voi

Forms

voi^[1]

• The same form is used for the nominative and the accusative; the short forms are vã and v-.^[2]
• Case forms: genitive a voştri or a vuştror, dative a voauă or a voao, short dative and accusative vă or vi;^[3][4] Boiagi wrote the genitive a vostror and the dative a vao.^[3]
• Other spellings: VOI in Papahagi's dictionary;^[5] voi, with the accusative voi or vă, in Mihăileanu.^[6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vōs (“you (plural)”),^[5][3][1] with a final -i added, as Pascu explains it; the long dative continues vōbīs (“to you”) and the short accusative continues vōs.^[3] In Latin, vōs is from Proto-Italic *wōs, the stressed accusative form of the pronoun, which had replaced the old nominative already in Proto-Italic; de Vaan gives the accusative of the parent language as Proto-Indo-European *uōs.^[7]

The word is common to the four Eastern Romance languages: Romanian voi, Megleno-Romanian voi and Istro-Romanian vói̭.^[8][9][10] The western languages have Italian voi, French vous, Catalan vos, Spanish vos and Portuguese vós.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record the sources name is Boiagi's grammar of 1813, which Pascu lists among his sources for the pronoun and quotes for its genitive and dative.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It is the personal pronoun of the second person plural, used for the group being addressed.^[2][1] Papahagi quotes voi nu hiţ ca noi (you are not like us) and the greeting bună-vă dziua (good day to you).^[5]

Timeline

• 1813 – the genitive a vostror and the dative a vao in Boiagi's grammar, as cited by Pascu.^[3]
• 1901 – voi “you” in Mihăileanu's dictionary.^[6]
• 1905 – Voi with its case forms in P. Papahagi's glossary of folk tales.^[4]
• 1925 – Pascu derives it from Latin vōs.^[3]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. You (plural), you all: the group being addressed, in the nominative and the stressed accusative.^[2][1][5]

Related words

• Romanian voi

Usage notes

The same spelling is the first person singular present of the verb voi “to want; to love; to owe” (infinitive vreari), which Cunia and Papahagi head separately;^[2][5] it has a separate source, Latin volō (“to want”) through a Late Latin infinitive *volēre (Pascu).^[11][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. 1095
3. ^ 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, 187
4. ^ a b Papahagi, Pericle (1905), Basme aromâne și glosar, București: Academia Română, p. 736
5. ^ a b c d e Papahagi, Tache (1974), Dicționarul dialectului aromân, general și etimologic, 2nd augmented ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. 1276
6. ^ a b Mihăileanu, Ștefan (1901), Dicționar macedo-român, București, p. 541
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ 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)
9. ^ Byhan, Arthur (1899), Istrorumänisches Glossar, Sechster Jahresbericht des Instituts für rumänische Sprache zu Leipzig: 174–366
10. ^ Kovačec, August (1998), Istrorumunjsko-hrvatski rječnik (s gramatikom i tekstovima), Pula
11. ^ 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, 188