On the history of formation of the Roman notion order

Linguistic units that nominate such basic concepts of culture as order are interesting both as a part of history and culture,and as an object of defining the historical depth of its formation and genetic connections. Modern European languages possess lexemeswith the meaning of order ascending to Latin ordo (Ger. Ordung, Engl. order, Sp. orden, Fr. ordre, It. ordine). The analysis of usages ofordo by Ancient authors shows chronological changes in its semantics: "order, plan"; "row, line"; "row of seats in theatre, benches","line, rank, front"; "layer"; "stratum"; "position of centurion, head of centurion, manipul"; and, finally, "group of people, crowd". Allthe derivates of ordo expressed the idea of a certain order, conformity of something. The substantive ordo is a derivate of the verb ordior"weave", "begin", "speak, address", "start". The comparison of the meanings of the cognate words allows finding units with thesemantic dominant "join, bind" (Old Ind. "attach, bind", Gr. ἀƒƒƒίƒƒƒ "bind, join", ἀƒƒƒός "union", etc.) and units with the prevailingmeaning "be valid, proper, suitable, satisfactory for something" (Old Ind. ṛtu- "definite time, order", Avestan raīti "ready for service",Gr. ἀƒέƒƒƒ "satisfy", etc.). Indo-Iranian languages back in pre-Aryan times had words that acquired the status of cultural-historicalterms. The common one is *arta-:* ṛta- meaning "suitable, proper", and later "truth; justice; world order; right; law; holy order; deity oftruth, world order of Arta, Asha". V.N. Toporov in his Etymology and Semantics Studies notes that "ṛta- unites, links a thing to a thingin the Universe". The truth (ṛta) of the world is interpreted as a correct organization of objects composing it. The idea of unity of components,which in total represent a thing ordered, complete and organized is a part of the semantics of Arm. ard "structure, construction,form", Tocharian А ratak, В retke "army, military formation", Lat. ars, artis f "craft, skill, mastery", i.e. skillful combination, correctsequence, definite order of actions. Cognate Slavic and Baltic units show the dominance of the meaning "row, order, conformity withthe order" in their semantics: Old Rus. рядъ, Old Slav. рѧдъ "row, rank, position", Bulg. ред "order, line", Slovenian red "row, order,line", Czech řad "order, class (botanic), line", Pol. rząd "row, order", "state system", Lithuanian. rinda "row, line", susirindoti "stand inrows", Latvian rinda "row, line, text line", rist, riedu "put in order". The analysis of words ascending to the IE root *ar-:* ṛ - "unite,join, suit, fit, match" showed that the transformation of the unit's original meaning of a constructive technical action resulted in Latin ina new weavers' term ordior with the semantics of a particular action "form basis" (place threads in rows, in definite order) and in itscontribution to the formation of the socially significant term "order". The basis of the abstract notion "order" is the idea of a synctreticaction connected with the process of simultaneous combining and positioning (in a row) of separate elements that conform to one another.

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