Ok, what is it? Golumpkis or Golabkis?

My grandmother (and now my mother) have from time to time made what we call "Golumpkis", which are basically a meat filling stuffed in cabbage leaves. That's the only name I've known for them my entire life, until recently. My Polish girlfriend, however, had no idea what I was talking about whenever I mentioned the food until I described it to her, and she says she only knows them as "Golabkis". So, what's the deal? Which one is the right name? Are neither right? Are both right?

Correct spelling is Gołąbki.


The deal is, both of you don't know Polish.

golumbki (or actually gołumbki) is a dialectal form of gołąbki - many Polish people who left for America spoke dialects and had no or little training in written Polish language (or in literary spoken Polish) - actually they had little education to speak of - this was true for people who left for America before the world war I and for the most part also during the so called interbellum (the time between the two world wars)

Dziękuję.


She is fluent in Polish. The spelling was my own. My Polish is non-existant except for a few words.


Thank you, that makes perfect sense. Whatever way it's said or spelled, though, they sure are delicious. :)

Worth to mention is that gołąbki are already in plural form... therefore I'm not sure is it correct to follow form like "gołąbkis".

One gołąbek
Two gołąbki


Just to make things clear, pronounciation:

"ł" is read like English "w"
"ą" is read like "om"

GO£ĄBKI: pronunciation roughly -- goWUMPkee
GO£UMBKI: dialectal pronunciation -- goWOOMPkee

Incidentally, when speaking english do we apply the ethnic/foreign or indigenous English pluralisation norm?
Is it pierogi (in English) or pierogis?
If so, we should say 2 zucchini not zucchinis, as the Italian singular is zucchino.

So what's 5 of them? Gołąbków? (I think) I know that works with pączki.

yes, it works the same way as with pączki.

Double plural is nothing unusual. In Polish, we've done it with chipsy. That's our revenge for the pierogis.

Funny thing about gołąbki is that it is such an ubiquitous dish in world's different cuisines. Pretty much anywhere there is meat and cabbage available you'll find a local variety of gołąbki. The Thai version (originally Chinese) is particularly tasty. The trick is in the mixture of ground garlic, coriander root and black pepper added to the ground meat and seasoned with oyster and light soya sauce.

I'll take that into consideration as soon as Polish speakers stop using forms like

jeden beatles
dwaj beatelsie

jeden hipis
dwaj hipisie

The correect forms in (American) English are

one golumpki (or whatever, I'd just say 'cabbage roll')
two golumpkis (or golumpkis)

one pierogi
two pierogies


hipisi even

No. If you want to make it even, you should go with: jeden bitles - dwaj bitlesi.

Or replace "golumpki" with "golabki".

one (strictly speaking) is a gołąbek (goh-wom-beck); plural is gołąbki (goh-wom-kee). Collectively they are always referred to as gołąbki, regardless of how many you are talking about (just like "pierogi"...I've never heard anybody say "pierog" even when referring to one) BTW, the word "gołąbek" literally means "little pigeon."

@Polonius3


That is how we grew up saying it in my family in the US. And yes, my grandparents made their way over here during WWI.