A SOURCE OF INNOVATION IN THE CLASS OF INTERJECTIONS
GABRIELA SAUCIUC
Abstract. The inter-linguistic mobility of units belonging to the word class traditionally labeled as interjection is examined with the help of a corpus constituted mainly of normative sources (dictionaries, glossaries, grammars, etc.) for several Romance (Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese) and Germanic languages (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish). The study establishes an inventory of borrowings in the class of interjections and underlines the sources and target languages, taking into account the chronology of interjectional borrowings, as well as their functional distribution in the borrowing language. The examples provided by our corpus show that the affective and prestige factors seem to play a significant role in this process, together with other factors such as: repetition, expressiveness, exotic flavor and the “striking” phonetic value and quick automatisation.
The present article is part of a larger project investigating the various types of linguistic change that affected and might affect the word class traditionally known under the label of interjection. The results of our research, as outlined here, concern the inter-linguistic mobility of units, i.e., borrowings, which in the source language can be (but not necessarily) interjections, and which are still categorized – or re-categorized – as interjections in the target language. The inventory of interjections which constituted the corpus of the present study is therefore collected mainly from normative sources – dictionaries and grammars – which encompass several Romance and Germanic languages: Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.
1. BORROWING IN THE CLASS OF INTERJECTIONS
One of the most productive sources of innovation in any given language is the so-called allogeneic neology. For needs of various natures, speakers of a linguistic community have always been borrowing linguistic structures (words, phrases, etc.) from the languages used by other, genetically related or unrelated, linguistic communities. In the course of history, this very frequent mechanism of change was seen to involve primarily languages which, for one reason or another
RRL, LI, 2, p. 267–300, Bucureşti, 2006
(trade, warfare, occupation, etc.), were in direct contact for a specific amount of time, enough to lead to a period of bilingualism and to ensure the migration of linguistic units from one to another. Geographical or spatial contiguity however is not a necessary condition, especially in the case of innovations involving specialized areas of the vocabulary where the borrowing process was considerably eased by the circulation of knowledge in form of books or scholarly exchange at least since the middle Ages. Latin, Arabic, Greek, Italian, French, German and more recently English have successively played a key role as carriers of knowledge and innovations in specific fields of the scientific investigation, artistic production or scholastic disciplines, and this is reflected in the specialized vocabularies of such fields.
Spatial contiguity is even less a condition in recent times, as long as the access to other languages is considerably eased by the technological progress affecting the sharing and spreading of information, especially in the entertainment industry.
Considered to affect especially the verb or the nominal classes, the innovations due to borrowing are also well represented in the class of interjections.
Haugen’s results (1950: 224), based on the borrowings present in the Norwegian and Swedish languages spoken in the U.S.A., show that only 1% of the total number of borrowings is represented by interjections. The leading grammatical classes are, as expected, the noun (71-75%) and the verb (18-23%). Establishing the importance of interjectional borrowing in quantitative terms is, however, beyond our task here. Our research is meant to underline more the dynamics of the interjectional borrowing – factors, trends and directions of mobility, experiential / interactional fields involved in it.
Interjections are non-propositional linguistic units, encoding modal (affective, epistemic, conative / deontic, etc.) meaning, and their presence or absence would not affect the truth-value of a proposition. Therefore, no matter how frequent and pervasive they are in our everyday spoken language, they are most likely wiped off in most of the genres and species of written literature, being allowed to surface only in those species of literature intended to mimic the vividness of spoken language. Due to their nature, the history of interjections is, in most cases, difficult to trace back. Until recently, the lack of representative corpora of spoken language made difficult, if not almost impossible, not only their diachronic study, but their synchronic examination, in general. Lexicographers have been able to trace back successfully the history of some interjections and establish, with approximation – sometimes even more precisely – where do they come from, when they entered a language and how. But most often, interjections are overlooked: sometimes dictionaries are content to dispose off interjections by simply defining them “expressive” or “onomatopoetic” creations and don't bother to provide any further historical data, such as the first written documentation or successive semantic innovations. Similar telegraphic treatments contrast sharply with the more expanded approach granted to the rest of the words listed in a dictionary.
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The classical and consensual opinion on the factors that justify or determine the migration of linguistic units from one language to another contemplates two main possibilities: a) the denominative need; b) the more striking phonologic value than that of an equivalent unit in the target language (Guilbert 1965: 93).
Another factor that stimulates linguistic borrowing and that has often been brought into discussion is the prestige attributed to linguistic units originating in the language that in a specific period is regarded as “dominant”. The denominative need seems to account for the wide majority of borrowings. Everything that involves conceptual novelty – inventions, discoveries, the establishment of new political, administrative, legislative order, etc. – requires new labels allowing communication in reference to such new concepts to take place. The internationalization of research and media, the globalization of markets and new technologies contributed decisively, especially during the last century, to the enrichment of vocabularies due to borrowings.
Interjections can be counted among the rather rare cases of borrowings that are not necessarily justified by the denominative needs arising with referential novelty. They are affective borrowings, and the adoption of foreign words as interjections can probably be justified by the traditional claim of expressiveness (the “more striking phonologic value”)1 or by the prestige factor. However, in the case of interjectional adoption, there are other specific factors that need to be mentioned, such as the repetition and the contamination (due most likely to a mimetic mechanism in verbal interactions). The former involves the high degree of frequency characterizing the use of specific interjections. Repetition and expressiveness, as well as the capacity for synthetic communication, account for the contagiousness of interjections and for their readily automatisation in somebody's “speech inventory”, leading to various idiosyncrasies.
Interjections appear to be very contagious items, and their endorsement does not require special conditions, such as a very long period of constant contact with the source language, as several cases from our personal experience proved. For instance, after spending 10 days in Italy during a cultural exchange program, the majority of a group of high-school Romanian teenagers “contracted” Italian interjections such as bah and boh, with their specific Italian uses. The same was reported of other individuals traveling to Italy for work or tourism purposes.
Interjections’ contagiousness can be explained also by the saliency granted by their exotic flavor. There is, however, the reverse of the medal: many interjections, especially those that are slang-related, have an ephemeral live and fall into the category that was poetically designed by Guilbert as “words in the wind” (Fr. mots dans le vent). They come and go with fashion or power (Cf. the theory of borrowings prestige) and are only seldom resurrected after they pass into oblivion.
1 See for instance the more and more frequent replacement of Rom. hopa or of Rom. oh with the Eng. oops, in certain contexts involving apologizing.
When the source language ceases to be a symbol of power or leadership in a specific field, and its use ceases to be a symbol of superiority, such interjections, especially if the main reason that motivated their borrowing was prestige, will be easily forgotten.
