Now that he's in school, my son's Russian is getting better every day. The other day I heard him say, "Не вешай мне макароны на уши!" ("Don't hang macaroni on my ears!") The actual Russian expression is "лапшу вешать на уши," or hanging noodles (lapsha) on someone's ears, and it means "to tell a lie." I suppose he heard the expression at school and didn't know the word лапша so he substituted Italian macaroni for Russian noodles. Curiously, Russians use the word macaroni for any pasta product, not just elbow macaroni. The word lapsha is reserved for homemade noodles.
According to Vasmer, лапша was borrowed from Tatar laksha, meaning little pieces of dough cooked in a stock.
Well if laksha is small pieces of dough, can it possible have any connection to the laksa of Malaysia, which is a noodle soup? There's Penang Laksa, and a Singapore version, etc...
ReplyDeleteI've been absent from your posts for about three weeks and am enjoying the process of catching up!
warm regards,
n
Fascinating!
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, I have gotten some conflicting feedback from people about what exactly lapsha is. Some say that any noodle can be called lapsha, while others agree with me that it's just homemade noodles, usually thick and flat.
Thinking of stiff pasta dough reminds me that it's pelmeny season already (although you can't tell by looking outside - no snow yet!).