Etymologically
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nãs

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Forms

nãs m (feminine nãsã / nãsa, masculine plural nãsh / nãshi, feminine plural nãsi / nãse)[1]

  • Feminine nãsã, masculine plural nãsh, feminine plural nãsi or nãse.[2][1]
  • Wiktionary gives the alternative forms nãsu, nes, nis, nisu, dãs, dãsu, dis and disu;[1] Cunia names dis and dãs as equivalents.[2]
  • Other spellings: NĂS, feminine -să, plural năși, nă'se, in Papahagi's dictionary;[3] năsu in Mihăileanu's dictionary;[4] νᾶσου, feminine νᾶσα, in Nikolaidis's Greek script, transcribed nãsu, nasă;[5] nãsŭ, nãsã in Bara's dictionary.[6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ipse (“himself, herself, itself”), in its form ipsus,[7][8][9] which de Vaan records for the nominative in early Latin.[10] Nikolaidis, after Miklosich, already traced it to ipse, comparing Italian esso, Spanish ese and Portuguese esse.[5]

The initial n- is explained in two ways.[7][1] Candrea and Densusianu take it from phrases in which the pronoun followed a word with -n-, such as in ipsō and cum ipsō: *cun ãsu was then divided into cu and the pronoun.[7] Wiktionary gives the same explanation through Vulgar Latin *cum ipso, or else a metathesis of a form *ãns.[1] Pușcariu compares the Old Romanian form nunsu, and for the variant disu the Romanian dins.[8]

The word has cognates in all four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian îns (with the old variant nus and the derivative dînsul), Megleno-Romanian ons and Istro-Romanian ăns.[9][8][7] Ciorănescu traces the nasal in all of them to such syntactic contexts.[9] De Vaan explains ipse as the pronoun is with an element -pse, probably from Proto-Italic *-pe-so, containing the pronoun Proto-Indo-European *so (“this, that”).[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Mihăileanu's dictionary of 1901 uses it in its examples: biumu câte unŭ ciaiŭ la năsu "we each drank a cup of tea at his house".[4]

Semantic evolution

From the Latin emphatic "himself", the word became the ordinary stressed pronoun of the third person in Aromanian, "he; him", feminine "she; her", plural "they; them",[11][3][1] as Romanian dînsul did.[9]

Timeline

  • 1901 – năsu “him” in examples of Mihăileanu's dictionary.[4]
  • 1909 – νᾶσου (nãsu) in Nikolaidis's dictionary, from Latin ipse.[5]

Meanings

Pronoun

  1. (third person, masculine) he; him (after prepositions).[11][3][1]
  2. (feminine nãsã) she; her.[11][3]
  3. (plural nãsh, nãsi) they; them.[11][3]
  • Romanian îns
  • Megleno-Romanian ons
  • Istro-Romanian ăns

Usage notes

The pool word nãsã is the feminine of this pronoun.[2] Unrelated is nas, the pointed tip of a sandal, from Latin nāsus "nose".[12][13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net), p. 701
  3. ^ a b c d e Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 855
  4. ^ a b c Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 113
  5. ^ a b c Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 336
  6. ^ Bara, Mariana (2024), Dictsiunarlu ti cathi dzuuã, online at dixionline.net
  7. ^ a b c d Candrea, I.-A.; Densusianu, Ov. (1907–1914), Dicționarul etimologic al limbii române: elementele latine (A–Putea), București
  8. ^ a b c Pușcariu, Sextil (1905), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der rumänischen Sprache I: Lateinisches Element, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  9. ^ 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)
  10. ^ 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
  11. ^ 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)
  12. ^ 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, 123
  13. ^ Dalametra, I. (1906), Dicționar macedo-român, București: Academia Română, p. 143