Tag: Translation

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Petrusino from Ancient Greek πετροσέλινον (petrosélinon)

Parsley is an aromatic cooking herb, used in many recipes of Neapolitan cuisine. In Neapolitan language it is called Petrusino and comes from the ancient Greek petrosélinon and from the archaic Latin petroselinum.

O’ petrusino (the parsley) looks good everywhere. In sauces, soups, meat and even pasta. You can find it here every day at the table, both at lunch and dinner. In Naples it is used above all to season hot soups, the ones that feed Neapolitans throughout the winter.

From this culinary logic one of the most famous proverbs of the Neapolitan originates:“petrusino ogni mmenesta” (petrusino in every soup). What does it mean and why is it said so? Well when a person is really intrusive, always present in your life, you can call him precisely o’ petrusino and tell him that he is just a petrusino ogni mmenesta.

Obviously this idiom can also be used in a context of friendship and family. For example, when a person is really curious and wants to know everything about events and conversations, he will behave like a petrusino. He mostly meddles in conversations that don’t concern him. This happens especially to Neapolitan children who want to immediately enter the speeches of adults. Parents and grandparents usually scold them with a loving tone saying: “Here, petrusino every mmenesta has arrived!”.

The children of Naples love to be called in this way because it means that they are already behaving like they grow up and that, in some way, they are getting into the good graces of adults who appreciate their precocious curiosity.

Over time, children who heard themselves called petrusino when they were young should learn to be more reserved with strangers as they continue to behave excessively curious within the walls of their home.

When the great Neapolitan families get together, those who had been a petrusino as children continue to be a petrusino even as adults. They do this mainly to carry on a family tradition and make their grandmothers and mothers laugh, remembering the sweet times of their childhood.

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Italian Language Napoletano Napoli Neapolitan Spain Spanish Teacher Translation

Lunfardo and Neapolitan dialect, a history of friendship

A slang invented to deceive the prison guards, a reverse dialect that comes from the other side of the ocean. Lunfardo is a dialect spoken in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, particularly in the port area.

In the book “Aproximación al lunfardo“, José Gobello says that the Lunfardo is neither a language, nor a dialect. According to its definition, Lunfardo is a vocabulario compuesto por voces de diverso origen que el hablante de Buenos Aires emplea en oposición al habla general. A vocabulary made up of voices of various origins that the people use instead of the general idiom.

And the desire to rebellion against the imposed society, activated through the use of a new and unwritten language, could have been born there in Argentina around the twentieth century.

A historical moment in which Argentina had recently gained its independence and had seen hundreds of Italian immigrants arrive in its land, mainly from Southern Italy.

In fact, the linguists affirm that Lunfardo is very similar to the Neapolitan dialect, especially in the musicality of the language. Obviously it also contains nuances of other spoken languages such as Genoese, Piedmontese and some words of the archaic Castilian.

Its use is very frequent, especially in the songs of the typical dance of these cities, the tango. Colloquially, it is called lunfa.

Today, some words of the Lunfardo have been incorporated into the common Spanish of the city of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, while many have fallen into disuse, or have a very infrequent use or limited to certain particular contexts. With the word lunfardo, many now tend to indicate all the slang of Buenos Aires and its surroundings, regardless of whether the origin of the term or of the neologism is linked to the real origin of the lunfardo or not.

The words that compose the Lunfardo are essentially verbs, nouns and adjectives. It is not possible to speak completely in Lunfardo, but at most it can be used terms that compose it.

The choice of a Lunfardism reflects a rebellion against linguistic standards and it is for this reason that it can be considered a unique phenomenon, which expresses a relationship with the world in an ironic, critical and contemptuous way.

Lunfardo is a 5,000-word argot (linguistic register of a social group, whose purpose is to exclude strangers from communication, encrypting the messages exchanged), rich in Italian and Neapolitan words, which is spoken in the cities of the Rio de la Plata.

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Italian Napoli Neapolitan Teacher

Canzo from French Chance

Damme ‘o canzo(dammi il tempo), means Give me timeand it’s a phrase that Neapolitans almost always say when they are angry. Because in Naples almost nobody bears to do things quickly and if someone puts pressure on another then this will be the answer you will hear.

Canzo almost certainly derives from the French chance which in the French language has the same meaning as English and that is “opportunity”.

We have talked several times about the ability of the Neapolitan language to carry out semantic translations on the words that the dialect has taken from other languages, especially from those belonging to the peoples who dominated the city of Parthenope. The Neapolitan translation takes on the meaning of that word, transforming it according to the needs of the Neapolitan citizen.

The word opportunity, in fact, would not have been very appropriate to the Neapolitan language, while binding time to the possibility of doing something makes the idea of something better that must be accomplished with appropriate conditions.