Furthermore, and maybe to a higher extent than in the case of other categories of borrowings, the diatopic and diastratic distribution of borrowed interjections is far from being unitary. This might argue for their non-inclusion in the normative literature: borrowed interjections start as items used by specific communities, which might spread successfully among all categories of speakers, but there is no guaranty of their survival over longer spans of time.
Summing up the considerations shortly exposed above, borrowing in the class of interjections can be motivated by factors such as: repetition, expressiveness, exotic flavor and the “striking” phonetic value, automatisation and prestige. As the examples provided below will show, the affective and prestige factors seem to play a significant role in this process: a great majority of interjectional borrowings cease to be in use past the prestige of the “dominant”
language.
2. THE CORPUS AND THE INVENTORY
Given the nature and the purpose of our investigation2 – collecting an inventory, as large as possible, of interjections, in order to delineate a possible taxonomy of linguistic changes in the class of interjections – we chose a corpus based mainly on normative sources: grammars, dictionaries, glossaries. We added also the information gathered from studies dedicated to the class of interjections in general, or to single members of it, as well as a sample collection of possible contexts of use based on free Internet search in order to assess their most recent uses and the degree to which the items under focus are still active in a given language. Without denying the utility of more or less representative spoken or written language corpora (which we endorsed and sustained elsewhere – cf.
Sauciuc 2006, Ch. 3), and acknowledging the limitations of a dictionary-based research, we considered that the samples provided by a spoken corpus would not be sufficient to ensure a satisfactory ground for building up an exhaustive (as much as possible) inventory. Spoken language corpora are the ideal and indispensable tool while serving other purposes, such as surveys of the most used items of the class, surveys of the uses, collocations and prototypical contexts of a single item, etc.
The lack of agreement upon a single item was not a rare happening while confronting the inventories or descriptions provided by our sources. Sometimes, grammars or linguistic studies dedicated to interjections may list interjections or
2 The inventory is destined to a larger project meant to cover all types of linguistic change that might affect the class of interjections.
interjectional uses which might not be recorded in the dictionaries. We are, however, aware of the inconveniences of a grammar and dictionary-based inventory. Being normative by nature, such tools would not record the most recent innovations, no matter how frequent and pervasive in the spoken language they are.
There will always be some left outside the accepted norm of language as posed by Academies or similar normative boards; there would always be overlooked uses which would certainly impair the results of a research. This is especially the case of older dictionaries (compiled before the ‘50s), which very seldom record interjections, their use and origin. An up to date record of items and their uses, is vital for a study dedicated to interjections, given their nature as shortly outlined above. Such considerations justified the need to appeal, when the material was available, to monographic studies dedicated to the class of interjections in general, or to single items.
Considering that a large amount of nowadays interjections can be semantically classified as “forbidden” or “swearing” words, dictionaries, collections or glossaries of slang, as well as studies dedicated to this topic constituted another valuable source in the process of establishing the inventory. Furthermore, dictionaries of frequency, whenever available, were used in order to assess to which extent every single interjection is still in active use in contemporary language(s).
For every single language under focus here, we have selected the most representative dictionaries – including etymological and historical dictionaries – published so far. In some cases, one and the same tool would provide all the relevant information, such as the Svenska Akademiens Ordbok (SAOB), which is meant to be both an explicative, etymological and historical dictionary. Moreover, the electronic version of it offers the possibility of bibliographic search, allowing for the refining of a diachronic study. Similarly, the Ordbog over det danske sprog (ODS), offers a detailed historical and etymological account for every single entry.
The complete list of the sources, including these two special cases mentioned above, is outlined in the reference sources.
The inventory so compiled in individual databases for every single language under focus in our project amounted to an average of 300 standardized interjections in every language, out of which we have selected the interjectional borrowings (amounting to circa 5-10% of all interjections). Sometimes, the original inventory was larger than the average amount mentioned, varying according to the resources available. As an example, the existence of Metaordboka (MO)3 for Norwegian,
3 Metaordboka is a systematized search tool accessing several lexical databases, consisting of Setelarkivet til Norsk Ordbok, Grunnmanuskriptet til Norsk Ordbok, Setelarkivet til Trønderordboka, Nynorskordboka og Nynorsk ordbok av Matias Skard, compiled by Oslo University, which includes old, dialectal and regional variants, some of which may not have a standardized graphic form. For every single item consulted, the user is provided with the facsimiles of its descriptions in all the sources previous to the compilation of the database.
allowed us to gather up to 1000 interjections mentioned by normative sources, some of which are variants of more prototypical items or are not listed in any of the available dictionaries.
3. LOANS IN THE CLASS OF INTERJECTION 3.1. German loans
A significant number of the German-derived interjections in the Scandinavian languages are old loans from Middle German, attested as early as the 14th or 15th century. In all the cases, the Middle-German based interjections are loans “proper” (cf. Haugen’s 1950, classification) that were used as interjections in the source language (i.e., Middle German) and did not undergo a re-categorization process in the target languages (i.e. Danish, Norwegian, Swedish). Among them are a few cases of primary interjections, but in most of the cases the interjections borrowed to Middle German – and Modern German – have sources which do not belong to the class of interjection: grammaticalized imperatives, elliptical reduction and / or agglutination of swearing or blessing formulae, etc.
Functionally, the Middle German-based primary interjections borrowed by Scandinavian languages fall into two broad types: affective and ritualic.
Affective interjections, instantiate a declarative-expressive speech act, being the direct expression of an affective state, such as Dan. ak, Nor. akk, Swe. Ack;
Dan. vok, vupti and vups. Only three of these four forms are still in active use;
Dan. vok survives only in some literary texts and dialectally.
A very early example of a Middle German-derived borrowing is Dan. ak, Nor. akk, Swe. ack (attested since the 16th century, with the form ach) <
Germ. ach. According to SAOB, it is possible that Swedish had a local equivalent form – årh – which was displaced or merged with the loan word.
Like many other interjections, Dan. ak, Nor. akk, Swe. ack can cluster in preferential collocations with the affirmative and negative particles (interjections) ja / jo and nej, or with the equivalent interjection ve (an universal formation related to Lat. vae and the Indo-germanic roots of pain and misery *vā- or vē-): Dan. ak (og) ve, Nor. akk (og) ve, Swe. – ack ve / ack och ve4. Similarly to the It. ahì, for instance, or Rom. vai, this interjection can have as narrow, local scope a Dative complement: Dan. ak mig, Swe.
ach mig.
