mariuscomper.ukRomână

HOTAR · HATÁR · TERMINUS

How did the boundary learn to decide?

Where does the word hotar come from? From Hungarian határ — the stone and the line, documented since 1086. From it, according to DEX, Romanian made hotărî: to bound, to delimit, to settle. MDA2 and DER also point to the Hungarian verb határozni, so the verb's road stays disputed… but “to decide” when? And Latin walked the same road alone: terminus → determinare.

Draw the line

1086
“cumulus hoc est hotar”, at Bakonybél
1646
“hotarul vecinului său”, in the Pravila
?
first attestation of “to decide”: unknown
A parish boundary stone: the mark that dividesTerminus, god of boundaries, in Erasmus's devicePannonhalma Abbey, whose archive keeps the “Pannh. 15/Oo” thread
Three pictures, one line:
Stone, Terminus, archive: three ways of seeing one line.

Contents

  1. Line
  2. Years
  3. Cousins
  4. Witnesses
  5. The tally
  6. Four acts
  7. Dispute
  8. Game
  9. Sources

The page machine

The line, stone by stone

Seven stones, three languages. Press each piece: see which language it comes from and which dictionary holds it. The RO/LA/HU labels show the language; the stone is the line itself.

hotar today's Romanian RO

DEX '09: “– Din magh. határ” — line, stone, estate. (DEX)

hotărî the verb RO

DEX '09: “– Din hotar” — II old “a pune hotar”, I “a decide”. (DEX)

határ Hungarian HU

ÚESz: “1086 hotar; hatar” (Dl. 208421); OklSz, p. 356: “…quod uulgo dicitur hotar” (dated 1095 by old convention). Mound and line. (ÚESz, OklSz)

határoz to trace, Hungarian-style HU

ÚESz: “1519 k. hataroza 'határul kitűz… megállapít'” — to trace, to settle. (ÚESz)

hat to push forward HU

ÚESz: “Örökség az uráli korból” — kattɜ- “to press on, to go”. With a “probably”. (ÚESz)

terminus Latin LA

L&S: “a boundary-line, boundary, bound, limit” — the god and the line. (L&S)

determinare the twin LA

L&S: “to bound… II. Transf., to fix, settle, determine” — the same metaphor, another kin. (L&S)

hotter does NOT enter the machine: “germ. dial. hotter” is Scriban's outdated curiosity — it stands in the stamp, not on the thread.

At home

Ploughmen, chroniclers, surveyors: 1392?–1776

The 14th century may already know the word — scholarship reports hotar (1392), the charter not re-verified here. Certainty starts with ploughing and writing: the Pravila punishes, the chroniclers draw neighbours.

1392: hotar inside a Slavonic charter

The Old Ukrainian Slovnyk cites under ХОТАРЬ an “а хотарь… до сєрєта” from a 1392 charter of Roman I (Costăchescu I, 7). Recent literature identifies the deed: the 30 March 1392 donation to Ionaș Viteazul (DRH A, Moldova I, doc. 2). Tamás and Kelemen read the form as a Romanian element of Hungarian origin. The same form also lives in the 998 Old Ukrainian corpus occurrences, and the deed itself is Slavonic: the token's belonging stays a matter of interpretation. A Romanian word inside a Slavonic document is a different thing from continuous Romanian text — and that begins securely in 1646. (Slovnyk, Tamás, Kelemen)

1646: the Pravila

Eustratie, “Pentru plugari”: “…să nu cumva îndrăznească a eși den hotarul său… căci au călcat hotarul altuia”. Gaster I, p. 119. (Pravila)

1645–1675: the chroniclers

Ureche: “hotarul cel bătrân lăsatu”. Costin: Silesia “se hotăresce cu dênșii acea țéră” — it borders. Kogălniceanu 1872, t. I, pp. 181, 253. (Chronicles)

1717–23: Cantemir

The Hronic: “după hotărârea a tuturor… gheografi iaste hotarul Dachiii” — hotărâre as boundary-fixing. Unpaginated transcription. (Cantemir)

Family: surveyors and waverers

hotarnic (1776, Uricariul); hotărnicie (Prav. Ipsilanti); hotăraș ← Hu. határos (DER); nehotărât (Budai-Deleanu); hotărît, old “delimitat”. (MDA2, DEX, DER)

Custom: beaten at the boundary

Zanne, VI, pp. 151–152: the young witnesses “eraŭ bătuți în lege chiar acolo”, villagers “se lovesc cu capetele” against the mark and curse its breakers. (Zanne)

An old surveying theodolite
A surveyor's theodolite: demarcation by measurement. Photo: Brahmavadini, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Pravila, 1646 (scan) →

The same line, other words

The other boundaries: graniță, frontieră, margine

Four words for the same line: Slavic gives graniță, French gives frontieră, Latin gives margine — but a word's age in the language is not the same as its earliest surviving attestation.

