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Marius Sala, 101 cuvinte motenite,mprumutate i create, Bucureti,Editura Humanitas, 2010, 249 p. (Cristina Radu-Golea)

The book of Marius Sala, memberof The Romanian Academy, 101 cuvintemotenite, mprumutate i create/101

inherited, borrowed and created words,published by Humanitas PublishingHouse, in 2010, represents theintroduction of a collection called Viaacuvintelor/Words Life, as the author ofthe book and coordinator of the collectionhimself says (p. 10).

The first part includes generalmaters regarding the stages of wordhistory their birth, life and death. Infact, the author imagines istoria, viaa

unui cuvnt ca pe o cltorie, cu o staiede pornire i una de destinaie, care, ncazul nostru, este limba romn/the

history, the life of a word as a journey, having a point of departure and adestination, the latter being, in our case, the Romanian language (p. 27).And the words care au ca staie final limba romnpot fi originare dinlimbi europene sau din limbi de pe alte continente. Nu este surprinztor ccele mai multe au provenit din latinsau greac, cele doumari limbi carestau la baza civilizaiei europene/whose destination is Romanian canoriginate in European or non-European languages. Its not surprising thatmost of them derive from Latin or Greek, the two major languages whichlaid the foundation of the European civilisation (p. 55). The link betweenlanguage and society is very strong since datele lexicului pot oferiinformaii cu privire la istoria populaiei care vorbete limbarespectiv/lexical data can provide information about the history of thepopulation speaking that language (p. 96).

The semantic fields method is used, being presented known words(inherited, borrowed or coined by using native elements) which are groupedinto lexical domains pe de o parte, denumirile unor pri ale corpuluiomenesc, denumiri de animale i de culori, care sunt cmpurile semanticecel mai bine organizate i mai conservatoare, dar, pe de alt parte, i

denumirile de mncruri i denumirile obiectelor de mbrcminte, carearat ct de strns este legtura dintre istoria societii i istorialexicului/on the one hand names of body parts, names of animals and

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colors, these being the best organised and conservative semantic fields and,on the other hand, names of foods and clothes, the latter showing the closeconnection between the history of human society and the lexicon history(p. 97).

The destiny of the Romanian words that are selected and commentedon is described by Marius Sala either by resorting to the direct etymology or

to the indirect etymology (also called remote origin). Linguistic facts arewell documented, the sources being first of all the Romanian languagedictionaries, be they general or etymological, followed by Latin dictionariessuch as Alfred Ernout and Antoine MeilletsDictionnaire tymologique dela langue latine.Histoire des mots (Paris, Librarie C. Klincksieck, 1959).

The exemplification of words history is made in an elegant andcomprehensible style, the charm of the presentation stirring the readerscuriosity and convincing him/her to read on, thus getting ever moreinterested in the linguistic details. For example, color names have aninteresting history, which the author will make known to the readers bycomparing the Romanian chromatic terms to those in other Romance

languages. For instance, the Latin ALBUS was inherited in all Romancelanguages, but the meaning is different from the one it has in Romanian: Fr.

Aube, It., Sp. Alba dawn; nevertheless, there is a Romanian expressionwhere the word has the mentioned meaning: intralba n sat (p. 120).

To linguists, the book provides essential details (Limba tup-guaraneste vorbitn Paraguay, precum i n unele provincii din Argentina i dinBrazilia. n Paraguay, este limbnaionalalturi de spaniol; guaran estelimbde comunicare, spaniola fiind limbde cultur. Portugheza vorbitnBrazilia este puternic influenatde limba tup-guaran/Tup-guaran is alanguage spoken in Paraguay and some provinces in Argentina and Brazil.In Paraguay, it is the national language together with Spanish; guaran is thelanguage of communication, Spanish being the language of cultural prestige.The Portuguese spoken in Brazil is strongly influenced by the tup-guaranlanguage p. 90), the clarification of some etymological issues (theRomanian verb (a)apuca is considered to be the descendant of the Latinaucupare to hunt birds by using traps p. 191), solution comparisons, theestablishment of the status of some Romance words, the presentation ofetymological doublets or the explanation of some word meanings (Stufatul,mncare din carne de miel, gtit cu fire de ceap i de usturoi verde;cuvntul este menionat pentru prima datntr-unDicionar romngermanal lui G.A. Polizu, aprut la Braov n 1857/Stufatul, a dish made of lamb,

green onions and garlic; the word is mentioned for the first time by G.A.Polizu, the author of a Romanian-German Dictionary/ Dicionar romngerman, published in Braov in 1857 p. 146).

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Marius Salas book ends somehow atypically but on optimistic note,as it began, because the author suggests the readers to solve the exercisesimagined by him: they are supposed to find the right solutions by using theinformation acquired while reading the book.

This volume, which is the first of a series of works on the lexicon,included in the collection Viaa cuvintelor/Words Life, is important because

it provides synthetic information in an intelligent and pleasant manner. Theperspective of the author on the presented material is rather large, sincebehind every story we discover that Marius Sala, the specialist inRomance languages, is constantly doubled by Mariu Sala, the etymologistand historian.