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BOG · BOGAT · UBOG

Does Romanian bogat really have God inside it?

Romanian bogat, “rich”, comes from Slavic bogatŭ. Deeper down, bogatŭ is built on bogŭ: wealth, share, fortune — with “god” a later development. Vasmer keeps both tracks and notes the old “protected by the gods” hypothesis; ESSJa tips the scales toward wealth. On the other pan sits ubogŭ, “deprived of wealth” — with no Romanian entry: dexonline answers “Cuvântul ubog nu este în dicționar”.

Weigh it

2 pans
bogat “the well-off” vs ubog “the deprived”
bogŭ + -at
ESSJa: the base means “happiness, wealth, abundance”
0 ubog
no entry in dexonline's dictionaries
A page of the Ostromir Gospel, 1056–1057The Pietroasa treasure: the full panBouguereau's Little Beggar: the empty pan
Three pictures, one set of scales:
The 1056–1057 manuscript is DOCUMENTARY WITNESS; the treasure and the beggar are VISUAL METAPHOR: three ways of seeing one set of scales.

Contents

  1. Scales
  2. Naturalized
  3. Cousins
  4. Witnesses
  5. The tally
  6. Three dates
  7. Dispute
  8. Game
  9. Sources

The page's machine

The scales, weight by weight

Seven weights, two pans. Each piece names its dictionary and the pan it falls on. RO/SL/LA tags name the language; ATTESTED, RECONSTRUCTED and HYPOTHESIS stamps say how much the evidence weighs.

bogat Romanian today RO ATTESTED

DEX '09: “Din sl. bogatŭ” — no label: a standard word. Plural bogați, stress bogát. (DEX)

bogăție wealth RO ATTESTED

DEX '09: “Bogat + suf. -ie” — Romanian derives “wealth” from “rich” itself. Plural bogății. (DEX)

bogatŭ Old Slavic SL ATTESTED

DER: “Sl. bogatŭ” — citing Bulg. bogat and Alb. bugat. The Slavic link holds. (DER)

bogŭ the disputed base SL RECONSTRUCTED

Vasmer: “От *bogъ „бог” или *bogъ „достояние, доля”” — god OR wealth. ESSJa puts its weight behind wealth: the base means “happiness, wealth, abundance”. (Vasmer; ESSJa)

ubogŭ deprived of wealth SL ATTESTED

Vasmer: “образовано с приставкой u-… От *bogъ „богатство”” — built with u-, from “wealth”; Shansky: “deprived of wealth”. Read with today's “God” in mind, it looks like “godless” — the temptation, not the gloss. (Vasmer; Shansky)

ubogi · ubog the neighbours SL ATTESTED

Polish ubogi “poor”, Serbo-Croatian ubog “(dated) poor”, Russian убогий “wretched, poor”. The mirror survives next door. (dictionaries)

fortunātus the analogy LA HYPOTHESIS

Schulze, via Vasmer (KZ 45, 190): bogat formed like Lat. fortunātus — “хранимый богами”, kept by the gods. An old, beautiful hypothesis — but still a hypothesis. (Vasmer)

Ubog has no place on the Romanian pan: searching all aggregated dictionaries, dexonline answers “Cuvântul ubog nu este în dicționar”. The Slavic mirror lives in Polish, Russian and Serbo-Croatian.

What it brought along

Naturalized: stress, kin, senses

The word has behaved like a Romanian word since the day it arrived: final stress, regular plural, a whole family of derivatives — all documented.

Stress and plural: bogát, bogați

DOOM 3: bogát, pl. bogáți; bogățíe, pl. bogățíi. Nothing spectacular — which is exactly the point: this is what settled words look like. (DEX)

Derivatives: a well-off family

DER: bogătan/bocotan, bogătaș, bogătate, bogăție, îmbogăți, îmbogățitor. DEX lists none inline — DER keeps the ledger. (DER)

Old senses: numerous, stout

DER sense 4: (Înv.) “Numeros”. MDA2: (Reg.) “Corpolent”. Wealth was once counted in people as well as in flesh. (DER; MDA2)

