# Kartoffel (German) / Kartofi (Pontic Greek)



## Perseas

Hello,
I 've learned that "potato" is called "kartofi" (καρτόφι) in Pontic Greek, which sounds very similar to the German "Kartoffel". Are these words related etymologically? I've read that the German word is of Italian origin and the Pontic of Slavic origin. Thanks in advance.


----------



## bearded

Perseas said:


> I've read that the German word is of "Italian" origin


Very probable, but it's disputable whether from_ tartufo_ (actually: truffle) or from _carciofo_ (actually: artichoke) - in both cases with c/t dissimilation.


----------



## fdb

The German "Kartoffel" has been borrowed into several languages spoken near the Pontic region, including Russian, Ukrainian and Armenian. Presumably Pontic Greek borrowed it from one of these.


----------



## danielstan

Romanian cartof is definitely a German loanword (Kartoffel).

From Romanian articles found on internet I learnt the potato was introduced in Transylvania (as province of Habsburg Empire) around 1814-1815 because of the famine of those years and next years it was introduced in Moldova and Wallachia from Transylvanian Saxons. The first names of the plant were all German loanwords and one of them (Kartoffel) was generalized.


----------



## Terio

In French, _cartoufle_ was used in the XVI th century. From Geman Kartoffel.


----------



## Abaye

In colloquial Hebrew we have both _kartoflach_ (from Yiddish, thus German) and _kartoshkes_ (from Russian), both usually in this plural form, both tend to phase out. The words immigrated along with their speakers.


----------



## Swatters

A map of the words for potato in Gallo-Romance, from this blog post by linguist Mathieu Avanzi:







Loans from German include the type crompîre /krõpiːr ~ krõbiːr/ in Belgium (from Grundbirne, ground pear), and "cartoffel"  mostly in the West of the Franco-Provencal area. The ALF data that was using to produce this map reveals the forms labeled "cartoffel" are actually /katruʎə ~katruçʎə ~ katryçʲ ~katrɔflə/ in Franco-Provençal and /kartuʃ/ in the one Walloon data point (the fl > ʎ shift in FP is reminiscent of the one that produced French nouille (a suspected loan from an Eastern Gallo-Romance language) -now /nuj/, older /nuʎə/- from German Nudel)

(Other variants are loans from Spanish patata, loans and calques from Italian tartufflo, native forms meaning earth apple (this includes kmotierre from a pomo > pmo > kmo shift) and earth pear, diminutive forms of apple and pear (poiratte, pomatte), and canada, from a truncation of Canadian truffle (wal. truke do Canada))


----------



## bearded

Swatters said:


> from Italian tartufflo,


Sorry, never heard in Italian.


----------



## Swatters

You're right, I just unthinkingly copied what was on the map, the etymon was probably tartufolo.

The TLFi has "_cartoufle_ (Olivier de Serres, _loc. cit._ [Vivarais]; Lyonnais, Franche-Comté, Bourgogne), adapt. du suisse aléman. _cartoffel_ (1639, Berne d'apr. _FEW_, _loc. cit._, p. 388a), lui-même prob. adapté de l'ital. _tartuffoli_ « pomme de terre » (relevé par le botaniste bâlois Gaspard Bohin en 1596, _FEW., ibid._), issu du lat. _terrae tuber_ [*_terri tufer_] « truffe » (Mart., 13, 50; Juv., 14, 7, v. André _Bot._, p. 322). De l'ital., véhiculé par la Suisse, l'all. _Tartuffel_ (1651), _Cartoffel_ (1758), _Kartoffel_, Kluge 20; de même orig., le type dial. gallo-rom. _tartoufle_, dont l'aire géogr. recouvre à peu près celle du type _cartoufle_ (_FEW, op. cit._, p. 386 b)."


----------



## bearded

Swatters said:


> the etymon was probably tartufolo


Our standrad word for truffel is 'tartufo'.  _Tartufolo/tartuffolo _sounds like a dialectal or regional diminutive - probably as spoken in some border region, and from there passing into Switzerland.
Thanks for your interesting etymological information.


----------



## merquiades

According to that map there should be a big chunk of France saying Tarfufflo for Potato.


