Language / The lost literary languages of Poland [54]

This is very true. Polish people do not even realize that this vocabulary came from Yiddish and think it is Slavic.

Genealogy / Gleesau apud Posen, Polonia Silesia [35]


Again, how utterly incompetent you are, Dominic, is beyond comprehension, given that you insist on promoting ideas which are simply wong one after another. Dobrzejewice is a village well on the territory of the former Congress Kingdom of Poland, so it is in the Russian and not Prussian partition, even if Dobrzejewice is near Toruń which was in the Prussian part. This fact is testified perfectly well in several document on the history of Ziemia Dobrzyńska (Dobrzyn County) available in PDF on the web.

As to the "Silesian" problem, I'm sure the problem arises from the lack of a comma between 'Posen' and 'Polonia'. It should then read "in Gleesau apud Posen, Polonia, Silesia". So Polonia refers to Posen and Gleesau refers to Silesia. So, what Babocra's ancestors meant was: Gleesau (whatever it is, but it is very likely to be Kliszów) in Silesia by the border of the Grand Duchy of Posen. These people, as many of their contemporaries in the Grand Duchy of Poznań, ignored the fact that the Posen province was at the time Prussian, because the province, the cradle of the Polish state, was stolen from Poland in the second partiton of the country in 1793, thus they bravely continued to consider it Polish rather than Prussian.

One should really rely more on the evidence given by contemporary people who knew who they were and where they lived, even if they were unable to be as precise about the detail as they would have wished to.

Genealogy / Gleesau apud Posen, Polonia Silesia [35]


No, it isn't "deep into Silesia". It is fairly close to the border of the Posen province. What you say is as true as what you originally said about Kliszów:


You said that Kliszów was nowhere near Silesia, whereas Babocra has found it right in Silesia for you. So now you say after her it is "deep in Silesia". How pathetic of you, Dominic! Despite that you spell the name as "Kleischau", while Babocra and I were talking about "Klieschau". There is an important difference in pronounciation in German between the two. So first be careful to what you are writing, Dominic, and then start to promote your misleading views. Besides, Babocra was telling you about a lot of spelling mistakes in the documents to which argument you want to remain as blind as ever.

Genealogy / Gleesau apud Posen, Polonia Silesia [35]

I think Wawrzyn is sufficient given that 'Wawcin' appeared somewhere in the documents. Can you decipher the entire Latin text?

Genealogy / Gleesau apud Posen, Polonia Silesia [35]

Yes, indeed. This is strange this 'Varzze'. What comes to my mind is the Christian name "Błażej" as explanation.

What about writing down a transcription of the text of this document. Can you decipher it all in Latin?

Language / The lost literary languages of Poland [54]


This is beacause Poland has different borders now.

'Macaronic' is strangely number one on your list. I doubt if it was ever heard in Poland later than in the 18th century, mostly not later than in the first half of that century.


This is probably only a passing fashion. Personally, I never hear this in spite of working in Warsaw. My guess is that they use this language between themselves only, once they hear someone who is able to use "queen's" Polish all the time they just stop, intimidated that they may sound so very backward.

Genealogy / Gleesau apud Posen, Polonia Silesia [35]

This is a very interesting document. The most important question is: where was this document issued? If it was made in Klieschau in Lower Silesia, it is extremely unlikely that the person who did that over there would have misspelt Klieschau for Gleesau. They could if they were writing it on hearing someone pronouncing such a name in Polish (Kliszów or Kleszczów) in the then Prussian province of Wielkopolska (Grand Duchy of Posen / Greater Poland). Here are the names of Kliszów in Lower Silesia as they were recorded in the past:

Kleschau - 1409; Clischau - 1470; Villa Cletsov / Clesow - 1580; Klieschau - since 1787 until 1945.

