Talk:Pita

Etymology

I split the etymology section, retaining all of the content. Much of that section seemed to be arguing about the origin of the bread, rather than the etymology of the word 'pita'; the etymology part had some sources, the origin of bread pieces have none, which is a recipe for an edit war. Splitting might give the sourced part some stability. Hopefully someone can help with the rest? --Bazzargh (talk) 00:31, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, idk much about how to start a talk, and this section looks the most relatable, please forgive me if it's not correct to type it here. So I have a question about the etymology of pitta, which as you'll see raises a series argument. If the word pitta is of ancient greek origin, how can it be a loanword from the turkish pide at the same time. somethings not right here and i bet it has to do with the job done in the work that is placed as reference 2A02:587:DA41:7B00:3CCA:C42F:B446:3D36 (talk) 01:13, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Sorry I am greek

Read to the end

Hi live in the UK but I am from Greece I have been living in England for my hole life but I can speek Greek and I say pita bread, bita bread and people make fun of me. (the reason why we say bita bread is we pronounce the b as a p( 86.18.93.86 (talk) 11:38, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Pita is too general/whitewashed a term

To lump and redirect all pita or flat breads such as Lebanese Bread into this one tiny article — and then not mention them — is whitewashing. The differences — to put it in terms anglos might better understand — is like comparing hotdog rolls to sliced bread, except with thousands of years of different cultures behind each one. Anonapop (talk) 01:33, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Israeli Hebrew pita does not come from "Classical Hebrew..."

Were the Israeli Hebrew word pita of "Classical Hebrew" origin, it would be stressed on the final syllable, but the fact that stress falls on the penultimate syllable points to Judezmo and Yidish as its immediate sources. Details here:

Gold, David L. 1989. "Another look at Israeli Hebrew pita 'flat bread': a borrowing from Judezmo and Yiddish." Romance Philology. Vol. 42. No.3. February. Pp. 276-278. S. Valkemirer (talk) 19:47, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

"unsourced"?

@User:Glman, I didn't add any new information. These information were/are already in the article. I just sorted and organized them. What do you mean by "unsourced"? 176.28.150.183 (talk) 13:16, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

if you dont mind, i will revert your revert 176.28.150.183 (talk) 15:52, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

"Fatteh" is definitely not derived from "pita"

See wikt:Appendix:Arabic_roots/ف_ت_ت.

It most likely originated from this Semitic root, see "Fatoot" in this book by Gil Marks.

You can also check Fatteh#Etymology for more sources.

Furthermore, the modern use of the words "fatteh" and "pita" is very different, and the root f-t-t is very commonly used today, but that's just my own personal opinion.

I don't have access to the Oxford dictionary, so I cannot confirm if it actually says this, and frankly, even if it did, I think its flat out wrong, it contradicts every other source and the everyday common sense we used to interpret the language. 2kbfloppadisk (talk) 17:08, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

I've removed it as irrelevant to the etymology of the subject. If someone wants to restore it to a different section on derived cuisine, that's a different matter. Though as you note, it actually seems rather dubious, so it's rather begging for at least another source or two supporting it. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:05, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

The Gil Marks postulation would be worth adding on fatteh. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:07, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Alright, I have added it, and included the root. 2kbfloppadisk (talk) 20:49, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Incidentally, the most obvious reason why the Oxford etymology is suspect is that bread in Arabic is universally khubz or kmaj, not pita, so why would they name a dish after the Greek spelling phonetically drifted? ... and if the dish is so old that it dates back to the Greek or earlier periods, the evidence for this is going to need to be all the more compelling. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:18, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Indeed this statement has implications that I think need to be addressed and backed by more evidence, does fatteh here refer to the bread or dish? Does the dish necessarily require pita or is saj bread or the other breads mentioned on its page sufficient? Did it also influence the Arabic root f-t-t? I am not outright dismissing it but in the presence of a much simpler explanation, it falls apart. 2kbfloppadisk (talk) 20:55, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes, true, I should have specified flatbread above, because indeed, there's not even a guarantee fatteh is derived from that. And yes, there's a lot of potential Occam's razor applications here. What would be most curious to know is where the Oxford Dictionary got its info – as only someone with access could tell us how/if it's referenced. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:20, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

I checked Oxford English Dictionary. It doesn't say that "Levantine Arabic pita evolved into fatteh". It says (without reference) that Eastern Aramaic pittā is related to Palestinian colloquial fatte. No mention of /p/ evolving into /f/, etc. I think it was a good choice to remove that statement FlorentinaBizzaria (talk) 07:37, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Cleaning up alternate names in lead

The article starts:

Pita (/ˈpɪtə/ or US: /ˈpiːtə/; Greek: πίτα; Hebrew: פִּתָּה) or pitta (British English), also known as Arabic bread (Arabic: خبز عربي, romanized: khubz ʿArabī), Syrian bread, Lebanese bread, kmaj (from the Persian kumaj) and Pide (from Turkish), is a family of yeast-leavened round flatbreads...

This is the English-language Wikipedia, so what is relevant here is names used in English. So I've removed Armenian Armenian: արաբական հաց, romanized: arabakan hats which just means "Arabic bread" and isn't used in English; and Persian kumaj/kmaj, which is extremely rare in English.† "Pide" isn't capitalized in Turkish. I've added the name "Arab bread", which was more common than "Arabic bread" until about 1980, and is still only 30% less common. Frequency statistics from Google nGram viewer. --Macrakis (talk) 22:49, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

† And essentially none of the instances of kmaj in Google Books (the basis for the nGram viewer stats) are for the bread.