The Slavic graniță

DEX: “Din bg., sb. granica”. DER: “Sl. granica” (Miklosich…). MDA2: first at Neculce; Moldavian variant “hra~”. (DEX, DER)

The French frontieră

DEX: “Din fr. frontière”, old var. fruntarie. MDA2: first at Maiorescu; CADE prints it asterisked. The hurried neologism. (DEX)

The Latin margine

DEX: “Lat. margo, -inis” — a Latin inheritance, hence the oldest in the language of the four; the border sense is secondary, MDA2 marks it “(Îvp)”. Age is not attestation. (DEX)

The double limită

DEX: “Din fr. limite, lat. limes” — a border only inside “limită teritorială”. MDA2: first at Barițiu. French + Latin, bundled. (DEX)

Portrait of Dimitrie Cantemir
Cantemir: hotărâre as boundary-fixing — before granițe. Photo: Rijksmuseum, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

DEX: graniță →

Who saw the line

Four witnesses

From DEX to OklSz and Scriban: four dictionaries, each seeing one stone.

DEX: hotar

“HOTÁR… 1. Linie de demarcație… ◊ Piatră de hotar… – Din magh. határ.”

The explanatory dictionary, s.v. hotar

The Romanian record: line, stone, estate. The most cited seal.

DER: the Slavic reservation

“Mag. határ… Nu este sigur că mag. a dat sl. chotarŭ… însă și cuvîntul rom. poate proveni din sl., cf. sb. atar “regiune”.”

Ciorănescu, DER, s.v. hotar

The etymological reservation: the Hungarian–Slavic direction, disputed. Shown, not hidden.

OklSz: 1095 → 1086

““Inde ad caput quercus et ibi est cumulus hoc est hotar” … “Itur ad signum quod uulgo dicitur hotar” (Pannh. 15/Oo)…”

OklSz, pp. 356–357; DHA 1:250–255

Dated 1095 by OklSz under the old convention — “Pannh.” is an archive shelfmark, not the author-abbey; the authentic core: the Bakonybél census, 1086.

Scriban: the leap in one line

“Limitez, pun hotar. Fig. Decid, pronunț o sentență. Precizez, determin, fixez…”

Scriban, s.v. hotărăsc

The whole leap in one line: hotar → determination → decision.

ÚESz: határ (dictionary) →

Where we stand

What we know and what we reconstruct

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

What we know

hotar ← határ, strongly supported (DEX, MDA2, DER, ÚESz); ÚESz: Rom. hotar from Hungarian, Slovak “unlikely”; hotărî ← hotar (DEX), with “cf határozni” (MDA2, DER).

What we reconstruct

hat ← kattɜ- Uralic (ÚESz, “probably”); -ár with owned morphological difficulties. Little starred, much documented.

Why it holds

Hungarian and Romanian share the same senses — line, territory, the commune's fields (ÉrtSz, DEX); the census gives 1086; the Latin twin determinare walks the same road alone.

What stays open

hotărî: Romanian derivation or a határozni calque?; the old Slavic reservation (DER); the first Romanian “decide” — the date is missing; hotar (1392): the хотарь form stands in Roman I's charter, and reading it as a Romanian element (Tamás, Kelemen) stands beside the 998 Old Ukrainian occurrences.

Four acts

Four acts

The whole road on one line: the stone, the crossing, the verb — and the gap.

  1. The stone

    1086

    “cumulus hoc est hotar” — the mound is called hotar, in the authentic core of the Bakonybél census.

    stop at 1 of 4

  2. The word crosses

    1646

    “hotarul vecinului său” — the Iași Pravila; a 1392 хотарь (Roman I's charter) is read by Tamás and Kelemen as a Romanian element — Slavonic deed, open interpretation.

    stop at 2 of 4

  3. The line becomes a verb

    c. 1675

    “se hotăresce” — Costin: to border, to delimit. (conventional date)

    stop at 3 of 4

  4. The line enters the mind

    ?

