Language / Jak sie masz -> niezle, doskonale. Wyglada ladnie - grammar questions [45]

After all that I've even forgotten how to respond to 'Jak się masz'!
I might have to read it again real slow.
Sorry, I mean really slowly.

Genealogy / Races of white people... [99]


But good science takes every variable possible into account.


True.


I have already said that language has little to do with it. How many different languages were spoken across the Roman Empire for example, and in how many of these areas did they end up speaking Romance languages. What is the overwhelmingly dominant language in Ireland?


But when did this Polishness become defined?

When it comes to somewhere like Poland, I agree that it is a relatively homogenous nation in comparison with many other parts of Europe. There is still more than just Slav in Polishness. This doesn't make any difference to my point. Where there has been more mixture with other people in countries neighbouring Poland, does this assign them to a seperate races? Does it then depend on your population of 10 million cut-off point?

So some people may in fact be raceless in your opinion? Or is there a huge possibility of races, including half-Eskimo, half-Hottentot?


As I said at the start of this post: that is unscientific.

Genealogy / Races of white people... [99]

But it is the groups of smaller numbers (between less than 10 million people and 1 person) that help make the world an interesting place and make pigeon-holing people difficult. What race are Poles when there may be not just Slavic but also Baltic, German, and (dare I say it) Jewish included in the mix? Does that make a Polish race?

News / Do you think that Polish catholics resent the new German Pope? [108]

I did find a website that made various claims about Vendic (I think that's the word) origin for many Bavarian surnames. It also used the term Slovenian to describe them. It also stated that the people of this area had shifted in language from Celtic to Vulgar Latin to Slovenian (well, something like that - I'm not sure if the Slavic languages had differenciated sufficiently at that stage to assign modern language names) and finally to German.

Still, is two successive non-Italian popes a record?

News / Do you think that Polish catholics resent the new German Pope? [108]


I sense a Slavic origin for that (to me) rather German-looking name could be about to happen.

Genealogy / Races of white people... [99]

I mentioned before the continuum of variation within the human population. There has also been a lot of mixing between different groups.

Here's an example: a friend of mine is from London. Both his parents were Mauritian. He looks a bit Indian, a bit European and a bit African. This combination is not entirely unique to Mauritius, but it doesn't occur in all that many places around the world. Is Mauritian a race? Then what about his daughter who is half English? Another race?

There are genetic differences between people and it can be interesting, but assigning people to defined categories of race is problematic for reasons I think I have already explained. Humans are all of one species.

In fact, Homo sapiens sapiens is the only extant subspecies of Homo sapiens. I think we wiped out all the others because they looked funny or something.


Much racial categorisation is an attempt to clear the (unclearable) fog. All the while, the fog thickens around us.

Genealogy / Races of white people... [99]

We can describe differences without the use of categories that place individuals in different groups according to things like appearance. One man may be one thing, his brother something else because he looks just about different enough.

If it's about heritage, has a new race been created every time a novel combination arises?
'Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to the world's first half-Eskimo half-Hottentot!'

With plants, I shall admit that these intra-species classifications do exist. However, a Betula pendula from Poland is not in a seperate classification from a Betula pendula from Scotland (aaargh - the curse of Scotland on PF again). Differences between differently classified plants are those that have a difference to how the plant grows or reproduces. Humans do not have these inherent differences.

Genealogy / Races of white people... [99]

There is no such thing as race.

Genealogy / Races of white people... [99]


Don't exist - The population of the British Isles might be some sort of Celtic / Germanic split, but then many of these were probably just indigenous people who went through a few changes of language (Pictish - what was that?)


So what about Finno-Ugric speakers, who include Finns, Estonians, Sami (who, to all appearances are not closely related at all), Hungarians (again, not so closely related - an admixture of Uralic, Turkic, Slavic people - whoever they're supposed to be)? The eastern Finno-Ugrians do not appear to be that closely related to some of their western counterparts.

What about Balts - Lithuanians, Latvians, the original Prussians (before the German thing started with them)?

Basques?

Caucasians (the ones from the Caucasus) who are often called European - three or more indigenous language families, all seemingly unrelated, plus Armenians (Indo-European), Azeris (Turkic)...

Then the fact that people have moved around so much throughout history and before, whether in warfare or in other forms of migration...

Variations between different groups of people do not often change dramatically across borders, but seem to chnage more gradually in a continuum. I find terms like 'white race' very problematic. Linguistics seems to be a very poor basis for describing race. The same also goes for geographical location, although perhaps slightly less so.

Love / HOW CAN POLISH WOMEN KEEP A BLACK MAN? [84]


How many Polish women do I own then?
(Although I recently claimed there are no and have never been any white people in the world).

Genealogy / Races of white people... [99]


There are no Anglo-Saxons.

News / John Cleese in polish advertise [30]


and now we can add Fawlty Towers to his list of dislikes.

