Genealogy / "-ski" last names more desirable in Poland? [28]

I believe names in -zki are germanized versions of names of Polish origin ending in -cki or -ski. In the Freie Stadt Danzig or parts of Poland which belonged to the Reich in 1772-1918 they may have been fairly frequent.

Language / SILESIANS WANT THEIR LINGO RECOGNISED [23]


That's what I thought by choosing the word "bunch" figuratively. Tons of foreign words both in Silesian and Scottish English dialects.


Once a friend told me she was asked a question by an old "góral" lady while on a visit to Zakopane: "Paniusiu, kielo no cykocu?" She didn't understand the question. Maybe you can figure out what it means (it has something to do with a watch as well)?

Language / Parę - two or a few? [26]

In fact, it is the other way round, the z becomes s here (z -> s).

jeździć -> zjeździć (no need to change the z in the prefix into s here)
chodzić -> z+chodzić -> schodzić

jadać -> zjadać
chrupać -> z+chrupać -> schrupać

robić -> zrobić
kłamać -> z+kłamać -> skłamać

Language / SILESIANS WANT THEIR LINGO RECOGNISED [23]



It is in a way proof that Silesian shouldn't be considered a separate language. It follows closely the Polish syntax all the time, just the pronounciation and words are a bit different, but the sentence is clearly understandable (= Myślałem, ze bomba w niego trafiła).

Isn't it in a way just like Scottish English? The syntax is the same as in English English, but the Scotts pronounce the language differently and I believe they use a bunch of their own words.

Language / Parę - two or a few? [26]

Z czasownika "schodzić". The z changes to s before the letter ch as there is no way to pronounce it voiced before that letter.

Language / SILESIANS WANT THEIR LINGO RECOGNISED [23]

Here is the Silesian impression on a well-known poem of Julian Tuwim ""LOKOMOTYWA". Below the first several verses of the original ...

Jest na banhowie ciynszko maszyna,
Rubo jak kachlok - niy limuzyna,
Stoi i dycho, parsko i zipie,
A hajer jeszcze wongiel w nią sypie.
Potym wagony podopinali,
I calym szfongym kajs pojechali.

[na bahowie = na stacji, german Bahnhof; ciynszko = ciężka; rubo = gruba; kachlok = ?; hajer = palacz; wongiel = węgiel; calym szfongiem = całym składem (?) or bardzo szybko (?); kajs = gdzieś]

W piyrwszym siedziały se dwa Hanysy,
Jedyn kudłaty, a drugi łysy,
Prawie do siebie nic niy godali,
Bo sie do kupy jeszcze niy znali.

W drugim jechała banda goroli,
Wiyzli ze soba krzinka jaboli,
I pelne kofry samych presworsztóf,
I kabanina prosciutko z rusztu.
Pili i zarli, jeszcze śpiywali,
Potym bez lokno wszyscy żigali.

[presworsztóf = ?; bez lokno = przez okno]
--------------------------
Stoi na stacji lokomotywa,
Ciężka, ogromna i pot z niej spływa -
Już ledwo sapie, już ledwo zipie,
A jeszcze palacz węgiel w nią sypie.
Wagony do niej podoczepiali
Wielkie i ciężkie, z żelaza, stali ...

Language / SILESIANS WANT THEIR LINGO RECOGNISED [23]


The movement has really been afoot for years (at least ten) now.


The difference is mostly in vocabularly rather than in syntax. The Sileasian dialect apart from having assimilated lots of German words has preserved plenty of old Polish vocabulary.


All right, let's give it a go then.

The Kashubian language should have never been regarded as a dialect of Polish as it belongs to the Slavic Pomeranian group of languages (just as the Polabian language in the now German island of Rugen which survived there until the 18th century or the language słowiński having survived in the area near the seaside town of £eba until around 1960).

Language / The preposition past 'I walk past the bank every day on my way to school'? [13]

"Wzdłuż" is an adverb telling that the dimension of an object is taken along its longest axis; here, for example, is the definition of "długi = mający znaczny wymiar wzdłuż" in the PWN dictionary. "Chodzę wzdłuż banku" would be rather awkward though not impossible; in fact if someone wants to tell that he is walking the pavement along the façade of a bank, I can't think of another expression. "Chodzić wzdłuż jakiejś linii" will be perfect, so per analogiam to this people would say "chodzę wzdłuż banku", although the expression should be replaced by something else in writing.

