Etymologically
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minti

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Forms

minti f (plural mintsã or mints, definite articulation mintea or mintia)[1]

  • Plural mintsã or mints, definite singular mintea or mintia.[1][2]
  • Other spellings: minte in Wiktionary;[1] Cunia heads it minti/minte;[2] MÍNTE in Papahagi's dictionary;[3] MINTE, plural minți, in Pascu, with minde from Dalametra;[4] minte in Weigand,[5] in P. Papahagi's tales[6] and in Daniil's Tetraglosson.[7]
  • Regional forms: mínti, plural minţ, at many points of the Aromanian dialect atlas.[8]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mēns (“mind”), in the accusative mentem.[3][4][1] The word is shared by Romanian minte and Megleno-Romanian minti,[9][10] and survives across Romance: Italian mente, Spanish miente, Portuguese mente, Catalan ment.[11][9] Meyer-Lübke notes that Romanian minte also means "brain".[11] Ciorănescu cites Philippide's comparison with Albanian mënt (“mind”),[9] and Papahagi compares the Aromanian phrase minte scúrtă (“short wit”) with mënt shkúrtër.[3]

De Vaan traces mēns to Proto-Italic *mn̥ti- and Proto-Indo-European *mn̥-ti- (“thought, mind”), with cognates such as Sanskrit मति (matí, “thought, mind”) and Lithuanian mintìs (“thought, idea”).[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record is in Daniil of Moscopole's Tetraglosson, where minte si kikasmò translates Modern Greek νοῦν καὶ γνῶσιν (noún kaí gnósin, “mind and knowledge”).[7]

Semantic evolution

Papahagi lists the senses "intelligence, mind, reason", "thought, intention", "opinion, counsel" and "attention, care", and quotes míntea aduce tímie, icunumía aveáre ("the mind brings honour, thrift brings wealth").[3] Cunia defines it as the faculty of thinking, judging, remembering and understanding,[2] and in the dialect atlas it also means "brain".[8] Many phrases describe madness or foolishness: fugátŭ di mínti "mad", literally "run away from the mind",[8] and scurtă tu minti "foolish".[6] Cunia's minti nicoaptã "unripe mind" is a child's mind.[2]

Timeline

  • 1794–1802 – minte “mind” in Daniil of Moscopole's Tetraglosson.[7]
  • 1813 – recorded in Boiagi's grammar, one of the sources Pascu names for the word.[4]
  • 1894 – minte “understanding” in Weigand's glossary.[5]
  • 1905 – Minte “mind, judgement” in the glossary of P. Papahagi's tales.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The mind; intelligence, reason.[1][3][2]
  2. A thought, an intention.[3]
  3. An opinion; counsel, advice.[3]
  4. Attention, care.[3]
  5. The brain.[8]
  • Romanian minte

Usage notes

Nikolaidis's minti (p. 294) is a form of a verb mintésku "to mix, stir", which he derives from Latin; it is not this word.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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. 654
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 685
  4. ^ 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, 116
  5. ^ a b Weigand, Gustav (1894), Die Aromunen: ethnographisch-philologisch-historische Untersuchungen, vol. II: Volksliteratur der Aromunen (with a glossary), Leipzig: J. A. Barth, p. 317
  6. ^ a b c Papahagi, Pericle (1905), Basme aromâne și glosar, București: Academia Română, p. 638
  7. ^ a b c Leake, William Martin (1814), Researches in Greece, London (prints Daniil of Moscopole's Tetraglosson), p. 385
  8. ^ a b c d Saramandu, Nicolae (2023), Glosar aromân, Fonetică și dialectologie XLII: 103–176, p. 145
  9. ^ a b c Ciorănescu, Alexandru (1958–1966), Diccionario etimológico rumano, La Laguna: Universidad de La Laguna (Romanian ed.: Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române, București: Saeculum, 2001)
  10. ^ Candrea, I.-A. (1927–1937), Glosar megleno-romîn I–IV, Grai și suflet III: 175–209; IV: 381–413; VI: 163–193; VII: 194–233, p. 167
  11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  13. ^ Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 294