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Why Polish people use so many words to describe a situation?


Robert A  1 | 102  
25 Nov 2008 /  #91
OK, an English word borrowed from French? Easy start. Any takers?

ennui
VaFunkoolo  6 | 654  
25 Nov 2008 /  #92
Biscuit (arguably)

German
miranda  
25 Nov 2008 /  #93
beef for sure
polishgirltx  
25 Nov 2008 /  #94
Why Polish people use so many words to describe a situation?

did you see those posts on this forum in a form of long essays? and most of the people who post them aren't even Polish...
Seanus  15 | 19666  
25 Nov 2008 /  #95
Tulip from Dutch, amongst MANY others from this language
VaFunkoolo  6 | 654  
25 Nov 2008 /  #96
Oi!

From Spanish, or Polish or maybe some other language

Maybe not Polish, maybe Vietnamese
Seanus  15 | 19666  
25 Nov 2008 /  #97
Virtuoso from Italian
Robert A  1 | 102  
25 Nov 2008 /  #98
Bint

Arabic in origin
Wroclaw  44 | 5359  
25 Nov 2008 /  #99
I could win this.

Yesterday's Telegraph had a list of borrowings etc.
Seanus  15 | 19666  
25 Nov 2008 /  #100
Taekwondo from Korean
Robert A  1 | 102  
25 Nov 2008 /  #101
Dyke

Dutch origin - and still employed in it's original form in my neck of the woods.
szarlotka  8 | 2205  
25 Nov 2008 /  #102
Oi!

Portugese. First time I went to Brazil I was convinced they were all being disrespectful. Oi this Oi that.
Seanus  15 | 19666  
25 Nov 2008 /  #103
Suomi (Finnish) gave us the word 'sauna'
Magdalena  3 | 1827  
25 Nov 2008 /  #104
Seanus:

OK, an English word borrowed from French? Easy start. Any takers?

courage; mercy; passion / compassion; amorous; honour; guard; cavalry; damsel; isle; mortal; regret; orange; Eskimo; page (a knight's young assistant); valour; coast; distress; martial; cream...

and that's just the tip of the tip of the iceberg...
southern  73 | 7059  
25 Nov 2008 /  #105
Seanus:
OK, an English word borrowed from French? Easy start. Any takers?

Panties,perfume.
Oh,la la.
Seanus  15 | 19666  
25 Nov 2008 /  #106
Biro from Hungarian
OP krakow1  3 | 55  
25 Nov 2008 /  #107
did you see those posts on this forum

Yes, now I know why it takes to up to 15 minutes to find out it we are going in the right direction, there is so much debate upon which is the "correct linguistic response", now even I am confused!

Nevermind ,I still love Krakow, even if it takes me 40 mins in the wrong direction!. The only poster I really understood was Mafketis, I thought that his theory was very interesting and probably answered my question , taking into account many avenues which I had not considered. Thank you Mafketis.

However this theory would probably not hold out so well with a Polish taxi driver, but I shall try and let you know.

Shall we have the next debate about where the comma should be in a sentance? It could prove very very interesting, and could turn the" linguistic world upside down"!
osiol  55 | 3921  
25 Nov 2008 /  #108
I still love Krakow, even if it takes me 40 mins in the wrong direction!

Serendipity.

A very unwordy response.
OP krakow1  3 | 55  
25 Nov 2008 /  #109
A very unwordy response

How many words can you use to say "I am lost", where is Krakow?
polishgirltx  
25 Nov 2008 /  #110
"I am lost", where is Krakow?

Zgubiłam (em) się.
Jak dostać się do Krakowa?
Jak dojechać do Krakowa?
Czy mógłby (mogłaby) Pan (Pani) wytłumaczyć mi jak dojechać (dostać się) do...
and many more...
;)
mafketis  38 | 10866  
25 Nov 2008 /  #111
Zgubiłam (em) się.

or zabłądziłem się?
polishgirltx  
25 Nov 2008 /  #112
without 'się'.... just 'zabłądziłem/łam'
Marek  4 | 867  
25 Nov 2008 /  #113
Zabłądziłem w lesie. = I got lost in the woods.
Jestem stracony! - I'm a lost soul!
Zgubiłem mój portefel. = I lost my wallet.

