Once again about Galuska & Nokedli
S or G Farkas
At 04:49 PM 7/14/96 +0000, Paolo Agostini wrote:
> The origin of
>these meanings has to be sought in the Romanian word galusca =
>"toltott kaposzta", i.e. "stuffed cabbage", whence Moldavian geluska
>of same meaning.
If you ask any Romanian, there is no Moldavian language. It is an invention
of the Soviet Union, after the annexation of Bessarabia and renaming it to
Moldavia (also changing the alphabet to cyrillic - hence the two different
spellings).
Gabor D. Farkas
Paolo Agostini <pagos@mbox.vol.it>
In my former posting (Sat, 13 Jul 1996 16:32:35 +0200), I wrote:
>As a matter of fact, "spenot", "krumpli" and "nokedli" are loan-words
>from German and they belong to common parlance. Nevertheless, compare Hung.
>"nokedli" with Austrian-German "Nockel", German "Nudel", Engl. "noodles" as
>well as Spanish "noclos" (it has a tilde on the n, pr. nyoklos) and
>you'll realize that's all the same Italian pasta, i.e. "gnocchi".
On Sat, 13 Jul 1996, Ms. Norma Rudinsky <rudi...@UCS.ORST.EDU> wrote:
> And GALUSKA is a Hungarian borrowing from Slovak HALUSKY (= plural
> since no one ever eats just one). The S has a soft mark, making it
> SH the same as the Hungarian S. Whether the Slovak word is related
> to Italian gnocchi seems unlikely etymologically, but the thing
> itself is very similar to the German noodle types obviously. (I'm
> assuming it isn't a Slovak borrowing from Hungarian because of the
> Slavic ending KA.)
It seems my posting was misread: I did not relate Ital. gnocchi to Hung.
galuska, far be it from me!
But let me stress the fact it would be difficult indeed to consider
galuska as a borrowing from Slovak halushka, since the Slovak
trailing h- does never turn into g- in Hungarian. Compare for
example the family name Hunyadi < Slovak hunya 'a raw
masculine clothing; durva haziszottesbol keszitett ferfiruhadarab ',
where /h/ remains /h/.
According to the Historical-Etymological Dictionary of the Hungarian
Language (i.e. A Magyar Nyelv Tortenelmi-Etimologiai Szotara,
briefly TESz, vol. I page 1021) the word "galuska" originates from
Polish, namely from the dial. word "galuszka" (mainly used in its
plural form, i.e. "galuszki"). Yet there are also the Czech and
Slovak forms "haluska" (pl. "halusky", pron. halushki); Ucranian,
Bielorussian and Russian galushka, etc.
The famous Slavist Istvan Kniezsa, in his book "A magyar nyelv szlav
jovevenyszavai" (Bpest 1972 - 2nd ed., vol. I page 180) wrote:
>[Hung. galuska] from Polish Galuszka (regularly Pl. galuszki) =
>"Mehlkloss" (i.e.: "dumplings")... Originally the word meant "Kugelchen,
>Koepfchen" (that is: "small ball, little head") as -- e.g. -- in
>"galuszka maku" (i.e. "poppy head, poppy gall", Hung. "makfej").
>The Slavic words are related to Latin galla "gall-nut" and/or to [Old] Italian
galla
>"gall-nut, growth, abscess, blister" possibly through German "Galle"
>of same meaning.
According to the TESz, the first borrowing of the word galuska took
possibly place in the Higher Tisza (Tibiscus) region. Later it spread
all over Hungary, although being still considered as a "vernacular
word" belonging to the dialects of North-Eastern Hungary. It appears
for the first time in a document from Sarospatak dated 1683.
As Zoli Fekete <fek...@chi3.bc.edu> sagaciously noted, in the name of
some particular dishes related to regional culinary traditions there
is a partial lack of interchangeability between "nokedli" and "galuska", like
for instance in grizgaluska and in majgaluska. This is probably due
to the fact these culinary specialities are tied to a Hungarian region more
than another.
(BTW: the word "griz" -- i.e. "groats, grits, semolina" -- is also a
German loanword, the correct Hungarian word for it is "dara, buzadara").
It should also be noted that we may create compound words with "galuska",
probably as a consequence of the fact this word has a more
"Hungarian" ring. In the case of nokedli instead, we'd have to say "grizes
nokedli" and "majas nokedli". I may be wrong, but IMHO this may be
explained by the fact that "nokedli" sounds "foreign" to an Hungarian
ear, thus making any compound word sound strange.
In the Csango dialect the word "galuska" -- according to Szinnyei
Jozsef's Magyar TajSzotar (MTSz, Budapest 1893-1901) -- has the
meaning of "cabbage stuffing", while the Dictionary of the Csango
Dialect (Yrio Wichmanns Woerterbuch des ungarischen Moldauer
Nordcsango- und des Hetfaluer Csangodialektes nebst grammatikalischen
Aufzeichnungen und Texten aus dem Nordcsangodialekt. Helsinki, 1936)
considers it as a synonym of "toltott kaposzta". The origin of
these meanings has to be sought in the Romanian word galusca =
"toltott kaposzta", i.e. "stuffed cabbage", whence Moldavian geluska
of same meaning.
Although the Hungarian words galuska and nokedli are not directly
related to the Italian language, they both go back to Latin words and
perhaps to the specialities of the Latin (> Italian) cuisine.
Hypothetically speaking, the "galuska" or "nokedli" could be the
original and most ancient recipe of the Italian pasta as it was
taught to the Germans -- illo tempore -- by Julius Caesar's legions
(together with other Roman specialities as for instance "puliszka" or
"mamaliga", a
sort of porridge which was originally made with ground millet, while today
it is made with ground maize).
Up to now we were told that Italian pasta was brought in Italy from
China by Marco Polo (1254-1323). Yet, if we bring our assumption to
an extreme, pasta could be an Italian (Roman?) invention indeed,
while the Chinese contribution would be limited to the shape of the spaghetti.
^^^^^^
Paolo Agostini <pa...@mbox.vol.it>
Finis totius et partis est removere viventes in hac
vita de statu miseriae et perducere ad statum felicitatis
(Dante, Epist. XIII,39)
Liviu Iordache
>The origin of
>these meanings has to be sought in the Romanian word galusca =
>"toltott kaposzta", i.e. "stuffed cabbage", whence Moldavian geluska
>of same meaning.
I was really impressed by the linguistic arguments. However, from my
mother's cookbook :-), I know that "stuffed cabbage" are not
"galuste" but what Romanians called "sarmale." "Galuste" are made out
of egg and farina.
Regards,
Liviu Iordache