Cleesophobic

Genealogy / Races of white people... [99]

A redneck is literally someone whose neck goes red. Okay, so originally the term meant someone of European (more specifically British or Irish) ancestry, who works outdoors in the hot sun of the southern US states where that kind of complexion is less than an advantage. Some rednecks would also be redheads.

In the Caribbean, these people became known as redlegs.

I'm not a redneck but I do play the banjo. I haven't built myself a porch yet.

Genealogy / Races of white people... [99]

Nobody is white.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail's Swans Are Back [29]


This may be something to do with this:

You can't see 'Ackney marsh for the 'ouses,
You can't see the 'ouses for 'Ackney marsh.

You can't see the swans for 'Ackney marsh, the 'ouses and all the tents full of Poles and Romanians.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail's Swans Are Back [29]

They don't explode do they?
Surely that would make them difficult to eat.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail's Swans Are Back [29]

I'd quite like to give swan a try. Especially if it was a choice of that or McDonalds.

But hey, kids! Don't trap crayfish - it is illegal.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail's Swans Are Back [29]

If anyone wants a free meal from their local river, there is an invasive species of crayfish, a crustacean, not a fish that is causing quite a lot of damage in some rivers. Take and eat as many as you like! I believ it is the red signal crayfish. I hope it's edible because I've just told you all to go and eat some.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail's Swans Are Back [29]

'It was absolutely sickening.' said one, just before he went home for some roast chicken, running over a squirrel on the way.

Language / English/Polish matching texts - where can they be found? [7]

Perhaps buying a couple of books you're familiar with already, but in translation, might be a good idea. Better than relying on internet translations (PF excepted, of course!)


This can be good for finding a few words, but the actual information on the pages can be quite different in different languages.

Food / Kishke, kaszanka [35]


Yes.


I've had flaki and enjoyed it. It's the same stuff that haggis is cooked in, so it's all good.


Technically, even chicken skin is offal. Pork scratchings?


This topic is supposed to be about food. How anyone can eat this at all is beyond comprehension.

News / Happy Birthday Mr. Fascist (ie. Roman Giertych) [37]

Stating yourself as a fascist doesn't relieve you of the possibility of becoming a victim of fascism.

Life / Angina, Polish resources needed [27]


Wroclaw, was Osiol being serious?

Okay, so being serious - in an environment where language can shift from one to another mid-conversation or mid-sentence, these yeah/nie and no/no things do become important. Some people can use it as an opportunity to evade answering a question.


Luckily my nose is too big to fit in anyone else's argument - it would just knock everyone else out of the hay. I mean out of the way.

News / Happy Birthday Mr. Fascist (ie. Roman Giertych) [37]

Let's all sing...

Happy birthday, chuju...

Am I just being rude this evening or hwat?

Life / Angina, Polish resources needed [27]

Nie can sound a bit like yeah as well.
Anyway, about angina:

'I know you've started going out with my daughter. Please be careful with her, she has acute angina'
'Don't worry. I know about that. She has a cute pair of tits too!'

Is Random Chat calling me?

News / John Cleese in polish advertise [30]

But when John Cleese was writing for Monty Python, he usually did this with Graham Chapman. John Cleese, allegedly, would do all the hard work, while Graham Chapman would just sit there smoking his pipe. Then suddenly, he'd look up from his pipe and blurt out some random thing which would quite often go on to become the thing that made it really funny and that everyone remembers, even to this day.

Norwegian Blue.

Australia / Swieto Sportowe - Albion, Melbourne 23-24 Feb 08 [5]


Wrong part of the forum for me really, but I do wonder why so few Antipodeans post on PF.


It depends on how realistic the bull is I suppose.
I know they're supposed to all be into sport down under, but this takes inventing new ones a step too far surely. Or perhaps two steps, considering that bulls (mechanical ones included?) have double the number of legs.

Love / Polish boyfriends [77]

Great ****, but you still keep leaving the lid off the toothpaste and that really ****es me off.

Life / Why is Poland so slow; it takes a lot of time to arrange anything here [53]

In the little shop round the corner from my mate's house, I always got service with a smile from the nice lady.

Language / "sorry" instead of "przepraszam" [76]

I have taken my information, partly from my knowledge I have picked up over the years, and also:

Bloomsbury Reference Dictionary of Word Origins by John Ayto

I backed up this by checking my knackered old Chambers Dictionary and a few websites.

Wiktionary also has no mention of Swedish with reference to the word 'sorry'.
Word detective (.com) also does not mention Swedish,
both of them do mention OE.

Do you know what the English language developed from?
*common Germanic > * common West Germanic > *Anglo-Frisian dialects > Old English > Middle English > Modern English.

It is very true that many other languages have contributed to English over the centuries, such as Old Norse - Northern and Southern dialects, before Norwegian, Swedish or Danish actually existed as seperate languages. But other than in dialect usgae, these words were not incorporated into Old English, but began to spread into general usage in Middle English.

I don't expect you to understand much about language origins, considering your lack of understanding about the origin of the Polish language.