Papuča (plural: Papuče pronounced papuche)
Papuča is a word which in Serbian today means slipper but is actually just another word for the same type of simple leather sole footwear of type opanak.
Here is the official etymology:
From Ottoman Turkish پابوج (pâbûc), from Persian پاپوش (pā-puš).
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/papuča
Now what is the word for slipper in various languages:
Albanian - heqël
Afrikaans - pantoffel
Arabic - something that sounds like shimsam
Here is a discussion on various words for shoes used in Arabic languages, just to make sure the word did not come from Arabic languages:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1272771
Armenian - hoghat’ap’
Azerbaijani - otaq ayaqqabısı
Basque - eskarpia (Sout), eskarpiña (old B) n. ‘slipper’.
Berber - bálgha
Belorussian - Тапачкі (tapachki)
Bosnian - papuča
Bulgarian - чехъл (chehl)
Catalan - sabatilla
Croatian - papuča
Czech - pantofel
Danish - tøffel
Dutch - pantoffel
English - slipper
Estonian - suss
Finnish - tohveli
French - pantoufle, babouche (
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babouche)
Galician - chinelos
German - Pantoffel
Greek - pantófla
Gujarati - Campala
Hindi - Slipara
Hungarian - papucs
Italian - pantofola
Latin - CREPIDA
Latvian - tupele or Čības
Lithuanian - šlepetė or šliurė
Macedonian - пантофли (pantofli)
Maltese - krepiduli, papoċċ
Norwegian - tøffel
Persian - pāpoosh (پاپوش), from pa "foot" + poosh "covering."
Polish - pantofel
Portugese - chinelo
Romaian - papuc
Russian - тапочка (tapuchka)
Serbian - папуча (papucha)
Slovak - pantofel
Spanish - zapatilla, pantufla, babucha (clearly showing influence from many languages)
Swedish - toffel
Turkish - terlik
Ukrainian - Гапочка (gapochka)
Yiddish - Ştʻqşwk
Here is a discussion on Iberian words for slipper and shoe:
Iberian Peninsula and recorded also north of the Pyrenees: Hispano-Arabic pargha ~ bargha ‘sandals’, sg. parghat (mod. Arabic and Berber bálgha ‘slipper, shoe’), Mozarabic probable *parca, Portuguese alparca ‘sandal’, an apparent Old Cast. alparga ‘sandal’, Arag. and SE Spain albarca id., Valencia abarca {avarca}, Bearn. abarque id. Cast. alpargata id. derives from the same ult. source via Arabic...
http://www.blogseitb.us/basque_bois...2012/12/Etymological-Dictionary-of-Basque.pdf
From the above we can see that the word "Papuča" or a similar word is used for a footwear in Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, French, Spanish but not in Arabic languages, Latin, Greek nor in eastern Slavic and Germanic languages.
Why am i boring you with this?
Because of this:
Pampooties are raw-hide shoes, which were formerly made and worn on the Aran Islands of County Galway, Ireland. They are formed of a single piece of untanned hide folded around the foot and stitched with twine or a leather strap.[1]
Hide from the buttocks was most often used. The hair was usually left and this improved the shoe's grip.[2] The raw hide is kept flexible by use and the constant damp conditions of Western Ireland. However the shoes are not made to last. They are prone to rot and were usually kept for as little as a month or less.[3]
Pampooties are similar to the Scottish cuaran shoes, and are the precursors to ghillies, Celtic dance shoes. They are also similar in appearance to American moccasins.[2] Ancient shoes found preserved from Stone Age Europe have a similar design.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pampootie
These early shoes (slippers) were being worn in Ireland as early as the late iron age and early medieval period. This is confirmed by the examples found in Irish bogs and which can be seen in the Irish national museum. They were still made and worn in 1950 in exactly the same way in Aran Islands, the most remote and westernmost Island off the coast of Ireland. They were probably worn in Ireland even earlier as they represent the the most rudimentary type of leather footwear and are almost identical to the Armenian prehistoric shoe. Here is an instruction how to make the Pampooties and how to wear them:
http://www.rosieandglenn.co.uk/TheLibrary/Costume/CnTGuides/HowtoMake/EarlyASCostume/EarlyShoes.htm
Here is an article about 18th century Scottish highland shoes. In the article you can among other find this:
Just like the Native American, the Highlander lived in a society where hunting and limited migration formed a large part of daily life. The practicality of the bag-shoe, like the Native American moccasin, was hard to improve upon.
http://www.appins.org/pampooties.htm
What this is saying is that up until 20th century peasants did not have fashion. What worked was made and was used and was worn unchanged for thousands of years. These shoes are a perfect example. Because there is no change in the object, there is certainly no change in the name of the object. So we can assume that the name for these Irish and Scottish shoes was pampootie (paputie, papuche) at least as far back as the early medieval time.
