etymonline (not infallible, but generally where I go for etymology questions) doesn't attempt to trace "pita" back beyond modern Greek or Hebrew. It doesn't give the impression that the origin of the word is well understood.

I'm mostly with you as to bread (and certainly as to "pita is bread"), but I feel like noodles are generally not considered bread, despite being made from dough.

Noodles are a great question. Why aren't noodles bread?

* They're often made from dough that is identical to bread dough (perhaps minus the leavening)

* They're cooked wet (which is why they don't leaven themselves) --- but then so are bagels and pretzels!

I'm guessing the reason will go back to the original purpose of bread, which was to create a portable, palatable, readily accessible foodstuff from grain. Without bread, the only straightforward way to eat grains is porridge. So bread can (and I think maybe always is?) eaten out of hand, and is cooked often well in advance of consumption.

> Why aren't noodles bread?

I tend to think that they're not considered "bread" for two reasons:

- Their form factor is not appropriate for the concept "bread".

- They don't contain perceptible air bubbles.

Really, it's mainly the first one.

Two categories can be, um, vocabularily distinguished for pretty arbitrary reasons. Noodles are just a case of the same thing from a nutritional perspective leaving the prototype for the "bread" concept far enough behind that they're perceived differently.