News / 4th Polish Republic may re-emerge [244]

I take it you're no big fan of PiS.

Genealogy / How common is it for other people of Polish origin to discover they are actually Jewish? [127]

Watch this and it may help you decide whether you wnat to be Jewish or not: ...

Genealogy / Franciszek Jan Budzinski [2]

BUDZIŃSKI: root-word budzić (to wake), but probably a topo nick from Budzin, Budzień, Budzina or similar (Waketon, Wakefield, Wakely, etc.).

Genealogy / Poterucha family [2]

PATERUCHA: root-word pater (Latin for father). A small group of surnames are traceable to church Latin and include Pater, Noster, Vobis, Meus, Sekuła, etc. They probably emerged to identify someone attached to the parish (eg sexton, organist, servant). The -ucha is an augmentative, often pejroative ending making somethign sound bigger, older, tougher, rougher, coarser or less desriable than the original (as in starucha -- mangy old hag).

Genealogy / Looking for a lost friend (Katarzyna Serwin)? [9]

SERWIN: Derived from once fairly common, now rarely encountered first name Serwacy (from Latin Servatius). Serwacy is one of the 3 saints popularly referred to as 'ogrodnicy' (gardeners) -- the others being Pankracy and Bonifacy -- whose feastdays fall in mid-May which is often a cold period.

Genealogy / Last name Mesje [8]

MESJE: perhaps derived from the Hebrew name Meshullam or Messiah (in Polish: Mesjasz).

Genealogy / Anna Surma - The search for biological families and siblings in Poland [6]

Those interested in foreign adoptions usually put out feelers in various directions and PF is probably one of many possible options. Things got more difficult for foreign adopters in the 1990s, when the UN or soem other august international body ruled that that locals should get first choice. Foreigners are eligible to vie for what's left over and that usually means: children that are older, sick, handicapped, etc. I read somewhere that Swedish adoptive aprents are willing to adopt kids that are mentally or physically defective. Foreigners have one advantage sincemroe of them seem willing to adopt 3 or more siblings -- somethign few Poles could afford.

Genealogy / Museum of Apiculture in Warsaw [11]

LEWICKI: form Hebrew name Levi

GUTT: from German/Yiddish meaning either good or a grange (manorial farm).

Love / Expecting a baby with Polish partner - "multi-cultural pregnancy/parenting"? [45]

A case I have personally observed was a Brit married to a Lebanese lady -- he spoke to their baby daughter in English, the mother in French, the grandfather in Arabic and the nanny in Polish. (They were living in Warsaw.) By age 3 the little girl in a room unfailingly addressed her dad in English, automatically switched to French whent he mother appeared, then turned to the nanny in Polish and asked her granddad about soemthing in Arabic. Whether this is a normative thing or a one-off sitaution -- nie wiem. But having myself been raised bilingually, I had a much easier time of it than my monoglot peers when studing German, French, Russian and Spanish.

Genealogy / Tywoshewska, Kashawz Trying to find out where my grandmother is really from [6]

Where do you get these God-awful spellings? Tywoshewska was bad enough but Kaszawz?! Could it have been Kaszarz?

Genealogy / TROJANOWSKI - coat of arms [15]

TROJANOWSKI: like nearly all -owski names, this most likely originated as a topo nickc from Trojany, Trojanów or similar (Trojanville).

There is no Trojanowski coat of arms as such. But there were seven noble lines amongst the bearers of the Trojanowski surname, each belonging to one of the following clans and entitled to use its coat of arms: Leliwa, £aska, Ogończyk, Osssorya, Sas, Starkoń or Szeliga.

Genealogy / Searching for Dzaman/Dzama decendants [3]

DZAMAN: probably derived from dziadzio/dziadek (grandfather) root; alternatively from the old no longer used first name Dziadumił.

MAJDAŃSKI: root-word majdan (town square, village marketplace), most likely topo nick from one of several localities called Majdan.

Language / Instrumental - when "z" is necessary? [4]

Some Polish verbs govern the instrumetnal case. There we use it without the prefix 'z'. English must always use its 'with'.
All activities performed with the use of some instrument, tool or implement take the instrumental case.
Wybił szybę cegłą. (He broke the window with a brick.)
Napisał list długopisem (but na komputerze). He wrote the letter with a ballpen.
Nie jedz palcami! (Don't eat with your fingers!)
Głową muru nie przebijesz! (You won't break diown a wall with your head!)
It's worth memorising some of the more important verbs that require the instrumentall. These incldue:
władać, interesować się, jechać (means of transport in instrumental), fascynować się, etc.

UK, Ireland / Polish Family stabbed to death in St Helier. [40]

Truth and objective facts to the extent that they are known should take precedence over the hypocrisy of the PC dictatorship. If Lehman Brothers is a Jewish firm, Obama is a mulatto and the Island of Jersey killer and his vicitms were Polish, so be it. There is no need to suppress the truth for the sake of some half-baked notions like political correctness.

Genealogy / The Polish Coats of Arms & Nobility system [5]

Poland's heraldic/clan system began emerging in the 13th century. A knight, or more rarely non-combatant, usually was ennobled by the king as a reward for some feat of battlefield valour. That meant that he was granted a coat of arms and started his own clan. That clan-name (which was also the name of the coat of arms) indicated the clan someone belonged to through patrilineal inheritance (from one's father's line), adoption or marriage, and many variously surnamed and unrelated individuals shared the same clan-name. The Ogończyk c-o-a is shared by the noble lines of 318 different families from Afri to Żółtowski.