The first written documentation of ach in German dates as back as the 10th century, while the cluster MGerm. ach unde wē (Germ. Weh und Ach), similar to those mentioned for the Scandinavian languages, was attested
4 Cf. Rom. aoleu şi vai de mine.
already in the 12th century. Ach is considered to be an universal Indo- European interjection, having counterparts in Old Hindi, Latin, Slavic and Romance languages. As proved by the frequency dictionaries and targeted search in contemporary corpora, the borrowed interjection shows a very high rate of use in the contemporary Scandinavian languages.
The Danish forms vupti (var. vupdi) and Dan. vups are developments originating in loans from Middle German. The former can be traced back to MGerm. wuppdich (wuppti(c), wippdich) (> Germ. wuppdi), the latter to the MGerm. wupps. Both interjections are used to indicate a sudden emotional burst and present as variants Dan. vips, vup, vuppe. Both can be inserted in the collocation: en, to, tre vupti / vups or in med det vupti / vups with the meaning “just now”.
Dan. vok derives from the Germ. wach, woch, as an expression of complaint, misery, horror and dismay. Classified as an archaism, vok survived dialectally and is found in a variety of clusters, such as o ve, o(g) vok or å, vi og vok in Jutlandic dialects. The loaned interjection vok is displacing a local form va, evolved from the common Indo-germanic root vā, denoting pain and misery5, and coexist with the form ve (derived from the Indo-germanic root vē).
Ritualic interjections instantiate a comportamental-expressive speech act and are the ritualized expression of an affective state, resulting in fossilized formulae, where the original intention of affective manifestation is not transparent anymore, but carried by collectively codified conventional routines. Borrowed interjections illustrating this case are Dan, Swe. hej, NNor., BNor. hei; Dan., and its derivates Swe. heja, NNor., BNor. heia, (and the var. eia), Dan. hejda Dan. hejsa, Nor.
heisa, and Swe. hejsan, whose current predominant ritualic function is grounded in a pure affective use. On the other hand, the history of Dan. hep – currently a ritualic-conative interjection – unfolds within the conative function, and seems to be derived from Modern German.
Dan, Swe. hej, NNor., BNor. hei; Dan., Swe. heja, NNor., BNor. heia (and the var. eia) or the Dan. hejda illustrate a controversial case of interjectional borrowing. Although there is a general agreement concerning the expressive origin of hej / hei, having their counterparts in the rest of the Germanic languages and in Latin, the semantic history of this interjection and its related forms is less clear. The many examples and cases collected and commented upon by Ideforss are once again enlightening and help in delineating the intricate history of uses of hej in Swedish: as an expression of joy and enthusiasm, to expressing surprise, mostly negative than positive, to its functioning as a warning or as an urging or incitement. Some of the examples
5 Cf. Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, (2. Auflage) 2003; Jan de Vries 1977, Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch.
reflect a folk-use of the interjection, some can be thought of as German inspired uses, especially in translations and literary works (cf. Ideforss 1928:
229–234).
The hej / hei related forms are inspired or influenced by German. Among them, the Dan. hejsa, Nor. heisa, and Swe. hejsan are clear cases of German loans (cf. Ideforss, 1928: 234, ODB, SAOB). An intermediary form of the Swe. hejsan is attested since 1716, which was used in parallel with the current valid form hejsan, (attested since 1749, frequent only after 1840) at least until the beginning of the 20th century. Similar is the case of the Dan.
hejda which is based on the interjection hej / hei agglutinated with the German particle da ‘there’.
Present, apparently, only in Danish, hep is a rather recent acquisition, having its origins in the Germ. hepp (with its variants hepphepp! or hyp!), which was used as a call-word for goats or, during the Jewish persecution, as an insult for the Jews (a use which seems to be attested in German as early as 1819).
Later on, during the 20th century, hep was more and more used, especially in sports contexts, as an urging to speed up and strain in order to win. In its evolution, hep is seen to be shifting from an interjection having an animate, non-human addressee, to a depreciative interjection with a socially marked human addressee, and finally, with an inversed polarity, to an interjection used in the context of a specific experiential field.
The Middle German-based secondary interjections featured by the Scandinavian languages under focus here can be classified, according to their function, as: ritualic-affective (greetings, blessings or augural formulae), conative-affective, and swearing words.
Among the ritualic-affective interjections, we may count two cases of affective secondary interjections derived from a Middle German imperative, which in the target languages function as primary (univoque) interjections, endorsing a comportamental function as:
a greeting formula: Dan., Nor. hallo, Swe. hallå;
an augural formula: Dan. singot and NNor. / BNor. singott,
Dan., Nor. hallo, and the equivalent Swe. hallå are related to the Germ.
hallo(h) (derived from halo, imperative of hol(e)n). The interjections were originally used as an expression of enthusiasm and joy (ODS, NNOB, Ideforss, 1928: 301). However, as shown in the history outlined in SAOB and Ideforss (1928: 300-301), the first variants of the interjection – halloh – are obviously related to holla; the most reasonable explanation, thus, would have to include a merge or crossing between this old hallo(h) and the MGerm.
hallo. The resulting form hallå is not attested in Swedish before 1852–1853.
By the end of the 19th century (1885), hallo / hallå is used as a phone- answering formula, undergoing probably the influence of the American use
of a similar word. Dialectally, hallå was used as a cheering word and soon became as frequent as hej in greetings in Southern Sweden and Denmark.
The Dan. singot (encountered in Skania as syne-gott, synk-godt) and the NNor. / BNor. singott, which inherit the German formula segen(’s) gott, süngott, ‘god bless’, illustrate the augural / blessing facet of the ritualic function. In nowadays Norwegian and Danish (and the dialects mentioned above), the interjection acquired a highly ritualised function, being used as a toasting formula or after meals, or even during a meal, if someone is interrupting it. Metonymically and due to its specialization, the interjection developed a nominal use: as a noun it might mean ‘a snaps’, ‘a cup of coffee’, etc.
The class of conative(-affective) secondary interjections borrowed to Middle German is represented in the Scandinavian languages by Dan., Swe. holla and the series of related forms: Dan. hopla, BNor., Swe. hoppla and Dan.
hopsa(sa), NNor./BNor. hoppsa, BNor. hopp sann / hoppsasa, NNor., Swe.
hoppsa(n)/ hoppsasa. While holla is a pure conative interjection, instantiating a request of attention (and acknowledgment) from the hearer, hop(p)la and the related interjections have also a stronger affective load, all of them instantiating an encouragement of the addressee.
Dan., Swe. holla, is attested as early as the 17th century. Its etymological base is Germ. holla (of the verb holen ‘to fetch, to catch’). Some authors have also proposed a French mediation (hola) of the German word. Ideforss considers holla and hallå to be related, the form holla being older (cf. Ideforss, 1928:
299). Up to the 19th century, it was used mostly as ‘a shout of exultation’, but also of surprise. A parallel use, attested since the 17th century (1632, cf.
