CARBON-COPY POLISH SPREADING?

The tendency to directly translate words and notions, usually from English, seems to be spreading in Polish, especially in adverts, and comemrcialism rules our modern world. Is this of any concern to you as a native speaker of Polish? Are you concerned about language purity or just accept this as normal?

I have in mind such calques (kalki) as:
-- trzy w jednym
-- ptasie mleczko od Wedla (the od is not Polish)
-- Preparat XY wzmocni TWOJE włosy, wybieli TWOJE zęby, etc. (overuse of possessive)
-- Full wypas (????) - anyone know how this abomination came into being?
Maybe you can think of some mroe examples....

Language evolves, there are many words in Both Polish and English from French.
Because the aristocracy in Europe spoke French at the time.

English, at the moment is one of the most important languages on the planet, due to the Ex-colonies and the U.S.A. being the super power.

History has shown us that this will change in time, when a new super power takes over.

Where is your starting point for this "language purity"?.
Polish has always been changing, the Polish spoken today is not the same as the Polish spoken a hundred years ago, or three thousand years ago.

I think on of the ways in which a language can survive is by being able to change with the times.

I am not Polish.

Of courses all languages evolve, but what is happening in commerspeak is not evolution but revolution. All lanmguaegs have their own spirit, and the Polish one is being ridden roughshod over trampled to death. I wonder what native speakers of Polish think about this?

BTW Poland has created something like a language police, but it is really moribund. Under the law, all foreign language notices and shop signs should be translated into Polish, excepting trade-names, but I have yet to see a Polish equivalent of peep show (widowisko podglądackie???).

Just seconding my colleague, Polish, as with many languages, (German being perhaps the most aggregious example to date!), is uncritically absorbing English, more out of laziness and the general desire to fit in, than anything else, I woudl think.

Seems only the French are holding out in their safe bastion of 'linguistic purity', if such a thing every even existed-:)

I too bemoan the easy-way-out approach of Polish, German and other languages, feeling threatened by third world competition. Franch though has always done pretty darn well for itself, both socially and economically, so just perhaps the Poles as well as the self-righteous and ever practical Germans, might in fact draw a lesson from the French.

Only my two euros worth. LOL
Marek

Polish, just like any other language in the world, isn't a static, unchangeable monolith. It evolves and develops and the current borrowings from English are not something new and unique in it's long history.

Polish was heavily influenced from Czech when Piast dynasty accepted Christianity from Czech kingdom making most of today’s vocabulary related to liturgy and church Czech based.

Polish was heavily influenced from Latin as this was the lingua franca of the middle age ect...

Polish was heavily influenced by German as it was from them where we took codified law and the courtly culture: (gen) rathaus --> (pol) ratusz (town hall), (gen) ritter --> (pol) rycerz (knight), ect...

Then it was fashionable to add some French words in the 17-18th century and now it's English.

Many of the words you probably consider pure polish are of foreign background. In fact, if you would like to exclude all the words that came to Polish from outside we probably could not communicate with each other. Anyhow, in few decades those foreign sounding words of today will be the pure polish sounding words of tomorrow, so let us not get too excited on this, shall we? There is not much we can do about it anyway.

Noone's arguing that language is 'static', Matjasz, merely that the reason for the recent English invasion into certain European languages has less to to with intelletcual status and more to do with the onslaught from the popular US media, admittedly contributing to a dumbed-down, watered-down world culture.

That's what's disturbing, not that e.g. Polish or German use 'meeting' instead of a native word, rather, that the mother tongue is deemed inadequate to the task of supporting its own speakers.

Marek

One more thing-:) While French, previously Latin etc.., are good examples which you cite, the status once more of French at that time was higher in level/quality of written language than the English of today, more Globish, in fact.

Therefore, although similar, your examples are hardly parallel))))

Would you asgree with this thesis? Whereas in the Middle Ages Latin was the elitist language of scholarship and liturgy, German was a pragmatic import (things had to be called something and the Germans had coined the municipal-technical words first) and French was once the language of diploamy and upscale snobbery, Americanese is the snob jargon of those into today's down-dumbed popculture slob chic.

Well said.


Well if the "Americanese" are so "down-dumbed popculture slob chic", how come they are the undisputed world super power?.
It sounds like your being a snob there Polo.

Popcommer (commercialised media-driven popculture) which made its debut in the mid-1950s along with the rise of TV and rock-n-roll, was all about gradual downdumbing and popularising the rude, crude and vulgar. A rich superpower formed from the dregs of Old World society (famine vicitms, landless peasants, horsethieves and the sweepings of European prisons --read the Statue of Liberty plaque) was the ideal vehicle to spread this popculture ideology world-wide.

Really? wtf is a "Sex Szop", then? That's not real Polish! lol! :)

I see the OP's point, though. I saw "couchsurfingowy" in a magazine recently.
I had to look up "couch surfing" in English, never mind Polish! haha.

? these people made the U.S.A what it is today.
As you say these people went there with next to nothing and after a lot of struggling and admittedly almost killing all the natives, they did carve a life for themselves and make the U.S. the super country and power it is today.

You are a complete snob.

Polish is evolving, thank goodness.