'G' can be easily interchanged with 'K' - these are the two variants (voiced or voiceless) of the same phoneme. My guess is that the writer was a German writer rather than a Polish one writing the name in the Grand Duchy of Posen (a Polish writer would be more likely to write 'K'). Notice also that the writer had visible difficulty in writing down some other Polish names

The use of 'Polonia' in the document in reference to Silesia is pretty strange. In 1867 there may still, however, have been some tiny Polish-speaking minority in that part of Lower Silesia (former Kreis Wohlau in Niederschlesien). If not, those people in Kliszów could have arrived there as temporary farmer labourers from the Grand Duchy of Posen. The name 'Dobrzeh(n)izza" which you render as 'Dobrzejewice' is assigned to 'Russopolonia' in the document (as it is the village near Toruń, it might well have been situated within the Russian part of Poland, though I did not check that)


By saying "Posen", the author of the document could mean the Posen province rather than the town of Posen. In that sense the Latin term "apud Posen" in the document could mean "next to Posen province, next to its borders" which is very true for the village of Klieschau in the neighbouring Niederschlesien.

Genealogy / Slavs are descendants of Sarmatians? [600]



Did I say "three tribes of Slavs"? No, I said there were "three groups of Slavs". Within each of these groups there were several tribes, every one of them known by name in old chronicles of Franks, Saxons and Danes.


But the Germans could also have transferred the name "Venedi", name of some pre-Slavic folk, onto the Slavs when the latter arrived.


Perhaps it is true. One recent theory is that the term "Polonia" was invented in Rome first (it appears in Rome in an old source for the first time ever) and then adopted by king Boleslaus Chrobry as the name for his country (he made coins with the name 'Polonia'). The name "Polonia" meaning literally "land of fields" could have been created according to the same pattern as "Campania" in Italy ('camp' is field) or "Champagne" ('champ' means field) in France, but having been given the core for the name directly from the Slavic language ('pole' means field). So only hell knows how those people used to call themselves before this new name 'Polans' were thrown onto them (name which would literally mean: 'inhabitants of the land of fields') by some foreign monks in Rome and then adopted by the local politicians in Gniezno. Maybe 'Vandali/Veneti' was their proper name before that?

Feedback / Staying on thread (re-closed) [26]

You wanted to say, WB, that you were banging on and on for years about someone on the forum being a toilet cleaner?

Feedback / Staying on thread (re-closed) [26]


Vincent, why did she leave?

Genealogy / Slavs are descendants of Sarmatians? [600]


Never ever heard of this. Can you provide a source?

@ Suevi/Venethi
It is interesting that the Germans once referred to Slavs as Wenden. In today's East Germany there used to be three groups of Slavs: Obotrites, Weleti (Lutici) and Sorbs. Why this difference? Could the inflowing Slavs conquer different groups of indigenous people at different times before they became slavicized? Were they first known as Wenden to Germanic tribes and the Germans later on passed that name onto Slavs?

Po polsku / Ilu "polanoglotów" na PF? [25]


"Ferdydurke" się nie czyta. Na "Ferdydurke" chodzi się do teatru. Wtedy jest znakomite.


We Wrocku to i za 17 tys. (tak właśnie pisze się ten skrót, nie zaś "tyś.") nie da się w żaden sposób wyżyć.

Polskie księżniczki są znakomite tylko dopóty, dopóki nie wydoją lovera (może jednak "lowelasa"?) aż do ostatniego (euro)centa. Potem znikają, rozpływając się we mgle ... Cóż, takie życie!

Genealogy / Slavs are descendants of Sarmatians? [600]

And, of course, "Fancia" means here the kingdom of Franks and not France

The white Croats as well as the white Sorbs lived on what was the territory of the former DDR (today these are the lands of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringen. Some of them dwell there still as a tiny minority among their neighbourghs the Germans who were also Sorbs not sovery long time ago (even under Hitler there were more of Sorben people than at present).