Could you please tell how you would say "chodzę wzdłuż banku" in English?

Language / words overused in Polish language [40]

Z wyższej półki: my teacher of Polish overused the expression "par excellence". Even though I read quite a lot in French, I have never come across this so far!

Language / Polish Case System [32]


The names of cases in Polish or English (these are derived from Latin) will often tell you what the given case is for. For example, the name dopełniacz (genetive, but a more appropriate translation from Polish would be: complimentive) which answers the question kogo? czego? tells you that it conveys an idea that something is missing. Thus it is frequently used in the negative which most often expresses lack of something: Nie ma dzisiaj [kogo? czego?] ładnej pogody.

The instrumental (narzędnik) shows the thing is used as an instrument or a way of doing something: Jem zupę [kim? czym?] łyżką, a drugie danie jem [kim? czym?] nożem i widelcem. Oddly enough, certain prepositions used for describing places require the instrumental rather than the locative (miejscownik), as you might have expected. Thus, you say: leżę [instrumental] pod łóżkiem, while you will use the locative when stating a much more obvious behaviour: leżę na łóżku or leżę w łóżku. This - in my view - is because in the eyes of our very distant ancestors, the preposition "pod" + [place] expressed a way of doing something rather than indicating the place itself.

Anyway, these remarks are nothing more than my personal impressions on Polish cases, but I hope they may facilitate remembering the use of cases.

Language / weather forecast/prognoza pogody [3]

You are right. "Zatoka niżowa" denotes "zatoka niskiego ciśnienia". The difference between zatoka, klin and układ in meteorology may refer to the shapes of areas of low pressure. Zatoka (bay or gulf) may not be common among English-speaking meteorogists (or perhaps they it call it an "area of low pressure"?), while it is popular among Polish. But I'm not a meteorologist and my remarks are purely linguistic.

Language / When does polish "ch" sound like eng "ch" and when is it "h"? [59]

The whole - skądinąd interesująca - discussion is in vain. I am sure Seanus can hear the difference between the two "ch" in Ruch and Lech, at the same time it is true that these are pronounced the same in both words. The pronounciation of the same identical sound may slightly differ depending on its linguistic surrounding, so people with "muzyczny słuch" (as we call it in Polish) may quite distinctly tell such a difference. [I myself may tell I can hear it in Lech and Ruch, although it is a subtle one.]

This has nothing to do with the difference in pronounciation between ch and h. Some Polish speakers have retained the different pronounciation of h until the present day. The most famous among them is perhaps actress Nina Andrycz, born in 1915 in Brest Litovsk (wife of the late Polish communist prime minister Józef Cyrankiewicz), whose pronounciation is clear and elegant (she is a well-known recitator of poetry, poet and writer herself as well).

Language / Parę - two or a few? [26]

To [jest] ostatni raz, kiedy/gdy będę podróżować razem z Dorotą.

News / Riots in Warsaw KDT 21 July 2009 [18]

Well, it might have been some kind of a racist attack after all. Security guards wearing black attacked white traders not wearing black.

Language / JAPISZON = YUPPY [4]

I've never heard of "białe skarpetki" except that wearing them is judged to be a sign of bad style in dressing, but then, true, the term matches perfectly this sort of mentality. The category of "nouveau riche" (nuworysz or nowobogacki) would be, however, broader than the category of "yuppy" (young urban professional).

News / Riots in Warsaw KDT 21 July 2009 [18]


For the BBC, Warsaw is the capital of a Third World country. And as everybody knows, the importance of news on the BBC is: one gentelman hurt in the City of London equals several gentelmen killed in Rome equals hundreds killed in India equals thousands killed in China.

