Italiano
Hey you, can you speak Macaronic?
Ok, let’s be more precise here: there is no such an idiom.
However, there is the expression macaronic language.
And yes, it was named after macaroni, a generic name to indicate pasta already in use in the late Middle Ages.
The name came from a poem, called Macaronea, in which the author (Tifi degli Odasi) made fun of sages and doctors, full of arrogance and always ready to pronounce phrases in Latin to demonstrate their intellectual superiority.
Tifi degli Odasi targeted them with his satire, mixing words of vulgar Italian with the elegant Latin of the clergymen and the academics.
The outcome was a comic contrast: the language of rites and ceremonies corrupted, so to speak, by common people to discuss their ordinary things.
Why that name? Well, what better way to convey the idea of simple and popular than macaroni, the food of the hoi polloi?
Nowadays the term macaronic is still in use, to indicate an idiom made up of a mixture of terms from different languages, very often with the intention of creating hilarious puns, or to make fun of something scientific or particularly sophisticated.
In conclusion, whatever language you speak, if you are more interested in eating macaroni, I have the right cateringorum equipmentus to cook them!