Language / Przypadki (Polish language cases) [59]


It does, luckily. The OP should sit down, relax, take a deep breath and contemplate 'us', 'them', 'me', 'her' and 'him'. Then the OP should conceive some simple English sentences using those pronouns, then change them into the nominative forms like 'I went to see her' ---> 'I went to see she'. Then he quickly realizes what the language with the case system really is and why it is necessary to use cases when using such a language. Perhaps the OP does know it already, but he doesn't know how to master the use of those cases. What the OP should realize is that the relation between 'I' and 'she' in the sentence above is reflected by putting the 'she' into the accusative case (the word 'accuse' in the name of the case rightly indicates that the verb 'see' sort of 'accuses someone'), so 'she' becomes 'her'. It isn't, however, reflected in another sentence which uses 'Mary' rather than 'her' ---> I went to see Mary'. It would be reflected in Polish, however ('Poszedłem odwiedzić Marysię' and not 'Poszedłem odwiedzić Marysia). I think that the need for reflecting relations linguistically should become a necessity in his mind. Whenever he learns a sentence in Polish he should form the image of this relation and glue it to the forms he uses.

Also, the OP has also the 'Saxon genetive' at his disposal in English which can broaden his 'feel' for the cases substantially :-).

Language / Przypadki (Polish language cases) [59]


That's an interesting point that shows that the human brain operates differently in childhood as opposed to adult life.

First thing is that you should give up on trying to learn it all at one time .
Second is that you should make your imagination act, not only your rational mind. Learning a language is not learning maths, though I think people who are successful in maths just use their imagination when thinking maths which is not what most people can do.

Remember that the proto-Indoeuropean language, the distant ancestor of English, had 9 cases and these were not for making things more complex. Their existence reflected the need of the human brain to mirror relations between object or ideas. Some languages of which English is the most notable example lost this imminent logic over time, but try for a while to think of cases in the language as a "normal" thing and of English without cases as some sort of abberation to which the speakers of English have just got used to.

When I write or speak in English, I formulate my phrases without reaching out to Polish for help which is my native tongue. But I'm sure that the mechanism of thinking in terms of cases does work all this time in me in the background, although it works silently. Your task should be to build such a mechanism from the ground. That's the logic of learning the language with cases, not learning the endings by heart. Learning of the endings of words is secondary.

History / Location of Radwau (town in Poland) and its church? [14]


So, it is clear now that we're not looking for any German surname. Tell us who issued the death certificate, in which year it was issued and in what place? In what language is it written? This is important as it will show in what language the name of the town (village) could have been transformed.

Jacob Kulaga sounds a Polish name (Jakub Ku£aga), but Mary Driedru does not (French or Belgian?).

History / Location of Radwau (town in Poland) and its church? [14]


See above.

History / Location of Radwau (town in Poland) and its church? [14]


Who said of it being a German surname? Not me, I pointed out that that this may be a germanized name of a place and have given him Radłów, a town in Małopolskie. Radwau is d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y a name which is not Polish in its form and never has been such, so if he speaks about "churches in Radwau", we shall try to find a Polish form of the name.

This is, of course, a hypothesis and there may be another name (or in fact another reason) which gave the base for this distortion of the original Polish name.

History / Location of Radwau (town in Poland) and its church? [14]

Radwau, if Polish, should be a germanized name. If so, you must look for something as Radłów on the map of contemporary Poland.

And indeed, Radłów exists in Małopolskie and there is a church there erected in 1337.

News / Kopacz wants PO to hire more professional PiS-bashing haters [66]


The present government is a joke. Tusk was sweeping the serious problems under the carpet for years (one of the few ones he managed to get through was increasing the retirement age, however). Kopacz should have re-shuffled her government as soon as she became Prime Minister. She did not, so she was forced to do so after some clown with the funny surname STONOGA published some documents on the net. The voters are likely to see it as a total failure to get things done when there was time for it. The governmet which recedes before such a grotesque figure as Mr. Centipede cannot be treated seriuously!

