At 6:12:29 PM on Thursday, March 6, 2008, Rick McCallister
wrote:
> Isn't pita from Greek?
From the OED, a 6/2006 revision:
Partly < modern Hebrew <pitta:h> (< Balkan Judaeo-Spanish
<pita> slightly leavened flat bread), partly < the etymon
of the latter, modern Greek <pé:ta>, <píta>, <pítta>
bread, cake, pie, pitta (a1108 in medieval Greek as
<píta>, partly < Serbian and Croatian <pita> (1685), and
partly perh. also < other languages of the Balkans (cf.
Albanian <pite>, Bulgarian <pita>); further etymology
uncertain and disputed. The relationship of the forms in
the different European languages is unclear. Various
ancient Greek etymons have been suggested, but the word
appears to be of fairly recent appearance in Greek (as is
suggested by the variable spelling); also, a plausible
transmission from ancient Greek into the various other
modern languages is difficult to establish. Modern Hebrew
<pitta:h> is written as if descended from an Aramaic form
(cf. Old Western Aramaic <pitt&Ta:>, Eastern Aramaic
<pitta:>, related to Palestinian colloquial Arabic <fatte>
crumb, piece of bread) but there is no continuity between
them. The Arabic word for this type of bread is <kima:j>
(< Persian <kuma:j>). Turkish <pide> (1890) is a
loanword, prob. < Greek.
An ultimate origin in Germanic has been suggested by G.
Princi Braccini (Archivio Glottologico Italiano 64 (1979)
42-89), perh. < an unattested Gothic *bita, cognate with
Old High German <bizzo> bite, morsel, lump, cake made of
flour (see PIZZA n.), whence the word spread first into
Rhaeto-Romance and the languages of the western Balkans,
and then beyond, cf. Romansh (Engadine) <petta>, Ladin
(Ampezzano) <peta>, Friulian <peta>, all in sense 'thin
flat bread', post-classical Latin <petta>, a kind of bread
or flat cake (1249, 1297 in Friulian sources), Albanian
<petë> thin layer of dough or pastry crust, Vlach <pitã>
pie, tart, Romanian regional <pitã> bread, Hungarian
<pite> pie, tart (1598); Italian regional (Calabria)
<pitta> pitta, is prob. < Greek. However, the theory of
Germanic origin presents certain phonological
difficulties. An alternative theory has been proposed by
J. Kramer (Balkan-Archiv 14-15 (1990) 220-31) who sees the
word as ult. of Illyrian origin.
Brian