Let’s see when canzo is used by the Neapolitans. We are in a typical Neapolitan family, husband and wife are arguing about the arrangement of new furniture in their living room. The wife is hurrying her husband, telling him every five minutes that she doesn’t like the way he is arranging the furniture. Here then that the Neapolitan husband, after enduring the wife complaining all day, will explode in an ironic controversy by saying to his wife Damme ‘o canzo, that is give me at least time to do what I’m doing and after you will have all the right to complain about my job.

Or canzo can also be used in a hypothetical way. We are in a workplace, the boss is telling his employees to do more things at the same time and to do them as quickly as possible. One of the hardworkers can’t do it all together quickly and then starts to get angry and says to his boss “se me dai ‘o canzo…”that is if you give me the opportunity to do my job calmly I will do whatever you want and I will get my job done.

And finally, the ironic and hypothetical phrase (suspended here as a warning, an admonition) can also be accompanied by the phrase ‘na vrenzola’ ‘e parola (a simple word) when, in a discussion, one person is taking over the other without giving him the opportunity to reply. “If you give the canzo’ to say ‘na vrenzola ‘e parola …”, I will explain everything and I will know how to justify what you are accusing me.

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Italian Language Neapolitan

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.

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Italian Napoletano Senza categoria

Appriesso from French Après

“Vieni appriesso a me”, it’s a phrase of sincere friendship in Naples. It means: come with me, follow me. Whoever tells you this is asking you to trust him while he promises brotherhood and welcome.

The Neapolitan word “appriesso” has two main origins. The first is French and comes from the words apres which means “afterwards, then ..”, the second comes from the late ancient Latin pressum which means “close”. And in fact also in the Italian language, the regional one, below contains these meanings. But in Naples no.

Appriesso it is used for different meanings and situations. It mainly means follow me, that is, walk behind me so that I can show you the way to go. Both metaphorically and literally. If, for example, we get lost in an alley in Naples and ask for information from a stranger, this stranger is likely to tell us: “Vieni appriesso a me (follow me), I’m going in your same direction”. Or if we are in trouble because of an event in our life and we don’t know what to do, it happens that a dear friend of ours tells us: “Vieni appriesso a me, that is, trust me. Do what I tell you and you will see that everything will work out”.

It also has a geographical meaning. If we are in Naples and we have to go to a new place, it may happen that we ask the salesman of a shop for directions because we do not find the house number of the building in which we are headed. And so he will say to us: “Sta ‘cca, ‘o palazzo appriesso. It is there, in the adjacent building (or following this one here)”.

But the most beautiful and romantic meaning of this word is in its meaning of love. When in Naples a girl is courted by a boy it is said that that boy “va appriesso a lei”, that is, follows her with the mind. He lives behind her because he tries to reach her heart.

And finally it can also be a word often used by mothers who have to take care of very young children. Mothers in Naples “vanno appriesso” to their children because they are trying to keep them safe. Safe means first of all that they don’t get hurt but above all that they don’t follow a bad path.

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French Italian

Sciuè Sciuè from French ‘Echouè

The French domination has released many traces of its memory in the Neapolitan dialect. One of these traces is the way to say“sciuè sciuè”.

According to some linguists, the expression derives from the French past participle ‘Echouè which means “to fail, not to succeed”. And in fact in Neapolitan Sciuè Sciuè means precisely “to do something in a hurry”, “to do something superficially”. But this play on words does not have a negative meaning, on the contrary, it replaces negative thinking with a smile.

If in Naples you say Sciuè Sciuè surely you are not talking about something unfinished, but you are saying that something has been completed, in an approximate way. The positive side of the expression lies precisely in the fact that the work was carried out to the end, even if the smallest details were not taken care of.

Life runs fast and we all know that it’s impossible to take care of all the things we would like to do. Here, therefore, that the Neapolitan promises himself to do what he set out to do and also superficially, in order to obtain a result. The negativity of the French verb is therefore overcome on the positive side. From an optimistic point of view.

Was it impossible to do that thing? Well, I did it quickly, but I still did it. And perhaps it has done even better than planning actions.

Because things done quickly can be better than those done in time.

The will to achieve a goal make everything more special.

When is it that Neapolitans use sciuè sciuè? Let’s make 3 examples…

First of all when they have to cook. Sciuè sciuè is mainly used when cooking spaghetti with garlic and oil “aggio fatto ‘e spaghetti aglio e uoglio sciuè sciuè”. Or when we are late and have to get dressed quickly. The Neapolitan says: Don’t look at my clothing ‘cause this morning I dressed sciuè sciuè. And even when we have an important appointment, but first we have to clean at home, then we Neapolitans say “Aggio fatto ‘na passata ‘nterra e ‘ngopp ‘mobili sciùe sciuè ” : I washed the floor and the furniture quickly.

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English Familiarity History Italian Language Latin Napoletano Napoli Neapolitan Neighbourhood Past Senza categoria Spain Spanish Teacher Translation

Guappo from Spanish Guapo

Guappo ‘e casa e strunz ‘e piazza. “Boss in the house and asshole in the square”.