First attestations, no years

MDA2: bogat “At: COD. VOR. 117/14”, bogăție “At: CUV. D. BĂTR. II, 451” — shelfmarks, not years. This page adds no year of its own. (MDA2)

Bogdaproste, the neighbour

A different Slavic journey, told in its own piece: MDA2 “E: bg бог да прости”, attested in 1746. A bridge to the neighbour, not confusion. (MDA2)

The Pietroasa treasure painted by Ion Negulici
Negulici paints the Pietroasa treasure: wealth in a Romanian frame. Photo: Ion Negulici, Wikimedia Commons, public domain

DEX '09: Din sl. bogatŭ →

The same root, other tongues

Cousins: bogat in four languages

From the Balkans to Russia, the same bogatŭ names the rich — while Roman luck goes its own way.

Bulgarian богат: the same Slavic family

RBE: one who holds material goods in abundance — modern senses, no etymology in the entry. The historical morphology (*bogŭ + -at-) comes from ESSJa. Plus богатство, “wealth”. (RBE; ESSJa)

Serbo-Croatian bogat: v. Bog

HJP: “prasl. i stsl. bogatъ…, v. Bog” — the cross-reference seals the word family; the base's historical sense is argued from etymology, not from cross-reference. (HJP)

Polish and Russian: the northern branch

bogaty, first attested in the 14th century — an early attested witness of the Polish branch; богатый, with the parallel “Latin dīs, dīves (akin to deus, dīvus)” on its page. (dictionaries)

Fortuna: the Roman luck

L&S: fortūna, “chance, hap, luck, fate, fortune (good or ill)”. English fortune comes from the same place, around 1300. A different logic: the lot, not the god. (L&S; dictionary)

Beggar boy, a painting by Ivan Tvorozhnikov
Beggar boy, Tvorozhnikov: the street mirror. Photo: Ivan Tvorozhnikov (1848—1919), Wikimedia Commons, public domain

RBE: богат →

Who holds the scales

Four witnesses

From DEX to Vasmer and Zagreb: four dictionaries, each holding one corner of the scales.

DEX '09

“BOGAT, -Ă, bogați, -te … – Din sl. bogatŭ.”

The Explanatory Dictionary, s.v. bogat

The Romanian seal: from Old Slavic. Identical in DEX '98.

DER

“…în romanică nu s-a păstrat cuvîntul lat. care exprimă această noțiune.”

Ciorănescu, DER, s.v. bogat

The remark — and what follows from it: Romance did not retain the Latin adjective for “rich”: Romanian borrowed from Slavic, French from Frankish (riche ← *rīkī), Italian from Lombardic (ricco ← rihhi), Spanish from Gothic (rico ← reiks). (DER; Wiktionary; Treccani; DLE)

Vasmer

“От *bogъ „бог” или *bogъ „достояние, доля”.”

Vasmer, s.v. бога́тый

The double track, in the original: from bogŭ “god” or “wealth, share”. ESSJa reads the base as wealth.

HJP

“prasl. i stsl. bogatъ …, v. Bog.”

Hrvatski jezični portal, s.v. bogat

Zagreb points to the Bog entry, confirming the word family. The base's historical sense — from etymology, not from cross-reference.

Vasmer: бог →

Where we stand

What we know and what we reconstruct

Four drawers for the whole page: the scales, the root, why it holds, and what stays open.

What we know

Bogat ← Old Slavic bogatŭ = bogŭ + -at-; bogăție is a Romanian derivation (Bogat + -ie); ubog “deprived of wealth” has no entry in dexonline's aggregated dictionaries.

What we reconstruct

*bogŭ with the base sense “wealth, share, fortune” (ESSJa); deeper still, the PIE root *bʰeh₂g- “to divide” (tertiary dictionary) — the least certain step on the ladder.

Why it holds

DEX, DER, ESSJa, Vasmer, the Bulgarian academy and the Croatian portal tell the same chain, each covering its own stretch — with different weights, shown on the stamps.

What stays open

“God” or “share” — the scales, not the verdict; why no ubog?; bugăt — the dictionaries disagree; the Romanian attestation years.

Three stops

Three dates

The whole journey on one track: the old witness, the dictionary, the seal.