Ideforss, Ibid.) is the conative, especially in questions or attention-requests where is often reinforced by other similar devices: ho / hå.
Dan. hopla, BNor., Swe. hoppla and Dan. hopsa(sa), NNor./BNor. hoppsa, BNor. hopp sann / hoppsasa, NNor., Swe. hoppsa(n)/ hoppsasa are obviously related, although their history is not entirely clear. They might be all descendants of the Germ. hoppla, based on the verb hoppeln ‘to hop’ (cf.
ODS, BNOB, NNOB and SAOB) and of the Germ. hopsa (imperative of hopsen ‘to hop’) respectively or, as Ideforss (1928: 237; SAOB) pointed out, they might be a autochthon formation: a clustering and agglutination of the interjection hop(p) (attested in Swedish since the 1680) and la in the former, or of the interjection hopp and the enclitic particle san (< sade han ‘said he’
in Swedish; the Dan. sa is considered to be the reflex of the Fr. ça), which is encountered in other cases as a structural mean of interjectional composition, in the latter. Ideforss argues against the more common explanation that sees hop(p) as a loan word from a German source. Its main argument is the presence of a similar interjection in Sanskrit, Slavic and Romance languages,
and of parallel derived formations in Danish, Norwegian, Dutch and French.
The forms under analysis here do have German counterparts, but there is no clear evidence supporting their treatment as direct loan words from German;
there is evidence, nevertheless, that German and, later on, French have influenced or inspired some of their uses (cf. Ideforss 1928: 136–137). Their rather late attestation could also support the loan hypothesis; hoppsa is first attested in Swedish in 1805, while the longer form hoppsasa is attested in 1822. As far as the Swe. hoppsan is concerned, documents support its development as a local compound: by the beginning of the 19th century, the form was still spelled as hopp sa’n (sade han ‘said he’). The attestation for hoppla is also late – 1849.
A significant number of the secondary interjections that Scandinavian languages borrowed to Middle German functions as swearing words. In most of the cases, such forms are the result of an elliptical reduction or of the agglutination, followed usually by a subsequent reduction, of a larger swearing formula. Not all of the swearing-word secondary interjections borrowed to Middle German are equally used in nowadays Scandinavian languages. While Dan. pokker, NNor. / BNor. pokker, Swe. pocker shows a very high frequency rate of use, the remaining examples contemplated here are less frequent or not documented anymore in contemporary Danish, Norwegian or Swedish.
Dan. pokker, NNor. / BNor. pokker, Swe. pocker, used in all three languages with an euphemistic function, as a milder expression for ‘devil’, ‘satan’ is of a German orgin (< Germ. pocken < pocke, in M Germ. pocke, poche, Slesv.- Holst. pock, puck, Holl. pok, Eng. pock). Originally designating diseases manifesting themselves with skin rush (like the smallpox, or very frequently the syphilis), the noun's meaning extended to indicating the evil in general, via a metaphorical and metonymical use of wishing illness, thus evil to somebody (according to a widespread believe that such diseases might be signs of demonic possession), and finally to designate the devil.
Dan. donnerwetter reflects the importation of Germ. donnerwetter, meaning
‘(thunder) storm’, used also as an exclamation of surprise or as a reinforcing device of illocutionary or epistemic force (Men, Donnerwetter! De er jo bange, De er jo helt bleg!).
Dan. potz (spelled also as pots, pus or botz (Kalk.III.505.V.241)) or Swe. pots (attested also in the variants bos, botz, box, potz) reflects the MGerm. potz (> High German potz, botz, today an archaism) which was euphemistically used instead of Germ. gottes (< gott, ‘god’), especially in conjunction with another noun to express strong surprise or similar reactions. In contemporary German, it is considered to be an archaism and appears originally clustered with a noun referring to elements of Jesus’ Passion: Angst, Jammer,Marter, Blut; later on other clusters became frequent: potz Blitz, Donnerwatter, Teufel.
Dan., Nor. bardus (var. badus, ba(r)dovs) and Swe. burdus are the reflexes, formally adapted to the target languages, of MGerm. pardues, perduuz, (> Germ. bardauz, pardauz (perdutz)). In both Danish and Swedish, the interjection is also classified as an adverb, expressing a sudden, unexpected happening, such as an emotional burst; the Nor. bardus can function either as an adverb or as an adjective. Only in Danish is still attested as an interjection.
Dan. jodut (jodut, jov(e)tut, iadut) and Swe. jadut, attested (in Swedish) as early as the 16th century (1540) is another Middle German-derived loan, stemming from MGerm. (te) iodute, io dütte, jadut (ODS) or (te)iodutc, jadut (SAOB) – an equivalent of the more generic ve, akk, used in the function of both complaining about a significant distress and as a request for help. The interjection is not anymore documented in contemporary Danish or Swedish.
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German was to a much lesser extent an important source of loan words in Romance languages, as far as the class of interjection is concerned. The only one example to illustrate a German-derived interjection in Romance languages is the highly specialized halt – a military command which gained the status of
“internationality”.
Halt, the imperative of the German verb halten (‘to stop’) is at the origin of such an “international” interjection which yielded It. alt(o), (altolà), Sp., Port. alto, Rom. halt. The interjection is also present in Dan, Swe., Nor. as halt. In all cases, the structural change undergone by the source form is minimal – the analogical addition of the final vowel in It., Sp., and Ptg., in order to cope with the structural patterns of the languages – or inexistent such as in Rom., or the Dan., Nor. and Swe. According to the sources we have consulted, the form was used in Scandinavian languages and Western Romance languages as early as the 16th centuries. However, the conditions that led to its borrowing might have been different. In Swedish, for instance, the German imperative was easy to confound with the form halt, stemming from the Swedish verb att hålla. Therefore it is believed that all the examples from the 16th and 17th century are forms of the latter (cf. SAOB).
Alternatively, in Danish, one can use the imperative-derived interjection hold.
In Western Romance languages, the interjection was borrowed during the 15th-16th century (in Italian, is attested as early as 1482 and in Spanish since 1571-1575, in Hurtado de Mendoza) being most probably spread by the German lansquenets and the Reformation related wars. The international halt / alto was adopted, not as a verbal form, but as a command-word, probably as one of the most salient feature of the military slang spoken by German soldiers. An interesting aspect of its importation to Italian, Spanish and Portuguese is the inheritance or re-development of combinatory properties: a) with an adverb as in It. altolì!, altolà!, or the Sp. alto ahí (the latter in an
epistemic use – the speaker is strongly opposing to the topic / opinion presented in the ongoing verbal interaction); b) with a noun, such as in the Sp. alto el fuego (as an order to cease fire)6.