----------



## berndf

bearded said:


> Our standrad word for truffel is 'tartufo'.  _Tartufolo/tartuffolo _sounds like a dialectal or regional diminutive - probably as spoken in some border region, and from there passing into Switzerland.
> Thanks for your interesting etymological information.


_Kartoffel_ is indeed from Italian _tartuffolo_, which means _little truffle_. What I learned many years ago (if I remember correctly) was that a 16th century cardinal called the potato so because of its shape when he first saw a potato. It entered German as _Tartuffel_ and later changed to _Kartoffel_.


----------



## berndf

merquiades said:


> According to that map there should be a big chunk of France saying Tarfufflo for Potato.


According to the map it should be _tartufflo _or _tartifle _in my region but I have never heard that in modern use, except indirectly in the name of the dish _tartiflette_.


----------



## Olaszinhok

berndf said:


> Italian _tartuffolo_


Tartufolo o tartuffolo is Tuscan, hence Italian a few centuries ago.
tartufo: definizioni, etimologia e citazioni nel Vocabolario Treccani


----------



## berndf

Olaszinhok said:


> Tartufolo o tartuffolo is Tuscan, hence Italian a few centuries ago.
> tartufo: definizioni, etimologia e citazioni nel Vocabolario Treccani


Pianigiani's dictionary (etimo.it) mentions _tartuffol_ as the Milanese version. With the typical reduction of full vowel to Schwa in German the development _tartuffol > Tartuffel > Kartoffel_ looks straight forward.


----------



## merquiades

@berndf  I have heard on a very few occasions _poire de terre _but people say much more frequently_ patate_ which is supposed to be used on the west coast according to that map. I always thought _poire de terre _was an attempt to be funny, if you can have earth apples why not earth pears, or maybe there was a particular type of potato called that. There are cads of potato strains nowadays. Then I saw a folk group perform whose name was Les Grombirs, from Lëtzebergesch for potato. I finally made the association with German _Grund_ and _Birne_ and _poire de terre _and thought the word was German in origin, probably _Grundbirne. _But then I learned _Kartoffel. _


----------



## berndf

merquiades said:


> Grombirs, from Lëtzebergesch for potato. I finally made the association with German _Grund_ and _Birne_ and _poire de terre _and thought the word was German in origin, probably _Grundbirne._


A would guess a dialectal form of _Grumbinne_, a formerly widespread variant of _Grundbirne_. But as _Grumbinne_ was most popular in the East, the word, together with all its variants, has become rare after the loss of the areas east of the rivers Oder and Neiße.


----------



## OBrasilo

For what it's worth, _Grundbirne_ / _Grumbier_ survives in Slovenian _krompir_ which is the standard word for potato. It also exists in Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian as _krumpir_ and Macedonian as _kompir_.

As for _Kartoffel_, yes, that was borrowed into Russian as _kartofel'_ (diminutive _kartoshka_), and likely from there to Pontic Greek.


----------



## merquiades

@berndf It's now obvious where the origins of Tartiflette come from. 

So interesting how these earth apples, pears and truffles have spread around Europe from place to place.
Potato itself stems from _patata_ which also meant another fruit/vegetable,  the sweet potato in Taino (_batata_).


----------



## Frank78

berndf said:


> A would guess a dialectal form of _Grumbinne_, a formerly widespread variant of _Grundbirne_. But as _Grumbinne_ was most popular in the East, the word, together with all its variants, has become rare after the loss of the areas east of the rivers Oder and Neiße.



I've never heard this word despite my grandma was from Silesia. Wikipedia says it south-western German.


----------



## Swatters

merquiades said:


> According to that map there should be a big chunk of France saying Tarfufflo for Potato.



It's a map of the various local Romance languages of France, Switzerland and Belgium, not of current French vernacular usage. It does show rather well how the German and Italian terms spread well beyond their borders. For patata, I assume Atlantic trade with Spain and Portugal helped it spread to the West coast of France (and in Belgium potentially political links?)

But for what it's worth, alongside French patate (which yes, is the dominant term) and pomme de terre, I've heard wal. pètote and canada used as well. The vitality of those terms is going to dependant on how well each of those languages has survived locally.


----------

