I am trying to open a discussion on the matter HERE. I am personally very skeptical, because there is a lot of vague and contradictory information, but I am also very intrigued.
I was about to make one myself and I am glad it's there already! Students of Romanian may find there interesting facts about Romanian history, including the history of the Romanian language and its relation with other European languages.
As Cosmic is relatively recent and frequent updates are expected, but at the time of this post the 26.04-version is not yet released, will I get latest version of Cosmic if I keep using 24.04 or should I upgrade to 26.04 in the near future in order to keep the pace? I know the upgrade 22.04 to 24.04 involved a change of DE. Will future LTS>LTS updates involve big changes in the DE versions or will the DE update be relatively independent? (Will 24.04 end up having the same version of Cosmic as 26.04? Are we expected/recommended to keep updating Pop OS to latest LTS?)
I want to try Pop OS because I am interested in testing the new Cosmic desktop, which sounds interesting. — I am a long time Plasma/Kubuntu user but I want to have a choice, a backup solution, etc (I have some misgivings about latest versions of Plasma on my machine too etc) and no other desktop satisfies me, especially not Gnome. — With Kubuntu the changes that come with LTS upgrades involve mainly the DE and older LTS is not expected to keep the pace. I don't even want latest Plasma (5.27 is mature). But with Cosmic I think I will want to always have latest version, at least for a while.
Italian fiùtola (Macroglossum stellatarum, Hummingbird hawk-moth), seems to have an obvious etymology, from fiutare=to smell, sniff, scent, fiuto=sense of smell, "nose" (intuition). The origin of fiutàre is unknown though, while there is an odd coincidence that Romanian fluture means "butterfly". The verb flutura means "to flutter" (about wings) or "to wave" (a flag). Romanian fluture is obviously the same word as Albanian flutur = "butterfly, moth". Italian fiùtola can also be described as a moth or a butterfly. Albanian also has fluturoj = "to fly", among others.
For the Romanian and Albanian words there is the hypothesis of a Latin origin from fluctuare, but it is also possible that flutur is part of the same group of words as fletë, flatër, flegër, flugë (meaning "wing" or related thereof), of Proto-Albanian origin, while the Romanian words could be (very) old borrowings from Albanian, or substrate words.
It all points to an older common origin from which English flutter, float, fleet might ultimately derive, namely PIE *plew- (“to fly, flow, run”). The semantics of Italian fiutàre might have developed from an initial idea of "floating above" the thing that is smelled or sniffed.
Fiutàre-fiùtola might still come, like the Romanian and Albanian words, from Latin fluō (“flow”) > flūctus (“wave”) > fluctuare . Whatever the case, this seems to remove the "unknown" tag from the etymology of fiutàre.
Latin *alvīna (“beehive”) is recorded as a reconstructed term based on Romanian albină, Aromanian alghinã, Megleno-Romanian ălbină, Istro-Romanian albire (all meaning “bee”), and Venetan albina (“hive”), derived from classical Latin alvus or alveus. — But, in fact, the term is attested in 2nd century, as a deformation ("vulgar") variant of alveāria, in Flavius Caper, De verbis dubiis: Alvearia, non alvinae.
Therefore, the etymology is: alveus > alveārium - alveāria > alvina > albina etc. The fact that the pair alveāria - alvinae is recorded as a plural might already be a hint toward the semantic evolution of Eastern Romance: hive = many bees → the bee.
Made a request on Wiktionary on this.
Marked by dictionaries as only a reconstruction (brosca - broscus) from Romance languages, the origin of Romanian broască (frog) and of Albanian breshkë (turtle) is in fact attested in Late Latin (Papias: rubeta ranae genus bruscus dicit vulgo) — Dan Ungureanu 2024, Istoria limbii române, 233.
Papias text here.
Ungureanu also suggests the possibility of a connection between Lombard brosco, Romansh rušk, ruašć, Veronese roschi, and Italian rospo. See also Elisa De Roberto, Glossari, versioni e proverbi:
>Maggiori ragguagli otteniamo ricorrendo al vocabolario di Papias, che sotto rubeta inserisce oltre alla definizione di «ranae genus», anche la dicitura «bruscus dicit vulgo»: dal lat. volg. bruscus/*broscus ‘rospo’ si sarebbe sviluppato il lat. medievale roscus, che avrebbe dato poi nei volgari italiani rospo (ma in milanese antico si ha ancora brosco, usato da Bonvesin).
>More information we get by resorting to the vocabulary of Papias, which under rubeta inserts, in addition to the definition of «ranae genus», mentions also the words «bruscus dicit vulgo»: from the lat. volg. bruscus/*broscus ‘rospo’ would have developed the medieval lat. roscus, which would then give in the vulgar Italian dialects rospo = toad (but in ancient Milanese we still have brosco, used by Bonvesin).
DEX, dexonline.ro and Wiktionary seem to ignore this Italian verb, and give "unknown" origin for the Romanian verb "a cicăli", which is odd, given that it is a very popular word (and practice) and is strikingly present in Italian as "cicalare": https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/cicalare/ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cicalare
