "world; society; people",[2] and Weigand "world, people".[6] Cunia defines it first as a crowd gathered in one place, then as a group of people with the same traits, and finally as all the people and things of the whole world.[3] Dalametra gives tu lumi bună "in good society" and vinti multă lumi "many people came".[5] Lumea alantã, "the other world", is the world of the dead,[3][7] and Papahagi quotes trápse tu lúmea alántă ("he set off for the other world", that is, he died).[2]

Timeline

  • 1813 – recorded in Boiagi's grammar, one of the sources Pascu names for the word.[4]
  • 1894 – lume “world, people” in Weigand's glossary.[6]
  • 1905 – Lume “world; people” in the glossary of P. Papahagi's tales.[7]
  • 1906 – lumi “world, people, society” in Dalametra's dictionary.[5]
  • 1909 – λούμι (lumi) “people, world” in Nikolaidis's dictionary.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. People; a crowd of people gathered in one place.[1][3][5]
  2. Society; the people one lives among.[2][5]
  3. The world; all people and things.[1][3][2]
  4. Humanity, mankind.[1]
  • lunjinã
  • Romanian lume
  • Megleno-Romanian lumi

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 752
  3. ^ a b c d e Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 602
  4. ^ a b c d 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, 110
  5. ^ a b c d e Dalametra, I. (1906), Dicționar macedo-român, București: Academia Română, p. 125
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ a b c Papahagi, Pericle (1905), Basme aromâne și glosar, București: Academia Română, p. 630
  8. ^ a b c Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 268
  9. ^ Δασούλας, Φώτης (2013), Το βλαχικό ιδίωμα του Μετσόβου, 2nd ed.
  10. ^ 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)
  11. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română, p. 174
  12. ^ a b Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
  13. ^ Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
  14. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  15. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 4, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  16. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  17. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press