6 ms·

As a Sardinian this is the first time ever I hear of this pasta, and I'm truly shocked of how it's made, it really sounds like lots of work. Now I'm super curi

by ff_ 10y ago

As a Sardinian this is the first time ever I hear of this pasta, and I'm truly shocked of how it's made, it really sounds like lots of work. Now I'm super curious about it, but the preparation in sheep broth and pecorino is one of the best combinations to have with pasta IMHO, very promising. Btw if you've never been to Sardinia make sure you visit at least once in life, you won't regret it :)

ezequiel-garzon 10y ago
As an aside, if you don't mind, how close is Sardo to Latin? Can you rather easily read Latin texts (assuming you haven't studied Latin, and are proficient in Sardo). Thanks!
- umanwizard 10y ago
  I've never heard of this language, is it specially known for being particularly close to Latin or something? Why would you expect it to be any more mutually intelligible with Latin than any other modern Latin dialect is? (I mean French, Spanish, etc.)
  - mhb 10y ago
    From TFA: Residents here still speak Sardo, the closest living form of Latin.
    - umanwizard 10y ago
      Ah, I must have skimmed it too quickly to notice that. Thanks! Anyway, I doubt it is close enough to Latin to be mutually intelligible, as all modern Romance languages are derived from Vulgar Latin, which is known to be very different form the written Classical Latin.
  - acjohnson55 10y ago
    There are lots of languages you've probably never heard of :). I realized the same when I started to read about the family of Romance languages to learn what the concept was all about. Not being an expert, it does seem to me to be a theme that languages of relatively isolated communities tend to me significantly more conservative in their evolution than in more cosmopolitan communities.
- gpderetta 10y ago
  I do not speak Sardo, as I speak another Sardinian language, but I guess I know enough to comment. Sardo spelling is probably closer to Latin than most other romance languages and some sentences are surprisingly close to their Latin equivalent. I would say that it still lack many Latin features (for example cases, neutral gender), and sentence construction is generally different enough that native speaker wouldn't have a significant advantage to other romance language speakers.
- mattrichardson 10y ago
  My girlfriend is Sardinian and speaks Sardo. She's said to me in the past that it's fairly close to Latin, certainly closer than other languages (French/Spanish for example), but Sardo is generally a mix of Latin, Italian, with a few Spanish words. Also worth noting there are different dialects of Sardo (such as Logudorese, in the north, if I remember the name correctly). And some dialects are closer to Latin than others. In Italy/Sardinia dialects can be so far apart from one another that it's difficult to understand one another.
  - invernomut0 10y ago
    Some of the dialects are so far apart that they are actual languages distinct from Italian. If you search in the ISO list of languages[0] you can find neapolitan, sardinian as distinct languages different from italian. [0]http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php
    - mattrichardson 10y ago
      Sardinian (Sardo) is a separate language, not a dialect of Italian. Road signs (town/city names) in Sardinia are often in both Sardo and Italian. You can think of it like the difference between Welsh/English.
      - davidw 10y ago
        Sardinian and Italian are much much closer than Welsh and English. Speaking Italian, I can make out written Sardo kinda sorta ok, and I'm not a native Italian speaker. As an English speaker, I can't make heads or tales of Welsh.
      - zeveb 10y ago
        > You can think of it like the difference between Welsh/English. I don't think that's quite right: Welsh is a Gaelic language and English is Germanic, so they're from different families, while Sardinian & Italian are much more closely related.
- bitbandit 10y ago
  Sardo is about as close to Latin as Italian, Castilian, and Catalan. BTW Sardo is actually not one language, but a set of languages spoken in the island.
- ff_ 10y ago
  I speak Sardo, and I studied Latin for 5 years at High School, and I was very bad at it. So I would say that "modern" Sardo (defining the "old" as the first written texts some centuries ago) it's close enough to Latin to see where every word comes from, but definitely too far to give you understanding. I can understand Spanish though :) (context: we've been in the Spanish Kingdom for like 400 years, and the language have been influenced a lot, many shared words.)
  - m_mueller 10y ago