Travel / Visit to Kazimierz Dolny , Poland [14]


It depends what you are looking for. Most tourist are weekend tourist and hover around the market place. If you stay beyond the weekend, the town becomes completely different. There are lots of galleries where you can contemplate and buy the paintings (the choice is enormous). You can always stop and chat with painters whom you meet in the town and vicinity. There are also lots of walking paths around. You can take a boat to the other side of the Vistula and walk for an hour to nearby castle in Janowiec (the only privately-owned castle in Poland in the period of the People's Republic). While we were there last year, a film was turned out in the town all the day and I was taken some splendid photographs by my wife in the middle of several young women dressed and hair-dressed in the style of the 1960s! Also, concerts and other performances in the church were held almost every Saturday (we attended one marvellous one by Anna Szałapak). Some seasonal bookshops where you can spend hours looking at what they have in stock.

It's not a good place to come for one afternoon only. We stayed there two weeks and avoided the market place and its vicinity in the weekends as much as we could. We were staying in a nice and friendly bed-and-breakfast surrounded by a vast garden run by the same family since 1919. It was just within a 15-minute walking distance from the centre - far too long for a weekend or afternoon tourist to disturb the nature and the silence there. Strangely enough, we haven't heard any musicians playing in the streets of Kazimierz Dolny.

Language / JAPISZON = YUPPY [4]

As niejestemcapita also pointed out in another thread, the term "yuppy" isn't used much in English. Neither is the term "japiszon" in Polish which at the time was a kind of a language joke coming up as a translation response to the original English term. It has a connotation that makes people smile (probably because it is formed on the word kapiszon). I can't think of any other equivalent except the term "młode wilczki" or a more descriptive one: biorący udział w wyścigu szczurów. "Wyścig szczurów" (I think it's a calque from English) is perhaps the term that appears most often in the context of upscale, ladder-climbing snobs.

News / Liga Polskich Rodzin- A worthy option? [56]

The LPR is a song of the past. Of course, it will have its supporters, but it will be unable to attract mainstream voters, thus to escape its fate of a marginal party. Their "youth" arm, Młodezież Wszechpolska, was causing them such a trouble that even Mr. Giertych thought it sane and sensible to break with them (officialy, at least). That was in vain, though, as the general public seems unconvinced for the way they do political business. I'm am sure the public will still remain unconvinced as it remembers too well that even Jarosław Kaczyński couldn't stand them any more (J. Kaczyński, whether you like him or not, may have been wrong forming a coalition with the LPR and Samoobrona, yet he remains a fully predictable politician).

These are very simple thruths and very simple political facts which make the discussion of a possible revival of the LPR fruitless and useless. I'm sorry (better say: I'm glad) to dissapoint any of their prospective friends.

Language / Things Polish people who speak English language say [180]


If the sauce is made of wine, the only correct way to describe it would be - in my view - with the use of an adjective: sos winny (the synonime would be sos z wina [genetive]). It will perfectly match its English equivalent "wine sauce" where "wine" serves as an adjective. If anyone described a sauce to me as sos z winem, I would think of wine added to a sauce.

"Sos winem" doesn't make sense. I can imagine a sentence: Popijam [ten] sos winem, where winem serves as some sort of "instrument" (it is the reason for it being in the instrumental case) easing up the "digestion" of this sauce in your alimentary tract. [The logic of using the instrumental in this sentence is the same as in sentences like "Popchnąłem go ręką" where the role of the instrumental is clearly visible.]

Genealogy / "-ski" last names more desirable in Poland? [28]

Millions of women with the last name ending in -ski seems to be a bit of exageration to me. The reason for such an ending in a woman's surname is beacuse daughters of Polish immigrans got their name after the father whose name ended in -ski (it is only in Poland where the ending changes depending on the sex of the person). It is also true the other way. If a boy child got the name afer his unmarried mother, his name could for example be Andrew Filarska instead of Andrew Filarski.

Language / FUTURE OF VOCATIVE IN POLISH? [14]

It is "Ago". I have just been asking myself when the ending is -o, and when it is -u for the feminine noun. It seems that it is the former when the stem of a noun ends in a hard consonant (mamo, Ago), whereas it is the latter when it ends in a soft one (ciociu, Krysiu).

