Etymologically
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prot

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Forms

prot (feminine protã, masculine plural prots, feminine plural proti or prote)[1]

  • Other spellings: PROT, feminine -tă, plural proț, próte, in Papahagi's dictionary;[2] prótu-ă in Mihăileanu's Romanian-based spelling;[3] πρώτου (protu) in the Greek script of Nikolaidis;[4] Πρώτου in Kavalliotis's word list.[5]
  • The adverb prota "first, at first" goes with it;[2][6][1] Papahagi heads it -PRÓTA and Mihăileanu prota.[2][6][1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Modern Greek πρώτος (prótos, “first”),[2][7][8] and the adverb prota is the Greek adverb πρώτα (próta, “first, at first”).[2][7] The Modern Greek word continues Ancient Greek πρῶτος (prôtos, “foremost, first”), recorded since the Iliad.[9][10]

Beekes relates it to Sanskrit पूर्व (pū́rva, “former, first”) and Lithuanian pirmas (“first”), from Proto-Indo-European *prh₃-uo- and *prh₃-mo-, with the ordinal suffix of τρίτος (trítos, “third”); the Doric form πρᾶτος (prâtos) points to another laryngeal, so the reconstruction remains a problem.[10][11] Beekes and Frisk both reject a base *πρό-ατος (*pró-atos), which could explain the Attic form but not the Doric one.[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Kavalliotis's word list of 1770, where Πρώτου translates Modern Greek πρώτος (prótos, “first”).[5]

Semantic evolution

From "first in order" the adjective came to mean "foremost, leading": Papahagi quotes the leading Aromanians in flocks and bravery, and Mihăileanu "the first of the village", its leading man.[2][3] Geagea records a further sense, "leader, chief", in a religious text.[8] Cunia gives the phrase protlu somnu, the first sleep, for deep sleep like a dead man's.[1] The adverb prota means "first, at first", and with di "from the beginning".[2][6][12]

Timeline

  • 1770 – Πρώτου “first” in Kavalliotis's word list.[5]
  • 1894 – prot “first” and prota “earlier, at first” in Weigand's glossary.[12]
  • 1901 – prótu-ă “first, foremost” and prota in Mihăileanu's dictionary.[3][6]
  • 1932 – Geagea lists it among the Greek elements.[8]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. First in order.[1][2][13]
  2. Foremost, leading.[2][3]
  3. (as a noun) A leader, chief.[8]

Adverb

  1. (prota) First, at first.[2][12] Di prota: from the beginning.[2][6]

References

  1. ^ 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. 858
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 1018
  3. ^ a b c d Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 426
  4. ^ Νικολαΐδης, Κωνσταντίνος (1909), Ετυμολογικόν λεξικόν της κουτσοβλαχικής γλώσσης, Αθήνα, p. 452
  5. ^ a b c Meyer, Gustav (1895), Albanesische Studien IV: Das griechisch-südrumänisch-albanesische Wörterverzeichnis des Kavalliotis, Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, phil.-hist. Classe 132, p. 101
  6. ^ a b c d e Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 425
  7. ^ a b 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, 80
  8. ^ a b c d 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. 397
  9. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  10. ^ a b c 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. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 2, 609–610
  12. ^ 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. 326
  13. ^ Dalametra, I. (1906), Dicționar macedo-român, București: Academia Română, p. 176