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The long lasting contacts with German, due to the constant relations with the German speaking minorities living in Transylvania and to the multi-centenary Hapsburg domination, is the reasonable explanation for the presence, in Romanian, of many words of German provenience. Among the most frequent, there are a series of ritualic interjections instantiating expressive-comportamental speech acts:
the greeting interjection servus used currently in Transylvania or by speakers native from Transylvania;
the more widespread farewell formula pa (which might have entered Romanian via Hungarian or directly from German).
The case of Rom. pardon, which is more controversial: this interjection of international flavour, having an obvious French origin, might have entered Romanian as a German loan.
Very limited in use are:
The slang-restricted Rom. zexe ‘watch out’, ‘run’ might be the reflex of the Germ. sechs (cf. DER). This hypothesis is supported by a similar use – probably a semantic shift loan – of the Rom. cardinal numeral şase ‘six’, and by the presence of an equivalent, but Russian based interjection – şest;
in all three cases, the numeral is used as a warning interjection.
Among the less frequent interjection of German provenience encountered in Romanian is a regional conative interjection şlus ‘it’s over’, a graphic substitution of the homophonous Germ. schluss.
We remind here also the controversial case of the primary interjection pfui, which raises a series of doubts as to its alleged German origin. The interjection could be as well an onomatopoetic formation, iconically reproducing the gesture of spiting. As an interjection, it metonymically passed to express disgust, contempt or surprise (cf. also Rom. pfu). Similar formations can be found in many other languages, including the ones neighboring Romanian. The presence of the pf–
group in the initial position of a word, which is not typical for Romanian, but characteristic of German, is not a sufficient argument in order to sustain the alleged German origin. Since antiquity grammarians pointed out that interjections can contain sounds or sound-groupings which are not characteristic for the phonological system or syntax of a given language.
6 In Spanish alto has been adapted and adopted to fit several idiomatic phrases, such as dar el alto ‘ceasing (temporarily or permanently) the military operations’ or dar el alto ‘stop marchin’ or in an extended meaning ‘stop (whatever you’re doing)’.
3.2. English and Anglo-American borrowings
As expected, considering the role of English as hegemonic and global language in contemporary cross-cultural communication, the English-derived borrowings in the class of interjection in the languages under focus here are the most numerous. Like in the case of the German loans exemplified above, and more evident in the case of the Scandinavian languages, there is a neat distinction between early British-based borrowings and the new acquisitions from Anglo- American, stimulated by the pervasiveness of English, and especially American English in everyday life.
3.2.1. British loans
The British loans that entered Danish, Norwegian or Swedish at an earlier date are, almost exclusively, specialized units, whose use was restricted to one specific field of experience – the sailormen’s slang. As in the case of the German borrowings, the English-based loans can be, in the source language, both primary and secondary interjections that were adopted by the target languages with the status of primary (or univoque) interjection.
Illustrating the first case – primary interjections in the source language – are Dan. ahoj and ohoj (with its variants ohøj, åhoj), NNor. / BNor. hoi, ohoi, Swe. ohoj (hoaj, and its variants ohåj, å-hoj (å håj)). They all are to be traced back to Eng. ahoy / ohoy, which in sailor men's slang was used for hailing a ship, or even as an attention-getter.
In Danish and Swedish, ohoj developed a more general use, as a formula accompanying heavy work, while in Swedish, sources attest an even more generalized use as a hail, attention-getter or even short reply in everyday interactions (cf. Ideforss 1928: 297). As far as the origin of the form, Ideforss, following Hellquist’s suggestion, does not exclude the possibility that åhoj (and the entire series) might be an autochthon formation, based on hoj, and what is imported from English would be its specialized use7.
To represent the second case – secondary interjections in the source language - are some imperative-based interjections, such as NNor. / BNor. hal / halv, Dan., Nor. vast, and the indicative-derived Dan. sej.
The Norwegian (both NNor. and BNor.) interjection hal / halv, is the adapted form of the Eng. haul, commonly used in the sailor slang collocation stopp en hal(v) (Eng. stop and haul). Beyond the specialized use in sailor’s slang, in everyday spoken language, hal(v) can be used with the meaning ‘wait a bit’.
7 “Hellquist uttalar sig i sin Ordbok ej om ordets ursprung, vilket väl innebär, att han haller der för inhemskt. Själv anser jag, att ahoj, likesom hoj, är en sv. primärbildning, vad typen beträffar, men att det mycket väl kunnat paverkas utifran i fraga om funktionen. Jfr N.E.D., under ahoy. – Tidigare begagnades hoaj (haaj) som anropsord pa sjön, jämte enkelt hoj. Hoaj nämnes av Ekbohrn, Naut.
Ordb., 1840, av Dalin 1850, och av Lönnrot (1874, under fi. hoi)”. (Ideforss, 1928: 297).
In the case of Dan., Nor. vast (also as the variant vas(d)), the Eng. vast (avast) is the mediating form between the Scandinavian forms and the Dutch command formula hovast, houd vast “stop” (a similar interjection - hovast / håvast - is attested in Danish, but is not used anymore). Vast is used as a command word, especially in the collocations vast hale / hive, “stop hauling / heaving”. With the generalized meaning “stop”, is used as a command addressed by rope-makers to the persons turning the spinning wheel.
The origin of the Dan. sej, an attention-getter and conative interjection (summoning one to begin8), is controversial. The loan hypothesis, from Eng.
(I) say, with the use it acquired in American English, seems to be more credible than the hypothesis suggesting an autochthon development of an expressive interjection, in the same series with hej. In support of the former hypothesis might be the specialized use of the interjection, as hail or command in sailor slang. The derived sejda is then an analogical form built after the model of hejda and others.
A special and controversial case among the British-based interjections, borrowed – but with a different history – by both Romance and Scandinavian languages, is hurra. It is commonly thought that the interjection entered the Scandinavian languages via English as a form that in sailormen’s slang would express joy, happiness, and satisfaction.
Spelled as hurrah, the English form was related, on one hand with the Russian war-call urá which, in turn, would have a Tartar origin, and, on the other hand, with a common Nordic root, encountered in Dan., Nor. nurre, Swe. hurra, meaning “to buzz, to whirr, hum, sing” (cf. St.NNOB, SAOB).