Yes, I'd agree with the Latin vs. modern English example-:)

As far as the US being a super power, we may be undisputed no. 1 in technology, merely by dint of the fact that our size and economic strength has allowed for a 'brain drain' from international leaders in the intellectual life of their countries, be it Poland, Germany, Japan, India etc..... If the US had solely to rely on itself and noone else in the world, I question whether or not our rise would have proven as meteoric. Imagine NASA's space program without Messrs. von Braun, Strughold and Rudolph in the beginnings, or where would Bill Gates have been without the pioneering work of Europeans such as Konrad Zeisel and John von Neumann etc...., telecommunications without Vladimir Zworkin.

No, the US has clecerly marketed the patents for what many non-Americans discovered first, e.g. Reis vs. Graham Bell, Lilienthal vs. the Wright Bros. and so forth.......

Marek

Cześć Marek,

And welcome to the Polish forums.

Name one super power though out history that did not stand on the shoulders of other countries to get where they are.

My point exactly, SeanBM-:)

Surely no nation or people has gotten to where they did completely on their own steam. I think my post explained that sufficiently))))

As Sir Isaac Newton observed, "We stand on the shoulders of giants." However, as the United States has been pro- resp. regressing over the last decade, we seem instead to be crouching beneath the crotch of (mental) midgets, with little breathing room in sight!!

Also don't forget it is the international business language for companies around the world.

They're trying to and good for them. I remember many years ago when they tried to make 'le computer' become' l'engine de computation' or some such abhorration. Since at the time I seemed to be writing 'le computer' in every sentence I was writing it really got my goat;)

Never mind 'le weekend' is only five days away

As the international language of business, it is (said to be) therefore the "passport" to the world.

Well now, don't you all think one should keep one's most valuable travel document in better condition, rather than allow it to get all dog-eared and messy???!

Such is the present state of world English: Everyone's private/public property becomes in the end NOONE'S property, as the meaning of it is reduced and trivialized the more it is abused and mistreated.

French used the be the international language, enjoying a role once much as English does today. Funny, don't you think, that the French language never became as misused and out of shape as English is now??

Something to thinkg about-)))

Oops! Mistyped a line. "French used to be the international language....."

Sorry about that, LOL

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?

That is because of social interaction between two nations. They are now able to travel without the restrictions they had previously, yes you will get the "no-marks", we have them here in england too, but you also get the well-educated ones, who are a great pleasure to be with.

We also have to remember that the American education system is completely different to the British system. There is none of this rote learning, and spelling outrageous words before the age of 4. The Americans teach children to believe in themselves, education is something to be cherished and enjoyed, and most of all fun. They teach them self-esteem,they can be anything they want to be through creative methods and encouragement.

I sometimes think that it is time for the "old draconian british education system" to wake up, and accept the world in which we live today.

You should hear what I call the computer when it doesn't do what I want.
I can't say exactly which language it is in but it is certainly one that the clergy do not know;)


I can tell that you were at non of the state run brain washing facilities I was indoctrinated in.
I am only joking, dispite it all, Ireland has a very good educational system, although it could use a bit of a revise.


Well in fairness I think the answer to the question is somewhere in between.

Isn't it ordinateur?

Of course I am all in favour of this. A well balanced child makes a well balanced adult. I obviously was not at your "brain-washing" ceremony, but I have taught in international schools, and the Americans for creativity come out top!

Still love Poland too though, love the people!

Now it is. I could have coped with typing 'l'ordinateur' but there was an official communique from that lot in the French Government that pull out your toe nails for using Franglish telling me to use engine of something which made my life hell for a while before we could go back to using 'le computer' when they descended upon the heathens using 'lubbly jubbly' instead.

Nic tak nie wybiela zęby jak Gównex-35. English has this thing about possesives: I'm washing MY feet, she's combing HER hair, I'm trimming MY moustache, etc. -- something alien to Polish and other languages.

If trzy w jednym and ptasie mleczko od Wedla sound normal to you that only means you have heard such wording so often that it has lost its alien ring and no longer grates your linguistiic sensivity.

Yes, I am concerned about this tendency. One good example is translating the word "exactly" (when used to indicate agreement) as "dokładnie" whereas it should be translated as "właśnie".

"Własnie" though is also "actually"! "Exactly" in the English sense of "Yes, that't it exactly!" is really NOT "dokładnie" in Polish, but rather "Tak jest!" (Not that anybody was suggesting here that it wasn't-:)) )

Ooops, 'właśnie', my misspelling LOL

Don't you think you may be confusing "właśnie" with "właściwie"? I can't figure out how "actually" can be Polish "właśnie".

Entirely possible-:)

I know that 'właściciel'/'właścicielka' means 'owner', so, then again, you're probably correct.

W£AŚNIE can convey the flavour (depending on context) of: that's the point, that's what I say, you said it, precisely, exactly, even: I agree with you or support your position.

LOL - I'm English and this expression offends my sensibilities too.

Was at a family party the other day and one of the relatives (drunken nobhead) was going on about partying "do full'a". Pronounced in a Polish accent it almost sounds like fool, which is pretty much who it is used by and the kind of behaviour it describes. ;)

I agree. It's a total abomination. Maybe it came from the english phrase "Full-on"?