meu

Forms

meu m (feminine mea or meaea, masculine plural mei, feminine plural meali or meale)^[1]

• It is usually preceded by a: a meu, feminine a mea or a meaea, plural a mei, a meali or a meale;^[2] Cunia also gives a njeu, a mel and nju.^[2]
• Other spellings: Wiktionary lists a meu and (a) njeu, and gives njeu the feminine nja, the plurals njei and njali or njale;^[1] Cunia refers njeu to meu.^[3] Papahagi writes MEÙ, feminine meá, with a separate article N’EŬ;^[4][5] Nikolaidis writes αμέου (améu, ameá, améi, ameále).^[6]
• Regional forms: Papahagi calls n’eŭ the usual form in northern Aromanian;^[5] Pascu records mel from Epirus,^[7] and Papahagi has mel as well.^[8] After nouns of kinship it is enclitic: bărbat-n’u, frate-n’u, tată-n’u, mamă-mea.^[7][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin meus (“my, mine”),^[4][7][1][9] from Proto-Italic *meos.^[1] Pascu takes the forms with a palatal nasal at the start (see Forms) as the regular outcome of the Latin word, and explains the forms with a plain m as remodelled after the feminine, and the variant ending in -l as formed after the plural.^[7]

The word is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian meu, Megleno-Romanian meu and Istro-Romanian meu.^[9][10] The western languages have Italian mio, French mien, Catalan meu, Spanish mío and Portuguese meu.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record the sources name is Boiagi's grammar of 1813, which Pascu quotes for ameu and the enclitic -n’u.^[7]

Semantic evolution

It is the possessive of the first person singular, my or mine, inherited with the Latin sense.^[2][1][4] With nouns of kinship it follows the noun as an enclitic and the noun itself stays undeclined: Papahagi quotes the genitive forms a fátă-n’iuï and a mú-meaï.^[4]

Timeline

• 1813 – ameu and the enclitic -n’u in Boiagi's grammar, as cited by Pascu.^[7]
• 1905 – Meu “my” in P. Papahagi's glossary of folk tales.^[12]
• 1909 – αμέου (améu) in Nikolaidis's dictionary.^[6]
• 1925 – Pascu derives it from Latin meus.^[7]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. My, mine.^{[2][1][4][13]}

Related words

• Romanian meu

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. 647
3. ^ Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 746
4. ^ a b c d e f Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 680
5. ^ a b Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 796
6. ^ a b Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 30
7. ^ a b c d e f g 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, 133
8. ^ Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 677
9. ^ 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)
10. ^ Capidan, Theodor (1935), Meglenoromânii III: Dicționar meglenoromân, București: Academia Română
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ Papahagi, Pericle (1905), Basme aromâne și glosar, București: Academia Română, p. 638
13. ^ Bara, Mariana (2024), Dictsiunarlu ti cathi dzuuã, online at dixionline.net