This is the phrase that my aunt always pronounced referring to her neighbor who, as soon as he got home from work, would scream at his wife and children. My aunt wanted to say precisely that this man, so docile when he was around town or at work, acted like a boss when he came home, to let off steam of all his frustrations. But he was really an idiot, a weak, an asshole, because he preferred to treat his relatives badly and not get angry with who he should have.

The guappo in Naples is that person who wants to behave like a boss, a bully, a rude. This word derives from the Spanish “Guapo” which means “Beautiful”. And in turn it probably derives from the Latin word Vappo which means a man who can’t do anything, a lazy. Furthermore, according to some historians of the language, it would also derive from the English slang Wop (With-Out Passport), which was used in the early 1900s in The United States to indicate Italians in a derogatory way.

The guappo must therefore be identified as that individual who likes to create havoc, noise, annoy and act as if he were a boss. He is the man who is always ready to throw himself into the fray of a fight, to create a controversy, to beat the others.

The word guappo is so widespread in Naples that it has created a series of other terminologies and idioms. For example, a Neapolitan refers to the word Guapparia when he means that someone is behaving like a guappo. Or in Naples it is also said: “The guapparia is rising”, to affirm that the nervousness is becoming so strong with respect to an event, that soon it is probable that a violent quarrel will also be reached.

As we have said several times, the Neapolitan dialect is a language that is expressed with much irony. The guappo can be a person who scares others and therefore, to destroy the image of a violent who scares us, in Naples they invented the way of saying Guappo di Cartone (guappo of Cardboard). Who is this kind of Guappo? It is that person who behaves like a boss but who does not know how to handle the situation well.

Above all, he is the one who has very weak enslaved people behind him, who deals with matters of little importance. In short, he is a person who behaves like a guappo only in certain circumstances that are not absolutely dangerous.

It may also be a person who promises revenge but who is actually afraid of facing the enemy and even that asshole in the square who said my aunt.

But Guappo di Cartone is a very big offense in Naples. When someone tells you that you are like that, he is saying that you are a really useless person for yourself and for all others.

You are a Cardboard Guappo because your figure is insignificant, similar to that of a cardboard template.

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Nacchennella from French ‘N’a qu’un oeil

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.

A scene from My Brilliant Friend that express one of the meaning for the word nacchennella.

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.

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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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‘Nciarmà from French (En)Charmer

There are many words of the Neapolitan dialect that derive from other languages and that, once they have entered the Neapolitan, lose or transform their meaning. One of them is ‘Nciarmare. Inciarmare or ‘nciarmare comes from the French verb (En)charmer that in French means to enchant, to amaze. But in Neapolitan it doesn’t mean just that. ‘Nciarmare is a more articulated sort of “arrangiare”. In Naples they say ‘Nciarmà when someone wants to organize something clandestinely or when he wants to organize a plan behind someone’s back.

This verb is also used to indicate gossiping. If two neighbors are on the landing or look out from adjacent balconies, they are sure (if they are gossips) that they will start talking about someone, that is, they will start to ‘nciarmà.

But, we said, that ‘nciarmà is also a more extensive form of “arrangiare”. ‘Nciarmare in fact also refers to the ability of a Neapolitan to organize something, a lunch with friends, or simply the construction of an object, with few tools available but achieving a record goal.

If I am able to ‘nciarmare, I am truly the King of all the genius.

As we have said several times, some words that derive from other languages become in the Neapolitan expression of irony but also of contempt, of pungent criticism. If, for example, a woman is unable to dress well or to match the colors of her clothes, it is certain that the other women (especially the gossips) will tell her that when she dresses, “lei si ‘nciarma”. That is, the woman in question does not know how to dress and that she leaves the house with a style completely inappropriate for the common taste.

Let’s move on to the irony of the male gender. You know, the men in the house are not cookery magicians. And so if a wife who comes home late from work asks her husband to prepare dinner, it is possible that on returning home the woman finds food that she does not think is cooked well. Undercooked, too seasoned, inappropriate on the palate. The Neapolitan wife will then say to her husband: “Cosa hai inciarmato? (What the hell have you did)?”, That is, Cosa hai fatto? Dovremmo mangiare questa schifezza stasera? (Should we eat this junk food tonight?).

And finally we come to an example of pure irony. Two boys who are usually lazy and do nothing from morning to night are surprised by their friends or their parents at home cleaning or building something. A more unique than rare event. Spontaneously then those who discover them will ask with surprise: “What are you doing?” And they will promptly reply: “Stamm ‘nciarmann!”, that is, “we are doing something new and different for us, aware of the fact that it will not be good because we are not used to dealing with household chores. So before criticizing us, know that we ourselves are not appreciating the quality and result of what we are doing.

It therefore seems almost impossible to contrast the dialectic and the genius of the Neapolitan dialect. A language capable of having the answer ready for every single occasion and full of words and topics for every situation.