    How close is it to Romansh, the old raetic/latin language still spoken in Grisons, Switzerland? Could you understand them?
    - ff_ 10y ago
      Given that I've never been in Grisons, but I heard it only from YT, I would say that it's not very close with Sardo. I can understand them though, but mostly because I know Italian. (Romansh also sounds to me somewhat Portuguese and Slavic at the same time, it's a very cool language).
      - m_mueller 10y ago
        Neat, thanks!
- phee 10y ago
  > Can you rather easily read Latin texts (assuming you haven't studied Latin, and are proficient in Sardo). I guess the statement about "closeness" comes from the study (Pei, Mario 1949) referenced in the Wikipedia page about Sardinian language that somehow developed a metric and tested several languages against their parent one. Apparently Sardo has the lowest distance from Latin among Romance languages. On a more practical side, I speak Sardo and studied Latin in high school. I cannot easily read Latin texts without a dictionary at hand and a little grammar review. I guess their similarity arises when you compare the written languages but most of us experience Sardo as a spoken-only language and many find it difficult to follow in written form. On the contrary we experience Latin as a written only language. Who knows, probably it would be a lot easier for us to understand spoken Latin.
  - SmellTheGlove 10y ago
    This raises a good point. Even when languages are "close" it usually doesn't mean "mutually intelligible" unless they are really close. I grew up in the US but I have Italian parents who came over somewhat recently in immigration terms - the 1970's. My first language is/was Standard Italian, as my grandmother really pushed my parents not to teach me their dialects. My mom is from Genova and my father from a small town in Abruzzo called Alfedena - since you are Italian, you probably know, very different dialects. Zeneize is considered its own language. Anyhow, to my point, Standard Italian is extremely close to the spoken dialects in my family, probably closer than Sardo to Latin, but I still have trouble understanding either side of the family in dialect. Part of that, of course, is that I was raised outside of Italy, but not entirely as I don't have trouble with the Florentine dialect since I speak pretty close to what they do. And don't get me started on written versus spoken! Then again, my dad's dialect might look like Welsh if anyone thought to write it down. But on my mom's side, Zeneize does have a sort-of official written form, and if I read carefully I sometimes have an idea of what's going on :)
- davidw 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinian_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinian_language has some information. Beyond that, it frankly just "looks" a bit more latin, with s's at the end of words for plurals, and more u's than Italian has. I think it also has fewer loan words, and has staid in some cases closer to older Latin words: 'domu' for house rather than 'casa'.
jdprt 10y ago
I'm heading there next summer for a couple of weeks. Could you recommend some must do places to see, things to do? Would be really interested to hear from your perspective.
tronje 10y ago
Do you think Su Filindeu tastes much different from any other pasta prepared with sheep broth and pecorino? It seems like it should, given the huge amount of work going into it, but since the ingredients are so simple, it also seems like it shouldn't make a huge difference...
- binarymax 10y ago
  Based on the description of preparation, the texture would be the defining difference, not the taste.
  - pixl97 10y ago
    Texture defines taste. https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2044-7248-2-12 https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/20...
    - yomly 10y ago
      That's awesome thanks. Its always been intuitive for me that texture would affect how air mixes with food in the mouth and would also affect flavour distribution of sauces in the mouth but its good to see someone put actual study into it
    - binarymax 10y ago
      According to your citation, texture and taste and aroma are separate characteristics with some overlap that combine to define flavor. The defining component difference in Su Filindeu would be texture, enhancing the flavor.
- ff_ 10y ago
  I didn't taste it yet, but texture and preparation affect a lot the taste of pasta, in general. Also, this is made with semolina flour, which is different (and much better IMHO) from the flour used to make pasta usually (in Italy and in the rest of the world).
  - 10y ago
ythl 10y ago
Gotta have that Sard worm-cheese
smegel 10y ago
How is Sardinia different to mainland Italy?