Cf. English lost is lost is lost......-:)
EraAtlantia  2 | 106  
25 Nov 2008 /  #114
OK, an English word borrowed from French? Easy start. Any takers?

Bro, seriously? I would dare to say that a huge amount of english is borrowed french or influenced hugely by french. The grammar also. All the -tion words i.e

condition
position
reflection.....that could go on forever.

And french words like Dent in english is tooth/teet hence Dentist.
Effect - En afait
Perfect - Parfait
Mountain - montagne
Garden - Gardin
This list could be endless.......

Direct words such as Restaurant, entrepreneur, magazine, battery, press, comprehend....

I'm pretty sure the contribution of french to the english language is immense. I would assume that french would be up there with one of the most detailed languages in the world also.
Polson  5 | 1767  
25 Nov 2008 /  #115
I'm pretty sure the contribution of french to the english language is immense

Exactly. And look at your sentence: 'sure' → 'sûr', 'contribution' → 'contribution', 'language' → 'langage', 'immense' → 'immense'...
It's said that between 1/3 and 2/3 of the English vocabulary comes from French (mostly Old French and Latin).
Just give a look at the article in Wikipedia, it has no end ^^ Simply huge.
Bzibzioh  
25 Nov 2008 /  #116
Fiancé / fiancée and divorcé / divorcée

What about Greek words?
Magdalena  3 | 1827  
26 Nov 2008 /  #117
condition
position
reflection.....that could go on forever.

Direct Latin influence + Latin filtered through French - sometimes it's hard to decide which route a borrowing took. But most "big" polysyllabic English words are Latin / Greek.

Not everyone knows that many European languages, incl. Polish and Czech, absorbed cliches of meaning rather than the actual Latin words, hence e.g.:

wpływ = influx = influence
(something which literally "flows" onto something else, engulfing it like water)
podwładny = subordinatus = subordinate
stolica = sedes = seat / position of authority
(the Old Polish stolica meant a seat, as in chair or throne)
podpisywać = subscribere = sign
(write underneath)
Rzeczpospolita = Res Publica = republic
(the common / public thing)

etc. etc.
z_darius  14 | 3960  
26 Nov 2008 /  #118
I didn't say they were new languages, just sources which could potentially contribute to the evolution of English, in the impure form.

They could and they do. This applies to most other languages.

Maybe we should stop bickering and test this out, a thread where sb suggests a language and we have to find an English word that was taken from that language.

Yes, that would be interesting, but also biased. We'd need to have a thread like that for many languages, and then compare the results. My guess is that English would prove to be a "dealer" of new words that sipped to other languages too.

OK, an English word borrowed from French? Easy start. Any takers?

About 80% of them :)

Biscuit (arguably)

biszkopt

beef

common IE root

Tulip from Dutch

Tulipan

Virtuoso from Italian

vurtuoz

Bint

Arabic in origin

Not a girl, but also from Arabic:
alkohol, alkaliczny,chemia,algebra

Taekwondo from Korean

Same in Polish

Dyke

Dutch origin

This isn't really a borrowing. The word has protogermanic origin (dīc in OE)

Panties,perfume.

pantalony, perfumy

Biro from Hungarian

Not this particular one, but many others:

dobosz, giermek,hajduk, katana, kontusz, orszak, szyszak

What about Greek words?

dół, mosiądz, marmur, mak and a whole lot of liturgical terms.

Direct Latin influence

Huge in Polish too.

So what do we see here?
Languages influence one another.
Marek  4 | 867  
26 Nov 2008 /  #119
.....plus calques or loan translations abound in nearly every language, i.e German words translated directly from the Latin e.g. AUSDRUCK = EX + PRESSERE (aus-ex, druck - pressere) etc....
Grzegorz_  51 | 6138  
17 Dec 2008 /  #120
The simple answer is that English has a richer vocabulary.

Prove It.

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