News / Buzek. another step to abyss? [41]

They must have been happy with it! That is why Constantinek is so angry with us, Poles, who despite having lived in the most joyful barrack of all barracks of the Soviet block, protested against the Soviet domination in Eastern Europe. He still tries to play the German card without realizing that the era of Cathrine II had passed. He places all his hopes in the Baltic Pipe. He still dreams of an imperial Russia (ot Vladivostoka do Bielogostoka) which walks hand in hand with imperial Germany. He just can't stand ... the new political realities of Europe, so he looses his nerve to the point of declaring:


Constantinek, instead of loosing your temper in this rather un-Russian way:
1. Try to think of repurchasing Alaska from the US to whom you so recklessly sold it.
2. Watch out for the Chinese coming in great numbers to live in Siberia or just try to sell it to them, but be careful to bargain a better price than you got for Alaska!

Language / FUTURE OF VOCATIVE IN POLISH? [14]

Theoretically you are right, although this vocative is extremely rare.

Language / Things Polish people who speak English language say [180]


Not too much to worry about that: 1. the "przyjaciel" is a noun that doesn't fall into any specific declension of nouns; 2. using z or not with the instrumental has been a matter of change in the language over past ages; yet if the notion of a thing serving you as an instrument is so strong as in your example, there's no need to support the instrumental case with "z".

News / Buzek. another step to abyss? [41]


First, I'm not sure if you can say that "presidency in EU" is in any equal with "presidency of the EU parliament. I think these things are different.

Mr. Buzek is a man known for his concilliatory caracter. He wasn't perhaps particularly good as a former Prime minister of Poland (he let himself to be driven too much from the back seat by Mr. Krzaklewski, former Solidarity leader and a rather deplorable figure in my view), but as a president of the EU parliament he is destined to perform well. A protestant from an overwhelmingly Catholic country (with no links whatsoever to the KGB, its Polish affiliates or the communist party in the totalitarian past), scientist and engineer in chemistry, he is definitely a man with great integrity. His relations with Germany seem to be excellent (Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel has been backing him to this post), and I would never think of him as anti-Russian.

To sum up, your information on Mr. Buzek reminds us of the old joke abour Radio Erevan (formerly a city in the Soviet Union):
- Is it true that they were offering cars to people in the Red Square in Moscow yesterday?
- Yes, it is true, it did happen in the Red Square. But they weren't cars, they were bicycles. And they were not offering them, they were stealing them.

Language / Things Polish people who speak English language say [180]


By the way, could you please clarify where the accent should be placed in the word "controversy"? Should it be controversy, controversy or maybe controversy? I think there is quite a lot of controversy about it.

Language / FUTURE OF VOCATIVE IN POLISH? [14]


Yes, the verbs are in the imperative mode, as the term "mode" refers to a verb, not to a noun. "Dziadku" and "dziadu" are vocatives, whereas "Gośka" is nominative (I think "Gośka" doesn't have a vocative case, or it is the same as its nominative, while "Gosia" would have a separate one which is "Gosiu").

Language / CARBON-COPY POLISH SPREADING? [30]


The now widely accepted and recognized French word for computer is "ordinateur".


I strongly disagree that these are calques in Polish. They sound natural and are gramatically correct. Could you please indicate what other possesive would you use if you wanted to say: Ten preparat wybieli .......... zęby?

Language / GŁOWA PAŃSTWA GENDER AGREEMENT [3]

We tend to avoid using expressions like "głowa państwa" too often and with forms of verbs telling the gender. The French head of state would be "głowa państwa francuskiego", but it will rarely be followed by "powiedziała" (in fact, it will never be followed by "powiedział" [!]). If in need of such a phrase, the journalist would choose: "Prezydent Francji powiedział ..." instead. "Głowa państwa" is solemn in Polish, so I can imagine it in solemn contexts such as: "Głowa państwa francuskiego wita się teraz z ...", for example.

For "prawa ręka" or "szara eminencja", the expression will most often be used for explaining things, so a more natural sentence would be: "Rozmawiałem z panem X, który uchodzi w tej firmie za szarą eminencję. Powiedział mi, że ...".