The term 'Radzikowski herbu Ogończyk' meant nothing more than 'Radzikowski of the Ogończyk clan.' The clan-name also became part of its bearer's signature, so a nobleman baptised Stanisław would have signed himself Stanisław Ogończyk-Radzikowski. Often colourful medieval legends surrounded the emergence of noble clans and the coats of arms they identified with.

The Ogończyk legend goes back to the 13th century, when a brave young knight named Piotr of Radzików (Piotr z Radzikowa, subsequently Piotr Radzikowski) wrested the kidnapped only daughter of a local aristocrat named Odrowąż from the hands of a pagan invader. He was rewarded with the daughter's hand in marriage and the crest, a modified version of the Odrowąż family coat of arms. The protruding hands apparently symbolized the knight's hands which pulled the maiden out of the pagan's clutches (or those of the maiden reaching for help). The white design on the red shield itself is supposed to symbolize a moustache impaled on an arrow, alluding to an earlier legend of a Polish knight ripping off a pagan enemy's moustache, nose and all.

Actually there were 4 noble lines amongst the Radzikowskis. The others were Rawicz, Rogala and Wieniawa. On average, from 10-12% of Old Polish society was of noble rank, meaning that the vast majority were commoners, but that differed according to the name. The adjectival -ski ending (and its variants -cki and -dzki) were the most common noble names. The second most common Polish surname Kowalski had 12 separate noble lines, but the most common Nowak - only one.

You may view many Polish coats of arms at:
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herby_szlachty_polskiej_(galeria)#Herby_rod.C3.B3w_szlacheckich

To find out if your family line was of noble ancestry would require a full-blown heraldic/genealogical search. If interested, perhaps the following may be able to help:

Institute of Genealogy: instytut-genealogii

Travel / Do you have Ethiopian restaurants in Poland ? [16]

Re spiciness, how would Ethiopian comapre with Thai cookery?

USA, Canada / Why are Polish restaurants not successful in the USA? [698]

Re Polka Restaurant video -- curry powder as a Polish seasoning is rather gross, innit!? Next they'll be pouring ketchup on naleśniki....

Genealogy / George or Albert Niespodziany and Frances Schummer from Rzedowo [3]

SCHUMMER: German for dusk or twilight; in Poland appears in transcription
as Szumer

NIESPODZIANY: unexpected; perhaps a nickname for someone who liked to surprise others with unannounced vistis or whatever.

For more information please contact me

Genealogy / Forgacz - Jezupol, Poland [9]

FORGACZ: Polish spelling of Hungarian forgács (wood shaving). Good nick for a woodcarver or carpenter.

USA, Canada / Why are Polish restaurants not successful in the USA? [698]

As with everything else, it's all about finding the right niche. The Chinese have flooded the world goods, many of them quite shoddy, that are really cheap, and they have been snapped up by consumers the world over. (It's pretty hard to find a non-Chinese child's toy or kitchen utensil in America anymore.)

Others highlight the prestige value or snob appeal of a well-known brand. Yet another approach is offering something new and different that happens to strike people's fancy.

With more and more Americans eating at fast-food joints and consuming various processed fake-foods at home, a good niche for a Polish restaurant to fill could well be offering home-made delicacies like babcia (or busia?) used to make at a reasonable price.

That would mean not loading foods down with MSG the way oriental restaurants and highlighting dishes made from scratch with wide general appeal. That could include home-made chicken soup not containing stock cubes, real (not instant) mashed potatoes, gołąbki not slathered with Campbell's tomato soup and baked on the premises rye bread not cotnaining bread-improving chemicals. Such dishes as zrazy zawijane (steak roll-ups) and kotlety schabowe (breaded port cutlets) are universally enjoyed as are many typically Polish soups: grzybowa, krupnik, żurek, czerwony basrszcz , grochówka, fruit soups, etc.

Of course, one thing Poles aren't always good at is advertising. Even the best restaurant has to be publicised to make a go of it.

Travel / Do you have Ethiopian restaurants in Poland ? [16]

I was seeking bona fide information, not such dubious wit!

Genealogy / Ksenofont Malewana [10]

Aee the docuemtns from Poland or the new counttry of residence? Is the name printed, typewritten or handwritten? Much of the fancy culicued caligraphy often got taken for something else. A 'u' whose prongs were too close together might have reminded someone of an 'o'. An 'o' with a sweeping tail could have resembled an 'a'. An extra decorative loop in the 'o' of Malowany migth have appeared to be an 'e'. Once it got written down wrong, that version kept getting recopied or reproduced indefintiely.

The bottom line in this case is that Malewany is meaningless, whilst Malowany means painted or, by extension, pretty, lovely, attractive.

Language / Which language is easier for Poles? [43]

I suppose the answers also depend on personal exposure. Someone with limtied conatcts with Czech or Belarussian migth have a different take on this.

Language / Polish past tense of chodzic/ jezdzic? [23]

Lightening things up with a little anecdotre: A man jumps out of bed in the middle of the night and starts pacing the bedroom. His wife asks what he's doing and he replies: 'I'm in the mood for sex. She is willing to oblige and says: 'No, to chodź'. He replies: 'Przecież chodzę!'

This illustrates that chodzić in the imperative means 'come', whilst otherwise it means to walk, go on foot or frequent a place.

Travel / Do you have Ethiopian restaurants in Poland ? [16]

In rough terms, what is Ethiopian cookery all about?