# Colloquial use of "îs, -s"



## kevin-f

A few times I've seen "-s" appended to words in Romanian, probably always transcribed speech, but I haven't yet figured out what it's abbreviating. (Sorry if this has been covered in a forum question before; tried searching, but I'm not sure the indexing deals with '-s' too well.) I've just got a couple of examples written down, which might actually abbreviate different things. 

(Film, 'Poziţia copilului', Open Subtitles)
Păi mă, Cornelia, ce să-ţi spun?
Astea-s probleme din viaţă.

(Extract from TV polemic)
... așa cum, sincer, avem și tu și eu
de-s anchetaţi înalţă cruci în ceruri 
se miruiesc ca să-și atingă ţelul

Can anyone shed some light?


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## dianadoodles

It is the verb to be, specifically the "sunt". It's usually used in spoken language. So, your first example would be: "Astea sunt probleme din viață;" and the other one would be "de sunt anchetați". In this last example "de" has de meaing of "dacă", in case you didn't know. (alternatively, if I'm missing some important context, it's a misspelled version of "des", "often").


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## farscape

3rd person, plural: *îs* (regional and a bit archaic now) *sunt* (from *a fi*, infinitive) - to be

Astea-*s* probleme din viaţă ->
  Astea *îs* (sunt) probleme din viaţă

de-*s* anchetaţi înalţă cruci în ceruri  ->
 de *îs* (sunt) anchetaţi înalţă cruci în ceruri


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## farscape

dianadoodles said:


> (alternatively, if I'm missing some important context, it's a misspelled version of "des", "often").


Welcome to the WR Romanian forum 
Could be, but I think it's not misspelled.


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## kevin-f

dianadoodles said:


> It is the verb to be, specifically the "sunt". It's usually used in spoken language. So, your first example would be: "Astea sunt probleme din viață;" and the other one would be "de sunt anchetați". In this last example "de" has de meaing of "dacă", in case you didn't know. (alternatively, if I'm missing some important context, it's a misspelled version of "des", "often").


I didn't actually know about 'de' meaning 'dacă'! Thanks, that all makes sense.


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## kevin-f

farscape said:


> 3rd person, plural: *îs* (regional and a bit archaic now) *sunt* (from *a fi*, infinitive) - to be
> 
> Astea-*s* probleme din viaţă ->
> Astea *îs* (sunt) probleme din viaţă
> 
> de-*s* anchetaţi înalţă cruci în ceruri  ->
> de *îs* (sunt) anchetaţi înalţă cruci în ceruri


Ah, interesting to know a bit more about when/how it's used. Thanks.


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## farscape

kevin-f said:


> Ah, interesting to know a bit more about when/how it's used. Thanks.


Can't tell how proficient you are in reading/understanding Romanian, but you could have a go at these dictionary pages online (probably the best/most comprehensive source of Romanian online dictionaries).

Because the original verb is *a fi* (to be) you should search the page for *îs*. There is a tab for the verb conjugation (*Conjugări*) which you can access from the top of the page and you can enable other accepted forms by clicking on *arată* (show) in this line at the end of the table: * forme elidate și forme verbale lungi – (arată).

To me it's a regional form as stand alone (îs), more likely to be used in Moldova than in Muntenia and somewhat archaic form, can't speak of its etymology . Might be worth asking the question in the EHL (Etymology and History of Languages) forum here on WR.

Having said that, the use of *îs* as a contraction in *Unde-s* [Unde îs/sunt] (where are... they?) and _*Astea-s*_ [Astea îs/sunt] (These are) or *Care-s* [Care îs/sunt]] (Which are... they?) is quite common in colloquial speech.


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