BMScott wrote:
>The OED has an extensive but dated discussion:
>
> Not found in other Teut. langs.; the ulterior etymology is
> doubtful. Connexion of some kind with OE. á, AY is
> probable on account of the sense.
>
> If it be a compound of á, the second element should begin
> with f or less probably with b, and contain the vowel
> (i:). The most plausible suggestion hitherto made is
> that of Cosijn (Taalk. Bijdragen II. 267), that it is
> equivalent to Goth. *aiw faírhwau `ever in life'; cf. the
> common OE. phrase á tó feore in similar sense; also OHG.
I.e., io, eo "always". In modern German je. Akin to
ewig, Ehe; contained in immer, irgend, jeder, jeglich,
jemand, nie.
Cf. <seit eh und je> "ever; (has) always (been/done so),"
where both, eh and je, have the same *aiw- origin.
> neonaltre never, lit. `never in life'. This is supported
> by the agreement of the final -a of the ONorthumb.
> {aeacu}fra with the ending of the locative (dat.) of the
> -u declension, to which the n. feorh life (:--*ferhwus)
> originally belonged. The recorded forms of feorh, however,
> do not account for the umlaut; but cf. the cognate OE.
> fíras, OS. firihôs, ON. fírar `men'. A different
> suggestion has been made by Prof. G. Hempl in Mod. Lang.
> Notes IV. (1889) 417, viz. that the word is an adverbial
> case of a subst. compound f. á + byre (:{em}buri) event,
> occasion. On this view its formation would be closely
> analogous to that of Ger. jemals.
But again je- therein < *aiw-
>Brian
As far as the Romanian occurrence is concerned:
the suffixal particle -va, in adverbs (undeva, candva) and
pronouns (cineva, careva) is a variant of the verb <a vrea>
"want; will" (< Lat. *vòlere), 3rd person, singular.
The words built with it are of the "some<something>"
and "wh...ever" kind in English.
All these Romanian va-words have synonyms in
those that are built with the prefixal oare-:
oareunde, oarecand, oarecine, oarecare
("somewhere, sometime, somebody/someone, whoever").
So, they are interchangeable.
An interesting thing is the etymology proposed for oare
in this case: from the Latin volet; and compare with the
Albanian vallë. (It seems, that the proponents suggest we
do not mix up this oare with the interogative adverb oare
(disbelieving: "really?"; or in German: "wohl!" and "wohl?")
and with the conjunction oare, which might have another
etymology, being akin to ori, the plural of oarã "(1st, 2nd
etc.) time" < Lat. hora.
And finally, another curiosity: the -va; oare-; some-; -ever;
irgend- have the prefixal vala- ['vOlO] in... Hungarian: the
equivalents of the above: valahol, valamikor, valaki, valami
[hol "where;" mikor "when;" (verbatim: mi+kor
"what"+"timespan"); ki "who", mi "what"]. Valahogy(an)
is the equivalent of cumva/oarecum in Romanian, "some-
how".
(If I am not wrong, in old Hungarian,
today's /v/ was /w/.)
I have no idea whether vala- is related to Rum. -va
and oare-; Alb. vallë; Ger. je/eh(e) are in some relationship
with one another or not.
But for the -curiously- similar German word wohl [vo:l]
(as an adverb), the etymology seems to be slightly
different: OHG wola, wela, wala < Got. waila "wished,
desired, wanted", IE *uelo "desire, wish, longing for."
George