Ammuina from Spanish Amohinar

“Nun facite ammuina!”, (Do not make a fuss), a phrase that all Neapolitan children have heard their parents say. The word ammuina comes from the Spanish expression amohinar, which in Spain (and especially in Catalonia) means “to annoy”.

Both the region of Catalonia and the metropolitan city of Naples live in a State within the State and speak a language in the language. Their dialect is the most common form of communication. In those lands comes the dialect first and then the national language.

The concept of ammuina is obviously broader in the city of Parthenope. It can have both a positive and a negative meaning. Generally it has a negative one, because the fuss is always something annoying. But in such a chaotic and transgressive place as Naples the ammuina is also a positive thing. In order to make a revolution or to move a political and social situation it is necessary to do the ammuina. Go to the street to protest, march through the city, shout out loud together that something is not right. Hence the Neapolitan exhorts his friends by telling him “Facimmo ammuina” (let’s make a noise), that is, we go down to the square and go to protest for our rights.

For many years historians believed that the word ammuina was linked to an episode dating back to the events of the Neapolitan Navy. According to some, it derives from a fact that really happened after the birth of the Italian Royal Navy. A Neapolitan officer, Federico Cafiero (1807- 1888), passed to the Piedimontese already during the invasion of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, caught sleeping with the crew, was put under arrest by a Piedimontese admiral for indiscipline. After serving the sentence, the officer was put back in command of his ship where he thought it well to instruct his crew to “make ammuina” (the greatest possible confusion) if a superior officer had presented himself, so as to be warned and, at the at the same time, to demonstrate the industriousness of the crew.

But let’s go back to the most common situations. If two Neapolitan children are left alone in a room to play and leave their toys lying around, their mother will scold them saying “What have you done? Take away this ammuina!”.

And finally, if someone is used to complaining about small nonsense, it is certain that a friend will say to him:“Stai facenn troppa ammuina!”, “You are doing too much for nothing”, ridiculing his way of being, making him go back to reasoning.