    “to decide” exists today; the first attestation is missing. We see both banks — not yet the ford.

    stop at 4 of 4

Inde ad caput quercus et ibi est cumulus hoc est hotar.

Itur ad signum quod uulgo dicitur hotar.

Typographic reconstruction after OklSz, pp. 356–357 (shelfmark “Pannh. 15/Oo”, dated 1095 by old convention). cumulus = mound, boundary mark; quercus = oak; signum = mark; uulgo = in the people's tongue. hotar stands lit where Latin translates it.

1086 Bakonybél · 1392? reported · 1519 határoz · 1776 hotarnic · 1779 elhatároz · Budai-Deleanu nehotărât · 1901 Zanne.

Three parallel threads

  1. határ → határoz → elhatároz

    Hungarian: boundary, to settle, to decide (1779)

  2. hotar → hotărî → “to decide”

    Romanian: boundary, to delimit… the first “decide”, unfound

  3. terminus → determinare

    Latin: boundary, to delimit — independent, no contact

Where the line tangles

Three questions with unequal answers

The line is solid — the derivations are not. The page verdict: DISPUTED

hotar + -î or cf határozni?

DEX: “Din hotar”. MDA2 and DER add “cf mg határozni”. Calque or clean derivation? The page follows DEX, with the “cf” in view.

Hungarian, with an old reservation

DER also leaves the Slavic route open: “the Romanian word may come from Slavic”. ÚESz, newer: Rom. hotar from Hungarian; derivation from Slovak “unlikely”. The modern evidence strongly favours Hungarian, and the old reservation stays in the literature.

When did it first decide?

MDA2 dates the verb at Costin 1675 — but in the border sense, not the decision sense. The “decide” sense: first attestation unknown. The hole stays visible.

No disputed stone gets a single uncited truth on this page: the derivations stand side by side, the reservations stay visible, the missing datings confess.

What is NOT disputed: hotar ← határ, strongly supported by the modern evidence; the Latin twin walks alone. The rest — the verb's derivation, the Slavic reservation, the first “decide” — stands above, cited.

OklSz, pp. 356–357 (scan) →

Draw the line yourself

Stone becomes decision

Six attestations, four rungs of meaning. Set each card on its rung: from stone to decision.

Choose each card's rung. Keys 1–4 place the chosen card; the Romanian gap at “decide” stays visible, unresolved.

  1. c. 1675 · RO

    Costin: “se hotăresce cu Leșii” — it borders

    Rung
  2. 1086 · HU

    Bakonybél: “cumulus hoc est hotar”

    Rung
  3. 1779 · HU

    ÚESz: elhatároz “dönt” — to decide

    Rung
  4. 1646 · RO

    Pravila: “hotarul vecinului său”

    Rung
  5. 1519 · HU

    ÚESz: határoz “megállapít” — to settle

    Rung
  6. 1717–23 · RO

    Cantemir: “hotărârea Dachiii” — boundary-fixing

    Rung
  7. The gap: the first Romanian “to decide” — rung unresolved.

Score: 0 of 6

The right rung, card by card:

  1. STONE — 1086 · HU Bakonybél: “cumulus hoc est hotar”; 1646 · RO Pravila: “hotarul vecinului său”
  2. DELIMITATION — c. 1675 · RO Costin: “se hotăresce cu Leșii” — it borders; 1717–23 · RO Cantemir: “hotărârea Dachiii” — boundary-fixing
  3. SETTLING — 1519 · HU ÚESz: határoz “megállapít” — to settle
  4. DECISION — 1779 · HU ÚESz: elhatároz “dönt” — to decide
  5. The gap: the first Romanian “to decide” — rung unresolved.

Composition years are conventional; the first Romanian “to decide” is missing from the row — the page owns the gap.

Sources

First the Hungarian thread, then the Romanian years and the Latin twin; the neighbours last. Every risky claim points at its source.

The Hungarian thread

The Romanian years

The Latin twin and the rivals

Catalogue neighbours

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