In the course of an e-mail conversation about faux amis, Lizok happened to mention that “A панама hat is not a Panama hat.” I can’t describe my shock; all my bilingual dictionaries define панама (penultimate stress: пана́ма) as ‘Panama (hat),” and why would one ever suspect anything different? And yet when I went to Russian Wikipedia I discovered that, sure enough, the images showed something completely different, what the corresponding English article calls bucket hat, fisherman’s hat, Irish country hat, and session hat (one could also call it a sun hat). Looking it up in the Национальный корпус русского языка (Corpus of the Russian Language), I found a number of hits in Danilkin’s 2017 biography Ленин: Пантократор солнечных пылинок [Lenin: Pantocrator of dust motes in sunlight], including this: “Некое подобие гибрида панамы и банной войлочной шапки мы видим на известной фотографии «Ленин в Закопане».” [We see a certain semblance of a hybrid of a Panama hat and a felt bath hat in the famous photograph “Lenin in Zakopane”]. My question is, how and when did the referent change? And what do Russians call a Panama hat as others understand it? The Wikipedia article doesn’t have a Russian equivalent!
This very detailed investigation suggests that Russian-style panamas first appeared before WWI, inspired by French bohemian hats, and really took off in the 1920s when Young Pioneers adopted, with modification, boy scout uniforms.
https://selyanka1.livejournal.com/319390.html
It’s very true that “panamka”, little “Panama” hat, was very much associated with the vintage pioneer camps…
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Scouting_in_Russia_postcard_1914.jpg
PS: and in the Central Asian regiments of the Red Army, the “tropical hat” (later also known as panama) is said to have started as an Italian Bersaglieri hat, left over in Samara from an unsuccessful attempt to organize ethnic Italian batallions from the prisoners of war…
Interestingly, the Russian article says the панама is the national headgear of Ecuador, while the English one likewise attributes the origin of the Panama hat to Ecuador.
https://aliexpress.ru/wholesale?SearchText=%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5+%D1%88%D0%BB%D1%8F%D0%BF%D1%8B
I think the Western Panama is called “plyazhnaya shlyapa”…
This very detailed investigation suggests that Russian-style panamas first appeared before WWI, inspired by French bohemian hats, and really took off in the 1920s when Young Pioneers adopted, with modification, boy scout uniforms.
Thanks, that’s extremely helpful!
I think the best Russian approximation to Panama hat is соломенная шляпа (straw hat). Канотье (canotier = boater) is more specific and a different shape.
the панама is the national headgear of Ecuador
The national headgear of Panama came up a while ago at LH: el sombrero pintao.
Thank you, Languagehat, for writing this post! It’s interesting to see all the responses to your questions.
Looks like the national headgears of Panama and Ecuador are made from the same plant (under different names):
https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carludovica_palmata
Mentioned in comments last year.
So it was — well done!
It’s quite fascinating how language can evolve and lead to such confusions! The term ‘панама’ indeed stirs up a mix-up between what we know as a Panama hat and the bucket-style hat popular in Russia.
It’s like a little linguistic adventure, uncovering the layers of meaning behind words we thought we understood. And speaking of adventures, it seems now they’ve even got these ‘панама’ hats tailored for mounting troops https://voensklad.su/golovnye-ubory/panama-spn – talk about versatile fashion!
I’ve just started reading Nabokov’s Подвиг [The feat, tr. Glory] and what do I see on the very first page but:
Which Nabokov & Son translated:
So in 1932 Nabokov used it in the Western sense.
I mean, I’ll manage, but… LOL.
I got the same thing, both when I tried the first time and now. Cloudflare’s default settings for security don’t do this, so someone has been extra zealous. If it’s a mistake or that web site just doesn’t like EU traffic, I can’t tell. (There might be material elsewhere on the site that is not meant for our eyes, even though Panama hats would seem to be an innocuous topic).
I mean, it’s a .su site, so perhaps the Iron Curtain is still up…
Google cache:
Ich weiß nichts
Google weiß alles
– Jan Kaiser, some 25 years ago
D.M.: I notíced that, but OTOH they are running on Cloudflare which was founded in 2009. WP tells me that the .su ccTLD “is known for usage by cybercriminals.[4][5][6]” It’s managed by a non-profit established in 1992 or so, but what that means in Russia is not a thing I have any insight about. Maybe it’s just easier to register a domain there than in .ru.
Oh, sure, I think .su is just cheaper because nobody actively wants to have it.