Categoria: Ancient

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Ancient Catalan document documento English Familiarity French History Intimacy Italian Language Latin Napoletano Napoli Neapolitan Neighbourhood papel paper papier Past Senza categoria Spain Spanish Teacher Translation

Papiéllo from Spanish Papel and French Papier

Ma che è ‘stu papièllo?… What is this papièllo?

A typical phrase of the Neapolitans who find themselves having to read a document full of words difficult to understand. The Papièllo, in fact, in Neapolitan means mainly “document”. It derives from two foreign words: from the Spanish “Papel” and from the French “Papier”. Both words mean, in their respective languages, paper. And Paper is also intended as a document.

But the papièllo in Neapolitan is not only a written document. It can also be only oral.

It can be, for example, a wording on an ancient building, perhaps in Latin. Or a set of information, a decalogue of rules posted inside a civil building. In short, for the Neapolitan the papièllo is something to read or to say that it is really long.

By this we do not mean that Neapolitans do not like to read, on the contrary they will be happy to read a papièllo, provided that they are given the opportunity to make irony.

We know, at this point, that Neapolitan language needs to irony everything. It has to do it to play down, to make a conversation nice and above all to put the interlocutor at ease. To be ironic about something or a situation makes the situation itself lived in a way to read.

So, when a Neapolitan has to read a very long document, then, he announces to the listeners, or even to himself, that that document is a papièllo. Thus he uses the word papièllo to play down and say aloud: “We are ready to face a boring, long but necessary reading”.

But the papièllo can also appear in an informal, family conversations that do not concern official documents. For example, if a child of a Neapolitan family writes a letter to his grandfather for his grandparents’ party or for Christmas, it may happen that he becomes an object of irony on the part of his family. Let’s take an example. It’s Christmas and Carmine, a Neapolitan child, wrote a nice letter for his grandparents to thank them for the gift they made him find under the Christmas tree. The boy puts the letter under his grandfather’s pasta dish and, as soon as all the family members sit at the table, he says to his grandfather: “Look what’s under your plate”. Grandfather will find his grandson’s letter and start reading it. At that moment he will say in front of everyone: “Let’s read this little papièllo who wrote Carmine”. But he will say that in an ironic and above all affectionate sense, because he knows that his grandson is good at school and has written a long but full of love letter.

Let’s take another example. A Neapolitan husband is sent by his wife to do the shopping. The woman wrote her shopping list on a sheet of paper. When the man arrives at the supermarket, he unrolls the sheet and realizes that the list is really long. Then he approaches the shop assistant and asks him, in an almost desperate and compliant tone: “Can you help me, please? My wife gave me the shopping list but it’s a papièllo and I don’t understand anything.”

A typical shopping list that will lead the two lovers to a most certain fight

When the husband returns home, he will probably fight with his wife for forgetting to buy something. And the husband will justify himself by saying: “You gave me to buy a papièllo di roba, “too much stuff” (in this case the word papièllo is accompanied by the word roba, which means stuff), how could I remember everything?”.

So here we go from the irony to the apology. Using words that indicate exaggerated situations can also become, in the Neapolitan language, a form of personal apology for claiming that you are unable to complete a task but certainly not because of an improper fault.

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Ancient crianza English Familiarity food History Intimacy Italian Language Latin Napoletano Napoli Neapolitan Portoguese Senza categoria soul Teacher Translation

Crianza from Portuguese Criança

“Crianza” in Neapolitan means “having a good education”, but not that education that University or school gives you, it is an education that comes from your family and perhaps from your genetics.

A person who has no crianza in Naples is a heartless person. “Crianza” comes from the portuguese word criançaand in this language it is something that has to do with children and their behavior. So we can say that the Neapolitan has taken the innermost meaning of this word to transform, once again, the meaning of its communication. Because if we want to create a cultural link between the Portuguese word and the Neapolitan one, we could say that the crianza is something that is born inside you when you are still a child and if it does not stick in your soul when you are not yet an adult, it is likely that it will never knock at your door.

In Napoli we use to say: “Avere ‘na bona crianza” (having a good crianza), because in the world there are also people who do not have a good crianza, but a bad one. Saying “have a good crianza” is also a wish that one person gives to another who is in difficulty. It is a way to wish him good luck.

As we have already said, crianza is not something that can be bought but certainly can be learned. Those who “nun tenene crianza” (have no goodness) are on the fringes of conscience and usually behave in the wrong way. The underworld, the fraudulent, the profiteers who think only with

selfishness and do not commit themselves to the community. Hence, crianza becomes not only a type of soul but, above all, an attitude that determines our way of life.

What can we do to live according to the laws of crianza? We can act with charity, helping the weakest and those in economic difficulty. But even a small gesture, the simplest one can be understood as a gesture of “good manners”.

Finally, this word enters the head of a Neapolitan since he was a child because it is also pronounced at the table. It is known that the Neapolitan mothers and grandmothers (but basically all the mothers in the world) demand that their little ones eat everything that is brought to the table.When you just can’t finish your whole meal and leave a small bite on your plate, here in Naples, your grandmother or your mother will criticize you in front of everyone saying: “You left on your plate ‘o muorzo d’ ‘a crianza” (you left the bite of the crianza on your plate). A truly ironic and contemptuous way to criticize you who have not been able to appreciate the gift of food and those who, having everything they need, are not used in life to give to those who is in trouble, leaving the poorest a little bite of something that does not help them.