  1. Ostromir

    1056–1057

    The Ostromir Gospel: оубогаѭ — πτωχήν, “the poor woman”, at f. 116a. The family's thousand-year-old witness. DOCUMENTARY WITNESS (Vasmer; Vostokov 1843)

    stop 1 of 3

  2. DER

    1958

    Ciorănescu starts the etymological dictionary: “Sl. bogatŭ” — with the remark about the Romance languages.

    stop 2 of 3

  3. DEX '09

    2009

    The seal: “Din sl. bogatŭ” — with bogați for plural and bogát stressed on the final syllable.

    stop 3 of 3

1955–57 DLRLC · 1998 DEX '98 · 2010 MDA2 · 2021 DOOM 3.

The word's road

  1. *bogŭ

    wealth, share, fortune — in Slavic

  2. bogatŭ

    the well-off one — in Slavic

  3. bogatul

    the rich man — in Romanian

Where the scales tip

Three questions, three weights

The chain is solid — the meanings weigh differently. What stays on the table: DISPUTED

“God” or “share”?

Vasmer writes “или”, but the scales do not hang level: ESSJa derives *bogatъ from *bogŭ with the base sense “happiness, wealth, abundance”, and Schulze (“kept by the gods”) remains a hypothesis. The wealth track weighs more.

Why no ubog?

Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian have it (Vasmer lists болг. убо́г, сербохорв. у̀бог); dexonline's aggregated dictionaries hold no entry. None of the dictionaries consulted says why — the hole stays visible.

Bugăt: what do the dictionaries say?

MDA2: “etimologie necunoscută”. Scriban (1939): “(d. bogat)”. DEXI: “cf. bogat”. DER lists it as “Var. (Mold., Trans.) bugăt”. The dictionaries disagree: MDA2 leaves the etymology unknown, while Scriban, DEXI and DER connect the form to bogat in different ways. This page does not adjudicate between them.

On this page every weight shows its stamp — ATTESTED, RECONSTRUCTED, HYPOTHESIS — with its source beside it. The pans do not hang level: that is what makes them scales.

What is NOT disputed: bogat ← Slavic, bogăție derived inside Romanian, the neighbours' ubog mirror — every source agrees on those.

DER: Sl. bogatŭ →

Test yourself

What kind of evidence is it?

Six claims from the page, three drawers: ATTESTED, RECONSTRUCTED, HYPOTHESIS. File each piece of evidence — and learn why.

Pick a drawer for each claim: keys 1–3 or a tap on the drawer. Verifying reveals the why.

  1. Romanian bogat

    Drawer

  2. bogatŭ in Old Slavic

    Drawer

  3. Common Slavic *bogatŭ

    Drawer

  4. The base *bogŭ = “wealth, share”

    Drawer

  5. The PIE root *bʰeh₂g- “to divide”

    Drawer

  6. “Kept by the gods” (Schulze)

    Drawer

Score: 0 of 6

The right drawers, with their whys:

  1. ATTESTED — Romanian bogat. DEX '09 prints it: “Din sl. bogatŭ”. What the dictionary prints is attested.
  2. ATTESTED — bogatŭ in Old Slavic. DER gives it as “Sl. bogatŭ”; ESSJa cites the Old Slavic form (SJS).
  3. RECONSTRUCTED — Common Slavic *bogatŭ. A form reconstructed by linguists (ESSJa), not copied from any parchment.
  4. RECONSTRUCTED — The base *bogŭ = “wealth, share”. ESSJa reconstructs the base here with the sense “happiness, wealth, abundance”.
  5. RECONSTRUCTED — The PIE root *bʰeh₂g- “to divide”. An even deeper reconstruction, from a tertiary dictionary — the least certain step.
  6. HYPOTHESIS — “Kept by the gods” (Schulze). The analogy with Lat. fortunātus is an old scholarly hypothesis, cited by Vasmer — beautiful, unproven.

Every claim in its drawer, each with its reason.

Sources

Slavic first, then Romanian, then the cousins; neighbours last. Every risky claim points to its source.

Slavic

Romanian

Cousins and mirrors

The witness and the Latin gap

Catalogue neighbours

Type: Fraunces and Source Serif 4, under the SIL Open Font Licence.