namisa

Forms

namisa^[1]

• Other spellings: námisa in Papahagi;^[2] námesa in Mihăileanu's Romanian-based spelling;^[3] nâmesa in Geagea;^[4] nämisa and namesa in Weigand's glossary;^[5] nàmisa in Daniil's Tetraglosson as Leake printed it;^[6] anamisa and namãsa as Wiktionary's alternative forms.^[1]
• The fuller form is anámisa in Papahagi and anamisa or anámesa in Pascu, who also has nămesa from Mihăileanu.^[2][7]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Modern Greek ανάμεσα (anámesa, “between, among”), the form without the initial vowel of anamisa;^[2][8][7] Geagea lists the short form from Daniil and other old texts.^[8] Wiktionary instead derives it from μέση (mési, “middle”) with a prefix.^[1] Geagea compares Albanian anâmesa (“through the middle”).^[8]

Babiniotis explains the Greek adverb as Byzantine Greek ἀνάμεσον (anámeson), remade with the adverbial -a of many other adverbs, from the phrase Ancient Greek ἀνὰ μέσον (anà méson, “in the middle”), frequent in Aristotle.^[9] Its noun is the neuter of μέσος (mésos, “middle”), an old adjective that Beekes connects with Latin medius (“middle”) and traces to Proto-Indo-European *médʰyo- (“in the middle”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Daniil of Moscopole's Tetraglosson has pre nàmisa for Modern Greek εἰς τὴν μέσην (eis tin mésin, “into the middle”), which Leake renders with Latin discindo “I split”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The Greek adverb meant between or among, and in the middle.^[9][11] Aromanian uses it in the same senses, mostly followed by di: námisa di doï laï muní “between two dear mountains”,^[2] námesa di marea lae “in the middle of the Black Sea”.^[3][12]

Timeline

• 1794–1802 – pre nàmisa “in the middle, in two” in Daniil's Tetraglosson, as Leake printed it in 1814.^[6]
• 1894 – nämisa “in the middle of” in Weigand's glossary.^[5]
• 1901 – námesa “in the middle” in Mihăileanu's dictionary.^[3]
• 1925 – Pascu files anamisa among the Greek elements, from ἀνάμεσα.^[7]

Meanings

Adverb

1. In the middle (of); between, among (usually followed by di).^[12][2][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Papahagi, Tache (1963), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 727
3. ^ a b c Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 335
4. ^ Geagea, Christea (1932), Elementul grec în dialectul aromân, Cernăuți: Institutul de Arte Grafice și Editură Glasul Bucovinei (offprint from Codrul Cosminului VII, pp. 205–431), p. 379
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. 319
6. ^ a b c Leake, William Martin (1814), Researches in Greece, London (prints Daniil of Moscopole's Tetraglosson), p. 400
7. ^ 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. 2, 62
8. ^ a b c Geagea, Christea (1932), Elementul grec în dialectul aromân, Cernăuți: Institutul de Arte Grafice și Editură Glasul Bucovinei (offprint from Codrul Cosminului VII, pp. 205–431), p. 306
9. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
10. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ a b Cunia, Tiberius (2008), Dictsiunar a limbãljei armãneascã, Editsii Timpurarã (after T. Papahagi, Ș. Mihăileanu and I. Dalametra; online at dixionline.net)