by ff_ 10y ago

ezequiel-garzon 10y ago

As an aside, if you don't mind, how close is Sardo to Latin? Can you rather easily read Latin texts (assuming you haven't studied Latin, and are proficient in Sardo). Thanks!

umanwizard 10y ago
I've never heard of this language, is it specially known for being particularly close to Latin or something? Why would you expect it to be any more mutually intelligible with Latin than any other modern Latin dialect is? (I mean French, Spanish, etc.)
- mhb 10y ago
  From TFA: Residents here still speak Sardo, the closest living form of Latin.
  - umanwizard 10y ago
    Ah, I must have skimmed it too quickly to notice that. Thanks! Anyway, I doubt it is close enough to Latin to be mutually intelligible, as all modern Romance languages are derived from Vulgar Latin, which is known to be very different form the written Classical Latin.
- acjohnson55 10y ago
  There are lots of languages you've probably never heard of :). I realized the same when I started to read about the family of Romance languages to learn what the concept was all about. Not being an expert, it does seem to me to be a theme that languages of relatively isolated communities tend to me significantly more conservative in their evolution than in more cosmopolitan communities.
gpderetta 10y ago
I do not speak Sardo, as I speak another Sardinian language, but I guess I know enough to comment. Sardo spelling is probably closer to Latin than most other romance languages and some sentences are surprisingly close to their Latin equivalent. I would say that it still lack many Latin features (for example cases, neutral gender), and sentence construction is generally different enough that native speaker wouldn't have a significant advantage to other romance language speakers.
mattrichardson 10y ago
My girlfriend is Sardinian and speaks Sardo. She's said to me in the past that it's fairly close to Latin, certainly closer than other languages (French/Spanish for example), but Sardo is generally a mix of Latin, Italian, with a few Spanish words. Also worth noting there are different dialects of Sardo (such as Logudorese, in the north, if I remember the name correctly). And some dialects are closer to Latin than others. In Italy/Sardinia dialects can be so far apart from one another that it's difficult to understand one another.
- invernomut0 10y ago
  Some of the dialects are so far apart that they are actual languages distinct from Italian. If you search in the ISO list of languages[0] you can find neapolitan, sardinian as distinct languages different from italian. [0]http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php
  - mattrichardson 10y ago
    Sardinian (Sardo) is a separate language, not a dialect of Italian. Road signs (town/city names) in Sardinia are often in both Sardo and Italian. You can think of it like the difference between Welsh/English.
    - davidw 10y ago
      Sardinian and Italian are much much closer than Welsh and English. Speaking Italian, I can make out written Sardo kinda sorta ok, and I'm not a native Italian speaker. As an English speaker, I can't make heads or tales of Welsh.
    - zeveb 10y ago
      > You can think of it like the difference between Welsh/English. I don't think that's quite right: Welsh is a Gaelic language and English is Germanic, so they're from different families, while Sardinian & Italian are much more closely related.
bitbandit 10y ago
Sardo is about as close to Latin as Italian, Castilian, and Catalan. BTW Sardo is actually not one language, but a set of languages spoken in the island.
ff_ 10y ago
I speak Sardo, and I studied Latin for 5 years at High School, and I was very bad at it. So I would say that "modern" Sardo (defining the "old" as the first written texts some centuries ago) it's close enough to Latin to see where every word comes from, but definitely too far to give you understanding. I can understand Spanish though :) (context: we've been in the Spanish Kingdom for like 400 years, and the language have been influenced a lot, many shared words.)
- m_mueller 10y ago
  How close is it to Romansh, the old raetic/latin language still spoken in Grisons, Switzerland? Could you understand them?
  - ff_ 10y ago
    Given that I've never been in Grisons, but I heard it only from YT, I would say that it's not very close with Sardo. I can understand them though, but mostly because I know Italian. (Romansh also sounds to me somewhat Portuguese and Slavic at the same time, it's a very cool language).
    - m_mueller 10y ago
      Neat, thanks!
phee 10y ago
> Can you rather easily read Latin texts (assuming you haven't studied Latin, and are proficient in Sardo). I guess the statement about "closeness" comes from the study (Pei, Mario 1949) referenced in the Wikipedia page about Sardinian language that somehow developed a metric and tested several languages against their parent one. Apparently Sardo has the lowest distance from Latin among Romance languages. On a more practical side, I speak Sardo and studied Latin in high school. I cannot easily read Latin texts without a dictionary at hand and a little grammar review. I guess their similarity arises when you compare the written languages but most of us experience Sardo as a spoken-only language and many find it difficult to follow in written form. On the contrary we experience Latin as a written only language. Who knows, probably it would be a lot easier for us to understand spoken Latin.
- SmellTheGlove 10y ago
  This raises a good point. Even when languages are "close" it usually doesn't mean "mutually intelligible" unless they are really close. I grew up in the US but I have Italian parents who came over somewhat recently in immigration terms - the 1970's. My first language is/was Standard Italian, as my grandmother really pushed my parents not to teach me their dialects. My mom is from Genova and my father from a small town in Abruzzo called Alfedena - since you are Italian, you probably know, very different dialects. Zeneize is considered its own language. Anyhow, to my point, Standard Italian is extremely close to the spoken dialects in my family, probably closer than Sardo to Latin, but I still have trouble understanding either side of the family in dialect. Part of that, of course, is that I was raised outside of Italy, but not entirely as I don't have trouble with the Florentine dialect since I speak pretty close to what they do. And don't get me started on written versus spoken! Then again, my dad's dialect might look like Welsh if anyone thought to write it down. But on my mom's side, Zeneize does have a sort-of official written form, and if I read carefully I sometimes have an idea of what's going on :)
davidw 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinian_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinian_language has some information. Beyond that, it frankly just "looks" a bit more latin, with s's at the end of words for plurals, and more u's than Italian has. I think it also has fewer loan words, and has staid in some cases closer to older Latin words: 'domu' for house rather than 'casa'.

jdprt 10y ago

I'm heading there next summer for a couple of weeks. Could you recommend some must do places to see, things to do? Would be really interested to hear from your perspective.

tronje 10y ago

Do you think Su Filindeu tastes much different from any other pasta prepared with sheep broth and pecorino? It seems like it should, given the huge amount of work going into it, but since the ingredients are so simple, it also seems like it shouldn't make a huge difference...

binarymax 10y ago
Based on the description of preparation, the texture would be the defining difference, not the taste.
- pixl97 10y ago
  Texture defines taste. https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2044-7248-2-12 https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/20...
  - yomly 10y ago
    That's awesome thanks. Its always been intuitive for me that texture would affect how air mixes with food in the mouth and would also affect flavour distribution of sauces in the mouth but its good to see someone put actual study into it
  - binarymax 10y ago
    According to your citation, texture and taste and aroma are separate characteristics with some overlap that combine to define flavor. The defining component difference in Su Filindeu would be texture, enhancing the flavor.
ff_ 10y ago
I didn't taste it yet, but texture and preparation affect a lot the taste of pasta, in general. Also, this is made with semolina flour, which is different (and much better IMHO) from the flour used to make pasta usually (in Italy and in the rest of the world).
- 10y ago

ythl 10y ago

Gotta have that Sard worm-cheese

smegel 10y ago

How is Sardinia different to mainland Italy?