From the meaning of the phrase ” ‘o muorzo d’ ‘a crianza” we can also understand how the Neapolitan is a language of strong social denunciation, able to ironize even on the simplest things, simultaneously educating the interlocutor.

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Ancient English Familiarity French History Intimacy Italian Language Latin managing Napoletano Napoli Neapolitan Neighbourhood Past Senza categoria Teacher Translation

Arrangiammoce from French Arranger

How many times French kings have commanded in Naples?

Many and their presence in the Neapolitan city has not only brought politics, monuments and dominant influences. It has above all enriched the Neapolitan dialect with new words. The words that made up the Neapolitan language, as we have already said, are almost all from other languages. One of these passing languages is French. It has left many memories in our dialect. Among these we find the verb Arranger which in Neapolitan becomes Arrangiare (or Arrangiammoce) which means: to manage a difficult situation.

What meaning does this verb take in the Neapolitan? Arrangiammoce it is above all a way of life, a lifestyle that every Neapolitan citizen got from birth. If you have nothing to live with, you need to get by, if you are faced with a difficulty, everyone must be able to get by, if the fate becomes mocking, we must not break down but get by or learn to manage as best we can.

Have you invited many friends to dinner but don’t have enough food to feed them? Here it is enough that a single member of your group utters the word “arrangiammoce” so as to exhort all his friends not to regret the eventuality but to take the moment with the right spirit, so as to make the evening succeed, better than as it should have been in the initial idea. The Neapolitans, in fact, have more fun when they manage than when they organize everything perfectly. Indeed, in reality, the established organization bores the Neapolitan who loves to surprise and surprise.

This way of doing can also fight poverty and even the sense of desolation that surrounds you when you think you don’t have enough resources to be able to continue living. The meaning of this philosophy of life is perfectly explained in the lyrics of the song Arrangiàmmoce from the soundtrack of the Neapolitan theater show C’era Una volta Scugnizzi:

Arrangiàmmoce…

E si ‘a musica è bbòna And if the Music is goo

Ce facìmmo purtà We will be brought

Ce astrignìmmo ‘o cazóne we tighten our trousers

E tirammo a campà and we keep going

E cammina cammina and walk on, walk on

Pecché ‘a rròbba ce sta because the stuff is there

E sta pure vicino and it’s also close to you

E se trova si ‘a saje truvà And you will find it only if you can

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Ancient English Familiarity French Greek History Intimacy Italian Language Latin Napoletano Napoli Neapolitan Past Teacher Translation

The words of the ancient Neapolitan. The past remembers the future.

Neapolitan is also a “language in the language”. There are many words of the Neapolitan dialect that are no longer used today. Words that our grandparents used, which once bothered us because they seemed vulgar. We are missing the same words today because they found our identity.

When we were young these words of the past were rough in our ears and we made fun of those who used them. For example, I remember the word Muccaturo which in Italian means handkerchief. This word comes from the Catalan mocador and also from the French mouchoir. The Muccaturo empirically makes the sense of dirt, of that dirt that comes out of your nose. The rheum you emit when you sneeze end up right there, in the cotton handkerchief that was kept in the coat pocket and washed only when it had become unusable. To me the image of the muccaturo was really annoying and I remember that when I was a child it scared me, because I didn’t know how to use it when I had a cold. But it is also true that it was of great help to me, because the tissue (the clinex) irritated my child’s skin. The muccaturo was really useful, practical, perhaps unhygienic but safe and faithful. Today in Naples nobody talks about it. The handkerchief is called ‘o fazzuletto (from italian: fazzoletto) and almost all citizens use the paper handkerchief.

Another word that is part of the old Neapolitan is Crisommola, which in Italian means apricot. Crisommola derives from the Greek χρυσοῦν μῆλον (chrysoûn mêlon = golden fruit), and it is a really strange way to call a fruit. The crisommola is perhaps one of the most beautiful fruits. Sweet, orange, tender and soft. Yet the Neapolitans called it this word, difficult to pronounce and annoying to the ears. Today nobody uses the word crisommola. Almost everyone in Naples says “Albicocc” (from Italian Albicocca). It may happen that some greengrocers want to clarify the terminology, specifying that what they are selling you is just a kilo of crisommola. I’ve always made confusion between orange and apricot. Because in Naples the apricot is called crisommola and the orange purtuall (in the past in Naples the oranges were mainly imported from Portugal). And at lunch and dinner almost all my family corrected me because I did not know how to distinguish between the two fruits. I admit that even today I am very confused and tend to never use these two words. Yet crisommola and purtuallo make better the sense of origin, the roots of the words of the Neapolitan language.

Another old word that always made me smile is Mustacce (which in Italian means baffi ) and derives from the Byzantine Greek moustákion and the French moustache. In Naples, the Mustacce are those very thick baffi, the ones that used people in the 1800s and that made a man a real man. All the men in the old portraits and photos have the “mustacce” and those same men were proud to wear them. Today the Mustacce are confused with the beard and represent a single image of masculinity.

Having mustaches meant being grown up, going from childhood to adolescence.

An adult man absolutely had to have mustaches.

Why is it so important to remember the words of the past? Those words make our story and also help us to understand the present.

It is always said that the past was a better place than the present. I can’t say if this statement is correct but I definitely know that Neapolitan cannot be a language that belongs only to the present. The Neapolitan is the past that always returns, the future that calls the past, the present that exists only thanks to what has been and what will be.

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