Tag: teach

Sometimes words replace images, becoming the phonetic representation of a symbol.

There are many words of the Neapolitan dialect that are expressed in a symbolic way. Words that you can see as you hear them, that evoke imaginative figures.

The onomatopoeia of these words is so representative that it stimulates the attention of the listeners.

One of these symbolic words is Nacchennella. The origin of the etymology of nacchennella is found both in a French phrase and in a Neapolitan expression.

It is therefore a sort of fusion of the two ways of saying that has made the meaning of this word stronger.

In French the ‘N’a qu’un oeil it is that person who belongs to high society, a nobleman we could say, who used the monocle, that is the single-lens glasses. The use of this type of glasses is related to a lifestyle, a real fashion. It was in fact a type of glasses not necessary for the eyes, but only suitable on certain occasions. In short, they were an accessory, an object that completed the snobbish gestures of some members of society. Obviously, single-lens glasses were not only used in France, they were also fashionable in other European salons and also appeared on the streets of Naples.

Nacchennella it also comes from a Neapolitan word. The buttocks, in Neapolitan language, are called nacche. A word that is above all an image. With the nacche, in fact, it is possible to paddle, walking with a waving gait that, in excessive cases, could become the object of derision. The Nacchennela, therefore, in Naples is not only a character of high society but is also the one who acts as if he belonged to high society.

Pretending to be a snob, in fact, can lead to derision. In this case, the irony of the Neapolitan language affects those people, above all men who behave as if they were socially superior to others, acting as snobs. The nacchennella by origin are people of high society, but the nacchennella by emulation are comparable to strange people, whose gestures become funny.

A male nacchennella, in fact, is made fun of just for how he dresses, for how he walks and talks, for how he sways with his hips. And this becomes a funny thing in Naples. One should not think, however, that this can be a topic of homophobia, on the contrary, it is a Neapolitan expression that goes precisely against homophobia.

Here we can understand how, in his irony, the Neapolitan language is also very sarcastic, punitive and cutting.

In a scene from the second season of the tv series L’Amica Geniale (My Brilliant Friend) the protagonist Lila, a girl who belongs to the poor and peripheral neighborhoods of Naples, is invited at a house party of people who live in a high-class neighborhood of the city. Lila feels isolated all the night and the anger grows in her for having been almost ignored by those people. During the party the girl suffers from this condition, realizing that due to some social elements that she misses, she risks being excluded from the most cultured environments of the city of Naples. Full of anger and contempt, she returns home and during the car trip she vents with her husband. Lila, in fact, says: “I have never been bored so much since I was born. It was better if we went to the cinema tonight. It was also better to watch television than to be with those nacchennella (In English it is translated with snobs) “. The verbal power of the word nacchennella, full of indignation and anger towards those people, is associated with the facial expression of the actress who shows excessive annoyance and contempt for the way those people have treated her.

There are words of the Neapolitan language that should never be translated. Sometimes it seems necessary to learn Neapolitan in order to better understand the meaning of things.

It is really reductive to lose the chance to understand the expressive power of some words of the Neapolitan. They can become sometimes an investigative, judgmental and demonizing linguistic form.

A Court that first condemns, then acquits and finally derides you.