Ron Pinhasi, the man who found the Armenian prehistoric shoe and a lecturer in archaeology at the University College Cork in Cork, Ireland said:
Interestingly, the Armenian shoe is very similar to the “pampooties” worn in the Aran Islands on Ireland’s west coast up to the 1950s. “In fact, enormous similarities exist between the manufacturing technique and style of the [Armenian] shoe and those found across Europe at later periods, suggesting that this type of shoe was worn for thousands of years across a large and environmentally diverse region.”
http://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/PRN-2-world-s-oldest-shoe-160052.aspx
In England we find this old word:
Babouche - Etymology: from French babouche and Arabic بابوش, from Persian pāpoosh (پاپوش), from pa "foot" + poosh "covering." a chiefly oriental slipper made without heel or quarters.[2][3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Persian_origin
Now can anyone here explain to me how is it possible that if the origin of the word pampootie (paputie, papuche, Papuče) is indeed Persian, we find pampootie in Iron Age Ireland?
Unless the origin of the word is not Persian but it actually comes from the prehistoric Balkans again.
What if word pampootie (paputie, papuche, Papuče) originated in the Balkans and was brought to Ireland at some stage of the Vinca or some later bronze or iron age migration? And what if word was brought to Persia and north Africa from the Balkans during Ottoman time when Ottoman Turkish was hugely influenced by the South Slavic languages?
The Slavic influence
One of the unexpected results of the Ottoman expansion was an active penetration of Slavic ethnics into the Ottoman armed forces (Janissaries) and even into the ruling elite. Serbians were particularly numerous and the Serbian language could be heard in the Ottoman court; it was used in official documents alongside with Turkish. The Italian historian Paolo Giovio who compiled a book on Turkish history, wrote: “At the court [of Suleyman The Magnificent] several languages are spoken. Turkish is the language of the ruler; Arabic is the language of the Muslim Law, Koran; Slavic (sclavonica) is mostly used by the Janissaries, and Greek is the language of the populace of the capital and other cities of Greece.”
The Polish traveller Strijkowskij wrote that in 1574, when he was in Istanbul, he heard with his own ears kobzari (bards) singing songs in Serbian in the streets and in the taverns about victories of valiant Muslims over the Christians.
Bassano, an Italian visitor to Suleyman’s court, claimed that “he [the sultan] respected and highly valued his wife [Roxolana] and understood her native language to some extent.” One of the sultan’s viziers was Rustem-pasha, a Serb or a Croat.
Ukraine, except for some areas and not for long, was never conquered by the Ottomans but it became a steady source of supplies of white slaves to the empire. The Crimean Tartars were the main suppliers. Mykhailo Lytvyn, a Ukrainian diplomat in the service of the Lithuanian government, wrote in his memoirs dating to 1548–1551 that the krymchaky (Crimean Tartars) engaged only in two trades — cattle-breeding and capturing Ukrainians to be sold to the Ottomans as slaves. “The ships that often come to their ports from across the sea, bring weapons, clothes and horses which are exchanged for slaves who are loaded into these ships. And all the Ottoman bazaars are full of these slaves who are sold and bought to be used in the households, to be resold, to be given as presents… There was one Jew, amazed at the great numbers of these slaves to be seen at the slave markets, who asked whether there were any people left in the land where these slaves are brought from.”
http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/index2.php?param=pgs20044/74
If the footwear and its name pampootie (paputie, papuche, Papuče) originate in the Balkans, that would explain the distribution of this word and the type of footwear much better i think. But is there anything else that could prove that pampootie and Papuče are one and the same and that they come from some old proto Irish-Serbian language? There is:
Pampooties are similar to the Scottish cuaran shoes, and are the precursors to ghillies, Celtic dance shoes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pampootie
Ghillies are specially designed shoes used for several types of dance. They are soft shoes, similar to ballet shoes. They are used by women in Irish dance, by men in Scottish country dance, and by men and women in Highland dance.
Ghillies are also sometimes known by a variety of other names that include: light shoes, pomps, pumps, and soft shoes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghillies
The following is a brief outline of regional Scottish footwear forms in the first half of the 18th century. The terms "pampootie" (Hebridean and Outer Isles), "cuaran" (Highland Gaelic or Erse), and "ghillie" (or "gillie," a misnomer derived from the Gaelic for servant or attendant) all denote one specific form of footwear ‹ the primitive bag-shoe or European moccasin fashioned from hairy rawhide ‹ generally known as "rivelin." Examples of this form of footwear go back to the early Bronze Age in Northern Europe...
http://www.appins.org/pampooties.htm
This is the important bit:
"ghillie" (or "gillie," a misnomer derived from the Gaelic for servant or attendant)...
In Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian (Dinaric languages) there is a word "gilje" which is a word for shoes. "giljati" is a word for walking. In Gaelic we have gillie a servant, someone who you send to walk for you and do errands and "ghillie" for poor people's papuche or opanke shoes.
This again shows the connection between Irish and Serbian culture and language which does not exist in other European languages and which i believe points to their coexistence in a very distant past, probably in the Balkans during Vinca time or even earlier.
Interestingly the Armenia (Georgia), Ireland and England and the Balkans are again the same area where we find mushki and bregians...
If anyone has a better explanation for this i would like to hear it...
