Language / Inventiveness in Polish word formation [9]

But it's like that in every language that bears more agglutinative features than flective ones... English is more of a flective language with not much agglutination these days. (NB. even the word itself is an example: "to glue" -> -> "agglutinate" = to glue together.)

The best laugh is when you assimilate foreign words, thus "languages" like Hunglish or Polglish are born. :) (See "shoppingować" etc.) Most people unconsciously do that when they live abroad...


I suppose that is a non-PC verb these days. :D
"Strangely", we also have a very similar verb po węgiersku that could be translated as cyganować się, meaning that you are acting dirty or insincerely in a deal or situation (i.e. "playing a gipsy game")...

Language / 'Gateway' slavic language? [54]

Having a closer look at Slovio, I think it's a "one-way language". It would be one thing to speak it and get away with this "broken Slavic", but it'd be quite another thing to understand anything a native Polish, Czech or Russian says in reply...

Language / 'Gateway' slavic language? [54]



For a new-born, every joke is new... ’Cause szukać is like jebać in Czech/Slovak...! :)

Well, I do see some usefulness of Slovio. I often surprised at how little problems can frustrate my English classmates at Polish lessons. As simple things as accusative case which is pretty much obvious for anyone else whose native language is as agglutinative as Polish. :) For an introduction, Slovio would be much easier to learn. Even if it's not much of a help with the grammar of a real Slavic language you want to study, but at least you could build up the basic vocabulary to rely on / to relate to.

At least, if I'm not mistaken, Slovio aims to be a language that you can put to a use for communication, it's not for philosophical heights. :)

Language / 'Gateway' slavic language? [54]


There may be "only" 7 cases in Polish, but multiply them with these:
- masculine persons + masculine non-persons + feminine + neuter in singular
- these same in plural
- different endings in nominative which creates "sub-cases" for each case (for example nominative masc. persons end in either a vowel or a consonant, which affects forming the rest of the cases)

- plus, adjectives have to agree with nouns, which means they also have a plethora of different forms in cases -- even in daily life... :)

Compare:
- one inflection for each case, with no different genders
- one plural form for each case
- adjectives always stay in nominative when paired with nouns
- the only thing you have to learn is vowel-harmony in inflection, but even if you make a mistake with that, you will still be understood

Piece o’cake! ;-))


I think Slavic languages agglutinate, if we take the word formation itself (not just the inflection in grammatical cases). They have a system of "roots" to build on. For instance, how could you explain for an English speaker the relation of world and light? Świat, świecić is a matter of fact in Polish.

Language / 'Gateway' slavic language? [54]

Looks like it's a question of definitions, though. I wouldn't call German hyper-agglutinative. Most words are just multi-compounds. In English, they prefer of or ’s constructs and such.

I.e. Schiff - Dampfschiff - Donaudampfschiff + fährt etc. would be "a tour on the Danube by a steamship", instead of "Danubesteamshiptour" as a common English can't really follow words with more than four or five syllables. :)

Okay, let's say Polish is somewhere in-between. You all pointed out that it's pointless to argue beyond a point. :)

To get back on-topic, I like the idea of "explaining" the mysterious cases, especially for English-speaking natives. They only have those Latinic names for cases that are meaningless for an average learner.

Language / 'Gateway' slavic language? [54]

LoL. Yeah, we do have Hungarian names for the grammatical terms. For instance, 'genitivus' is "birtokos eset" = "possessive case" etc. Actually, most of the foreign-sounding Latinic terms have co-existing 'localizations'.

But to get back on topic, that's one thing I love Polish for, as it is much the same. They even have a Polish nickname for "mobile": komórka. :)

Language / Inventiveness in Polish word formation [9]

I can't agree more! Inventiveness exists in every language, and I think it is a playful feature. A recent one in English: chillax.
See 'relax'... :)