ODS contemplates a third hypothesis, considering it to be the imperative of the MGerm hurren followed by an expressive, enclitic -a – a structural element which is often encountered in derived interjections: heja, hoja etc9. The case of hurra seems to pose less questions and doubts regarding its provenience in Romance languages. It is commonly agreed that It. urrà, Ptg., Sp. hurra are English loans, while the Rom. ura can be either and indirect loan with a French origin, or a direct loan from Russian. However, the
8 Some of the contexts provided by ODS are self-explanatory: Sey, Kammerat med din Viole
“Hey, buddy with your Violin” “Sei Du!” sagde den Ene “der ligger en Tinsoldat!” HCAnd. (1919)
"Hey you" said the One "there is a tin-soldier". Sej, vil du gifte dig med mig? "Hey / So, will you marry me?".
9 “hurra, interj. (sv. no. ty. d. s., eng. hurra(h); vistnok egl. imp. af mht. hurren (se I. hurre) m.
tilfojet -a (sml. fx. heja, hoja, holla); jf. ogs. ty. hurre, interj., der betegner susende fart olgn., ligeledes imp. af mht. hurren; sml. hussa (2) || opr. kun brugt af matroser (og soldater); jf.: Hurra! Et Udraab, som tilkiendegiver stor Glade og Fornoielse, og bruges isar af Skibsfolk, da de hvirre med deres Hatte, Huer eller Cabudser. VSO.) raab, der tilkendegiver glade, begejstring ell. udtrykker hyldest olgn.; spec. Mil. brugt som kampraab, der ledsager rytteriets attak og fodfolkets bajonetangreb (Sal.2XI.893)”.
uncertainty of the primary source of the interjection is commented upon: it is not sure whether English plays the role of a mediation language or an English word merged with one of a Russian (Tartar) origin10. VEI (Pianigiani) considers exclusively the Russian-derivation hypothesis: urra is the reflex of the Slavic hu-raj (actually u-raj, perceived as preceded by a strong aspiration), ‘to Heaven’, a war-cry of Russian troupes – more precisely of Cossacks – while attacking the enemy. However, the alternative hypothesis, of a possible merge with the onomatopoetic Germanic root is also mentioned.
A third hypothesis, considers it to be a word of expressive origin11.
The historical account and the attempt of tracing back the forms of the interjections in French proves enlightening. A form huzza attested since 1573 shall be the English loan, according to the definitions suggested already during the 17th century which view it as a cry of joy or encouragement, or simply a greeting used among the English sailor men, probably related with the verb to heeze, while the derived heisau would be the cry shouted by sailors while raising the sails, attested since 1549. Since the 17th century (1686), another form, borrowed again from English, is attested - the more common hurra(h), which is explained as being an alteration of huzza, seemingly under the influence of Germanic forms. On the other hand the houra (1722) forms are linked clearly to the Cossack’s war cry and are thought to be loans imported from Russian12.
3.2.2. Anglo-American borrowings
The role of English, as hegemonic global language, is an uncontroversial fact, underlined by its role as a primary carrier of the world's commerce, science, technology, computer activity, electronics, media, popular culture and entertainment. One significant dimension of the hegemony of English is the increasing use of Anglo-American loans in other European languages, including those of interest for our paper. In the context of the globalization of English and given the contagious character of interjections, the latter can be counted in high number among the most used loan words derived from Anglo-American.
10 “Il commento dell’Ugol. (“chi usasse questa esclamazione... parlerebbe da barbaro Cosacco”)” (cf. DELI).
11 “Modo ingl. (1827), di orig. imit., sostituita durante la prima guerra mondiale da eja! eja!
eja! alalà! (Panz. Dizionario Moderno, [1905] 192342)”.
12 cf. TLF “[1802 « brouhaha » ou « émeute, échauffourée » (BOUTANQUOI, Souvenirs d'une femme du peuple, 1777-1802 ds BRUNOT, t. 9, p. 981)] 1814 (E. DE LABAUME, Relation circonstanciée de la Campagne de Russie en 1812, 3e éd., p. 126 d'apr. J. SUCHY ds Fr. mod. t. 22, p. 209 : Ces kosaques [...] sortirent du bois en criant hourra! hourra! cri devenu fameux, et dont les Tartares se servent quand ils courent sur leurs ennemis).” [...] selon LOK. no 2167, serait apparenté au turc wurmak « frapper, battre » d'ou l'impér. 3e pers. sing. urá « qu'il frappe », a moins qu'il ne soit lui-meme empr. a l'all. ou a l'angl. par l'intermédiaire du vocab. des marins (cf. VASMER, p. 187 et KLUGE 1967).
Considering the pervasiveness of Anglo-American in the everyday interactional and experiential life of people worldwide, such borrowings are less specialized and less restricted to particular fields of activity or contexts of use. The most recent acquisitions in this category, dating probably to the last decades of the 20th century, seem to be Eng.: wow, oops, ouch, cool, along with the slang or taboo based ‘swearing words’ shit!, fuck!, (god)dam(n)(it)!, which have been adopted – usually – without undergoing any structural, semantic or categorization change. In most of the cases, and in spite of their frequent use in everyday verbal interactions, they are recorded by contemporary dictionaries only sporadically. This might be related to the special status that interjections display in the linguistic panorama:
when loaned, they tend to be a matter of fashion and prestige (affective borrowings) and therefore, unlike other words which fulfill denominative needs interjections would be less recorded by normative literature; being a matter of fashion and prestige, they do not have an uniform diastratic distribution, and therefore they might be overlooked (with more or less due reason).
*
Among the most commonly encountered primary Anglo-American-based interjections (in the source language) are the extremely frequent (in the target languages) affective-expressive interjections wow and oops.
In Italian, for instance, wow is attested since 1959 (in C. Cerdena, cf. DPN) and defined as an exclamation of surprise, similarly to its use in English, but also as a form of an onomatopoetic origin: an imitation of a miaowing of aggressive satisfaction, sometimes accompanied by a hand gesture imitating a feline strike. Houaiss lists an interjection uau – the Portuguese-adapted form of the Eng. wow; a similar form – uau – adapted to Romanian, is recorded by DOOM. As far as the other languages are concerned, wow didn't make (yet) its way into the normative literature; there are nevertheless records of its frequent use, either in the studies dedicated to interjections13, slang, or loan words, suggesting the integration of the interjection in the autochthon language, with rather high chances of stability considering its contagious strength. The same seems to hold true for oops, however the records of its use in the source languages under focus here are almost inexistent, the only data in support of our affirmation coming from personal observation or reports of native speakers.
The ritualic international hallo / alo (in opening a telephone conversation) has a slightly different status, due to its hybrid origin in most of the languages under examination here.
13 Cf. Sauciuc, 2006: 482-504. The results of a research based on everyday spoken Romanian showed uau / wow to be one of the most frequent interjections in Romanian, the number of its occurrences (120) being superior to the number of occurrences of very common autochthon interjections such as o(h) (42 occurrences) or vai – only 31 occurrences in the same corpus.
