Italian here 🍝 don’t care too much about what they think about their or our pasta, given the current inflation rates we must be glad we still have something to eat.
What baffles me is that “Italian pasta” is called “włoski makaron” and that they call Italy “Włochy”. It has something to do with Italian immigrants having had long/uncurated hair in the past, someone explained me, and I find it slightly insulting 🤣 but also funny at the same time.
It only resembles “hair” superficially, it’s a term historically used to refer to Romanized tribes (like the Vlachs/Wallachia) and eventually it was reserved for Italians.
Interesting article… the name for Germans (Niemiecki) reminds me of the Romanian word “Nemți” with the same meaning, they must be cognates. Polish is a really fascinating language.
I didn’t know it and you are absolutely right! Like in ancient Greek “βάρβαρος” (barbarian) which was used to design people who couldn’t speak properly and were just babbling.
Because it has the same root. In Bulgaria we also call them Немци, pronounced the same way as in Romanian. Ням (nyam), means mute, plural is неми(nemi), Nemți sounds more like people from a land where people are mute (speak gibberish )
Italian here 🍝 don’t care too much about what they think about their or our pasta, given the current inflation rates we must be glad we still have something to eat.
What baffles me is that “Italian pasta” is called “włoski makaron” and that they call Italy “Włochy”. It has something to do with Italian immigrants having had long/uncurated hair in the past, someone explained me, and I find it slightly insulting 🤣 but also funny at the same time.
https://culture.pl/en/article/wlochy-poland-word-by-word
It only resembles “hair” superficially, it’s a term historically used to refer to Romanized tribes (like the Vlachs/Wallachia) and eventually it was reserved for Italians.
Interesting article… the name for Germans (Niemiecki) reminds me of the Romanian word “Nemți” with the same meaning, they must be cognates. Polish is a really fascinating language.
Doesn’t that mean “mute”, as in “their non-Slavic language sounds like gibberish to us”?
I didn’t know it and you are absolutely right! Like in ancient Greek “βάρβαρος” (barbarian) which was used to design people who couldn’t speak properly and were just babbling.
Because it has the same root. In Bulgaria we also call them Немци, pronounced the same way as in Romanian. Ням (nyam), means mute, plural is неми(nemi), Nemți sounds more like people from a land where people are mute (speak gibberish )