Genealogy / Skorupodski / Golwick - Were my Polish ancestors Jewish? [9]

Zduńska Wola near £ódź did never belong to the former German Empire, so the reason for the change may have been more trivial, such as facilitating the spelling of the surname to the rules of Polish orthography. It must have been pronounced "Waner" by their Polish neighbours and the family may have already been polonized by 1909, but still retaining the original form of the surname, however. Notice that the change might even have occured under the Russian administration in Zduńska Wola (which lasted until 1914-1915). You need to see documents to know when exactly it happened.

Also, you should consider that the Germans played an important role in setting up the new (at least partly or autonomously) Polish administration after the Russian army was repelled from the area of the former Cogress Kingdom of Poland. Various projects were put forward by the Germans and Austria-Hungarians to re-create a Polish state connected in one way or another with those so-called "central powers". It could have been some occasion for the family to simplify the spelling of their surname on the occasion of issuing new identity documents by this new post-Russian administration perhaps.

Love / My Polish girlfriend is pregnant by cheating on me and wants this baby without my permission. Please help. [51]


Is abortion legal in Turkey?


Such a story happened recently in Argentina. A 16-year old boy killed his 14-year old girlfriend when she told him she got pregnant. His family then helped him to bury the body in the garden surrounding the house.


Why then did he want her to have sex with? Notice that not only is she "fat and ugly" (as you say), she is also much older than he is. C'mon Christa, aren't there any more women in the world?

Love / My Polish girlfriend is pregnant by cheating on me and wants this baby without my permission. Please help. [51]


Yes, he wanted pleasure, but no responsibility. That's why I said (the post was deleted) that he'd better had sex with another man. No responsibility for him, only pleasure.

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]

When I was on a visit in the North of England some years ago, our British host (a devoted member of the Anglican church btw) observed "these days no one wants to marry, these days it is only gay people who are keen on marrying). And there was something about it, indeed. As far as marriage is concerned, gay people tend to mimic something that is inherent to the union of man and woman as these two individuals together are potentially ably to concept a new life. This has nothing to do with "rights" or "hatred" or "free speech" or "gay parade". This is a purely biological fact which has nothing to do with any "church" or "LGTB" and no one, gay or straight, is able to overcome this. As simple as this and because of this gay marriage makes no sense.

On the other hand, gay people should be granted the right to form a union in the name of law, but it shouldn't be called "marriage".

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]


I like this example! If you went round telling everyone that you are "openly heterosexual Christian", you would have most likely been caught by police and escorted to the nearest psychiatric hospital for being insane. Just like the Good Soldier Schweik of Bohemia got arrested in a little town of Austria-Hungary in 1918 for going round and shouting "Long live our dearest Emperor Franz Joseph!".

Off-Topic / Bozia - does such an affectionate term for God exist in other langauges [6]

The mountaineers (Górale, Goralenvolk) have an even funnier name for God - Pan Bocek!

History / The Polans - founders of Kiev and Kievan Rus'. [6]

It is first to prove some link between the Polans of Ruthenia and Western Slav Polans. The two groups may have called themselves as such independently of each other. It is also interesting the the name "Polans" in reference to the latter group appeared in the historical sources relatively late, as far as I can remember now, later than 966 when Mieszko I and thus Poland was baptised.

Genealogy / Slavs are descendants of Sarmatians? [600]

However, I cannot find the English translation of the text of Abraham ben Jacob. Could you provide the link?

Genealogy / Slavs are descendants of Sarmatians? [600]

Can you give a brief summary of genetic studies on Sorbs bearing in mind that there are two groups of them: one of Niederlausitz (Brandenburg) and one of Oberlausitz (Saxony)?

Po polsku / Ilu "polanoglotów" na PF? [25]


Twoja strata. Omijają Cię najciekawsze tematy.


Zatem nie ma tutaj ani nigdzie indziej rdzennych Polaków. Ostatni Piast zszedł z tej ziemi (konkretnie z ziemi śląskiej) bodajże 1625 w roku. Konopnicka też już podążyła ich śladem. Dziś prawdziwych Polaków już nie ma ...