As discussed above, in the case of Dan., Nor., hallo and Swe. hallå we are faced with a semantic contamination between an already existent form and a similar form used in American English as an attention-getter or answer formula in telephone conversations. In Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, the more common formula used when answering the phone is pronto; the international interjection hallo / alo is however equally in use in these three languages. The variant hallo is clearly an English loan, while allò / alo might reflect the French naturalization of the English hallo. The “telephonic hallo”
has apparently an imitative origin, being originally used as an incitement in hunting – cf. DELI: ‘termine venatorio che esprime incoraggiamento’, come spiegava nel 1829 il traduttore del romanzo di W. Scott, La fidanzata di Lammermoor, lasciandolo nella sua forma ingl. halloo (Benedetti Scott 126).
Most likely the Rom. alo has entered the language through a French mediation, considering its segmental structure, as well as the stressing pattern.
Very well represented is also the inventory of Anglo-American-based secondary interjections (in the source language), whose members fall broadly into 4 distinct classes:
a) expressive and evaluative interjections;
b) ritualic formulae (greetings, farewells, apologizing or toasting formulae);
c) “swearing” words, and
d) technical borrowings answering to denominative needs.
Among the evaluative secondary interjections borrowed to Anglo- American are the synthetic agreement ok and the qualificative cool.
The international ok / okay is an agreement interjection imported from American English. It usually has autochthon counterparts in the languages that have adopted it and in most cases functions as an alternative formula to these, especially in informal contexts. Summing up the more or less anecdotic explanations proposed concerning the origin of the word, DELI concludes that the most acceptable hypothesis is the one going back to the abbreviation O.K. Club from Old Kinderhook Club. The Club met for the first time on March 24th 1840, its purpose being to support the re-election of Martin van Buren, as president of the United States. Van Buren was nicknamed the Magician of Kinderhook, after his natal village. However, such an explanation alone would hardly account for the agreement function that the interjection displays in American English and wherever else it was imported.
According to the Harper Etymological Dictionary and Merriam Webster, the story of the word do in fact go back to an anecdote. It seems to be in fact the
“only survivor of a slang fad in Boston and New York c.1838-9 for abbreviations of common phrases with deliberate, jocular misspellings (cf.
K.G. for ‘no go’, as if spelled ‘know go’); in this case, ‘oll correct’. (Harper, Etym., 2001). The abbreviation of oll korrect (alteration for all correct) was only popularised by the O.K. club which used it as an election slogan. “Van Buren lost, the word stuck, in part because it filled a need for a quick way to write an approval on a document, bill, etc. The noun is first attested 1841; the verb 1888”. (Ibid.).
Cool (and its variant kewl) is a partial loan. The adjective-based interjection was borrowed only in the meanings acquired in slang – ‘excellent, first-rate’
– and through an elliptical reduction developed an interjectional use, functioning as a positive and passe-par-tout evaluation of the topic foregrounded in the interlocutor’s contribution. When used ironically, its evaluative polarity is reversed.
The ritualic secondary interjections borrowed to Anglo-American are illustrated by greeting or farewell formulae such as hi and (Good)bye, the apologizing sorry or augural interjections such as the It. cin-cin.
The farewell formula bye-bye (a repetition of bye, the result of an ellipsis from Good bye, which in turn is the result of the evolution of Good be with you) is an example of international form of English provenience is. Being a rather recent loan in most of the target languages, the interjection conserved its original spelling and is only sporadically recorded by the normative sources. The farewell interjection is recorded by most of the Italian sources, which indicate also an alternative graphic form, adapted to the Italian relationship between graphic and phonetic form (cf. Panzini 1935, where is adapted to bai bai). It is also present in some dictionaries of Portuguese (Priberam, Houaiss) and only in slang dictionaries for Spanish.
One of the interjections perceived as an Italian formula by excellence, and even examined in relation to restrictions and conditions of use posed by the social and interactional patterns of Italian society (see Wierzbicka 1992) – cincin – is actually an English, rather recent acquisition. Used as a ritualic formula accompanying the act of toasting, the interjection is for the first time attested in Italian during the first half of the 20th century (DELI: 1948,
“Oggi”: LN XII [1951] 97; ma già intorno al 1930 secondo Menarini, LN XII [1951] 99). Cin-cin is the Italian transcription of Eng. chin-chin (attested in English since 1795), which in turn seems to be the English graphic adaptation of a Chinese politeness formula ch'ing-ch'ing meaning ‘please, please’.
According to lexicographic sources, the interjection was used in English as soon as the 18th century, as a farewell, but also as a toasting formula.
Menarini's hypothesis, that ascribes the adoption of cin-cin by Italian to the linguistic contacts in the field of sea fare, seems to be the most plausible14.
14 “Cin cin, è, propriamente, una formula cinese di cortesia (...) fatta conoscere dall'operetta La Geisha (1906); è stata ora interpretata onomatopeicamente, come se riproducesse il suono di due
Well represented is also the class of borrowed secondary interjections in the function of swearing words, which, in most of the cases, void of their original meaning, evolved into affective interjections of anger or amazement: shit, fuck, damn / dammit, bloody... + completion, etc. Although absent in the normative literature of the languages examined here, these interjections have a significant use in everyday interactions, which can be verified with the help of relevant spoken language corpora.
A special class within the borrowings in the class of interjections is represented by those specialized units, used in specific fields of activity, such as sports and games. Their peculiarity resides not only in their international status, but also in the reasons motivating the borrowing: unlike the rest of the borrowings in the class of interjections, justified by affective factors (prestige, expressiveness, etc.), such loans are justified by a denominative need. Given the multinational or international nature of sport competitions, not only sport commands, but also the sportive terminology in general is preserved as in the original language, in order to facilitate communication. An instance of such a specialized sport command interjection is break used in boxing as an order to stop the fight, given by the arbiter to the fighters15.
3.3. Romance Loans in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish and Inter-romance loans
As far as the class of interjections is concerned, Romance languages can be as well a source of linguistic borrowings. However, the interjections with such provenience are very limited in number and use and exhibit, usually, a highly specialized function:
military (or other kinds of) commands:
Dan. march, Swe. marsh / marschi, it. marsc < Fr. march, imperative of marcher; Dan., Nor., Swe., Rom. basta < It. basta, indicative present of bastare; Ptg., Sp. alerta < It. alerta;
hunting related formulae:
bicchieri che cozzano fra loro, in segno di buon augurio” (1950, Migl. App.). Secondo A. Menarini invece (LN XII [1951] 99) sembra più plausibile “la provenienza del nostro cincìn dal pidgin English cinese, tramite lo slang marinaresco inglese. La nostra lingua marinara è già debitrice di molti termini verso quella inglese, e i frequenti contatti fra le due Marine, specialmente dalla prima guerra mondiale fino ad oggi, possono bene giustificare questo acquisto lessicale da parte dei nostri ufficiali:
fra i quali la conoscenza del cincìn risale a non meno di venti anni or sono, secondo quanto risulta dalle informazioni che possiedo” (DELI).
