Can anyone help with spelling of Grandmother

you mean "Dziadzia"? aww.

(i know its silly but jaja pronounced as yaya in Polish means something else lol)

We spell it Babcia (Bab-chi) and Gagi (ga-gi)

I grew up in NYC area and Polish-Americans called their grandmother the same as the poster from Phily. (Bopchi) Of course it is wrong, but we are/were not aware of it. Probably any Polish American 2nd generation will say this. I was shocked that this was incorrect when my from Poland boyfriend was puzzled.

So, I began wondering how this came to be so. I figured it is because while Babcia is correct, people speaking Polish and English, evenutally put endings on things according to English phonetics and rules. Kind of like Yiddish is a mixture of medieval German, Hebrew and in some Polish or other language where they lived.

We can say dog...or to make it more affectionate and "cute"....say doggie.
So to be less formal than Babcia, they at some point add that "ie" sound and it come out Bopchi. (American phoentics). Just my guess. It is widespread in usage in America, although incorrect.

Your guess is a good one. There are similar things Poles do to the English language, for instance Szekspir.

Interesting....I guess that is why we have "living" languages and also dictionaries to standardize.

Émigré Poles in London introduced quite a few English words into the Polish language partly as a game and perhaps even some sort of subconscious acceptance of new circumstances, so “I’m going to Sainsbury’s” became “Idę do Sajnsburego”, “I was on holiday” became “byłam na holideju (instead of ‘na urlopie’)”, Polish sausages remained kiełbasy, but their English counterpart became “sosydrze”.

Obviously everyone, so far, is fully aware that these words don’t in any way form part of the Polish language – but given time, who knows what can happen. Should these “sosydrze” eating Poles ever make a mass return to Poland they will bring new words with them.

My family only had the phrases, 'k*rwa mać' and 'daj mi pieniądze' passed down and they got a little distorted until I decided to learn Polish and restore them=P

Babcia

I too call my grandmother Busia and she called her grandmother Busia. I live in Chicago and have many friends who told me that I say it wrong and that basically I am calling her an "old lady." Regardless, I will always call her Busia and tell my kids that my mother is to be called Busia.

Busia Busia Busia (you say it the way you like it as long as mum is happy with it. Boring is anything done oldfashioned.
Do it the different way
love x

I was born in New Jersey, my grandmother was from PA, and we too used an Americanized version when refering to my grandparents who were of Polish decent. "Bacci" and "Jaja". As many people said it must be a dialect established for that area.

Americans pronunce BOB like BAB as if there was an A instead of an O .

I am partially polish and I seeen that variations such as Babula and Babunia were also used as grandma....is this accurate and how would those be pronounced

these are in use indeed, babula being less frequent in my experience.

My relatives are part of the polish migration to texas in the 1870's, and my family calls grandmothers busia (busha), grandfathers jaja, and aunts cha cha.

It depends on where you're from. Maybe in Boston MAss or sth, but in NY we say Bob with an o.

I have a book that my PL class gave me and it has Busia as the Grandmother. My teacher says it may be because the PL was Americanised. In PL I've never heard anyone refer to a grandmother like this, but I haven't lived there for a long period of time, so what do I know :) I usually hear babcia or a variation of that. Jaja for grandfather? lol...papy balls :)

babusha is russian

Simply put.

-Babcia is used when you are speaking of your Grandmother. (ie: My Babcia was born in Poland and moved to IL.) [Sounds like Bop-Cha]

-Babciu is used when speaking to your Grandmother. (ie: Babciu, how are you today.) {Sounds like Bop-Chew]


Not all American's only the ones in Illinois and most of the midwest. I was taught by my Babcia who is originally from Poland and now lives in IL (I was raised and live in California, spent 2 years in Chicago in my 20's) that It sounds like Bop-Cha or Bop-chew if I am speaking to her. Most people in IL make O's sound like A's.

I suppose you could sound it out Bob-cha or bop-cha. Either way it sounds pretty much the same.

It does not sound like Bop-chee = bop-chi

Grandmother is Babcia pronounced Bob-Chee. I've also hear slang as "Ba-Chee"
Grandfather is Djiadek pronounced JAH-deck. To make it more endearing, we used to call our granddad - JAH-Jee. or JAH-J for short.

gggpoismsl

Yes, it might well sound like that when pronounced incorrectly by a 27th generation American Pole who hasnt got a clue how to speak English properly, yet alone any other language

Americans pronounce O like a long southern English A. That's not like the Polish A which is more like a Scottish A. For an American, you have to realise that the Polish A sound doesn't really occur in American English. Polish A is somewhere between American O and A, but still closer to A. Probably.

If you're calling your grandmother, you might want to say Babciu - "Bap chew", or if you insist, "Bob Chew"... oh don't get me started on American ways of pronouncing U.

we use bucia (busha) and jaja for great grandparents on my dads side of the family...we also use kuha for babka...my moms mother is originally from pa when her parents moved from poland in late 1890's.

my great-grandmother was always "bab-chi" to us here in Buffalo.