15 The noun break might be in some cases attested as an earlier date in the meaning “work break”; cf. f.e DELI.
Dan., Nor., Swe., apport(e), Rom. aport < Fr. apporte, imperative of apporter with a possible German mediation for the Swedish result, judging by the spelling; Dan. allez < Fr. allez, imperative of aller, used as a ‘start searching’ command addressed to the dog; It. hallalì, attested as early as 1762 and used as an inciting cry in hunting, is a French-based loan16 whose primary origin is controversial: one hypothesis defends the expressive origin, the other explains it as an agglutination of hare ‘come on, attack’, used as an incitement for dogs (< Franc. *hara ‘here’) and à lui (‘at / against him / it’);
Rom. pil < Fr. pille (imperative of piller) – an attack / hunt the pray command addressed by hunters to the dogs;
game related formulae
whose borrowing is justified by denominative needs: Dan., Rom. pas, Nor., Swe. pass < Fr. (Je) passe, 1st person, present indicative of passer; Dan., Rom. mat, Swe. matt, It. matto < Fr., mat, which might have entered some of the languages via German mediation, is in its turn a loan from Persian Arabic (< Arab. mt) in the expression schh mt (s^ah ma¯t) ‘the king is dead’.
Some of the Romance-based borrowings in the class of interjections fulfill a ritualic function as:
greeting and farewell formulae:
Rom. bonjur < Fr. bonjour ‘Good afternoon’, which developed also a colloquial diminutive-like form – bonjurică; Dan. adjø(s), Nor. adjø, adjøss, Swe. adjös (again, with a possible German mediation in the case of Swedish17) < Fr. adieux, while Rom. adio < It. addio or Fr. adieux, in both cases the result of the agglutination of a prepositional phrase completing a formula with the structure ‘to God I entrust you’; Dan. arrivederci / arrivederla < it. arrivederci / La; Ptg. ciao / tchau, Rom. ciao < It. ciao, the informal greeting and farewell, which in Transylvania is used with both functions as in Italian, while the speakers coming from other regions of Romania tend to use it only as an informal farewell formula;
ritualic or politeness formulae:
the international interjections bravo, bravissimo borrowed in Dan., Nor., Swe., Rom. from the It. bravo, bravissimo as the ritualic acclamation used originally in Opera concerts18; It., Rom. pardon < Fr. pardon a politeness
16 1885-87, G. Carducci: “Hallali e grido di caccia nella lingua francese, oggi accolto, credo, anche nelle nobili cacce italiane; e puo accogliersi, parmi, perché in fine non e altro che un composto di interiezioni e di avverbi comuni alle due lingue” (cf. DELI).
17 Swedish From German: adjö / adjös (from it. / french: af t. adieu, ade, adie; af fr. adieu, urspr. à Dieu, åt Gud; med afs. på adjös jfr nnt. adjös, adjäs, t. adies, sp. adios]), amen (Latin),
18 Similar forms exist also in Spanish and Portuguese where they are explained not as Italian loans, but otherwise.
formula of excuse19; Dan. parole20, Rom. parol < Fr. parole, as a commissive interjection (act of engagement) or as a strong confirmation ‘(you have) my word’, which in French already is a noun-based interjection, stemming from the ‘promise’ meaning of the noun parole21.
A third functional possibility for the interjections borrowed to Romance languages is the slang-related function of swearing words: Ptg. cáspite, Sp.
cáspita < It. caspita, an euphemistic expressive creation for cazzo, attested in both languages since the 19th century; Ptg., Rom. caramba < Sp. caramba22.
*
Seldom, Romance or Inter-romance loan interjections (secondary or even primary) can stabilize in more basic functions, sometimes replacing autochthon units, sometimes co-existing with them, but with a different diastratic status:
It., Dan., voilà < Fr. voilá, ‘that’s that’, composed of the imperative vois (of the verb voire ‘see’) and the adverbial particle là ‘there’23;
The loan of It. puah from Fr. pouah (an interjection expressing disgust, despise and similar) dates from the 19th century; the first attestation of it in French, dates back to one of Molière’s plays (1668), in the form of poüa, and is classified as an onomatopoetic creation related to an earlier variant – pouac/poac (1478-80, Coquillart, Le Débat des dames et des armes, 49 ds Œuvres, éd. M. J. Freeman, p. 248, cf. TLF).
Ptg. olá, olé < Sp. olá, olé, attested in Portuguese since the 18th century, function both as an attention-getter, a greeting and as an expression of joy.
19 For Rom., see also above p. 19. For Italian, cf. DELI "si usa come formula di cortesia per scusarsi di q.c. (“Stretto per l'andito / Sfila il bon ton; / Si stroppia, e brontola / Pardon pardon”: 1842, Giusti Poesie 78). Vc. fr., propr. ‘perdono’”. DEI mention also this only reference to Giusti, 19th century.
20 In the meaning of a strong confirmation.
21 Cf. TLF: Empl. interj. [Appuie, renforce une affirm., un propos] Parole! Ma parole! Sur ma parole! Parole d'honneur! Ma parole d'honneur! (v. honneur I B 1 a). Sur ma parole! murmura Rocambole apres avoir lu la lettre, les femmes ne doutent de rien. Croire qu'un amoureux va faire trois lieues par la pluie et la nuit pour aller a un rendez-vous, c'est bien de la fatuité! (PONSON DU TERR., Rocambole, t.3, 1859, p.456). Comment, Suzanne, vous etes seule au jardin, seule au bord de la terrasse, comme la jeune Mélisande a sa fenetre! Je descends, parole! Et je vous offre l'étrenne de ma barbe (DUHAMEL, Suzanne, 1941, p.188). On se croirait en révolution, ma parole! Ce n'est pas le cas pourtant, vous le savez bien (CAMUS, État de siege, 1948, 3e part., p. 281).
22 Romanian dictionaries record rom. caramba exclusively with the original use as an imprecation, similarly to the use in the source language; its use in everyday Romanian, however, suggests a contamination with the verb a (se) căra (“beat it”), most probably due the resemblance with the Spanish invective.
23 Cf. the examples offered by the Politiken: “1. (spøg.): udtryk for at noget er klaret og i orden
= SE SÅ voila, her har du pengene! · voila, så er den sag klaret! · voila, nu er det heldigvis overstået”!
