Life / Polish pretense - what's the deal? [72]

Why not, Envyme?

News / Polish language diacritical marks at risk! [20]

When I text with a close friend we do not bother to use Polish special letters in all words except when it is better to do so.

But playing with omissions is also a fun game.

Yes, the diacrits are cute and when I text with a woman I am using them. It gives the communication a touch of commitment and tenderness :)

Life / Men in Poland in the forest? Just men? [133]

The Census forms asked to name the ethnicity. Not all people name other than Polish but those who wish can declare other ethnicity. That is why I expected to see them on official maps. Those maps of Podkarpacie that I saw first diid not identify Tatars but now I see other websites that do.

I think I see your point: It is a Melting Pot anyway. Sure but it is just very interesting - it is a riddle to solve!

Once I met a guy from Turkey who did not look Turkish - he looked familiar to me. Moreover he loved the Polish Basketball League. It turned out he was from the Polish minority living east of Istambul.

Life / Men in Poland in the forest? Just men? [133]

Yeah, I was in that region often and saw many minority and mixes and so I was surprized to see now that these Asian looking people are so hard to find using Google. Official websites do not seem to list them at all.

You are right Ironside.

News / Polish language diacritical marks at risk! [20]

I am not sure how English replacements can solve that problem within one generation. Poles may choose English as their favourite second language in a few generations but not yet. Messaging in plain font is easier to achieve by creativity.

I do not have these problems when messaging with my Polish friends. There are new words I do not know but that is not a problem.

Life / Men in Poland in the forest? Just men? [133]

Look up the KARAIMI - they look slightly Asian, speak some subgroup Turkish.
KOZACY are not so different from KAZAIMI and fit your desciption.
Mind there are two related KAZAIMI in the world. Polish and Ukrainian KAZAIMI are predominantly Asian/Turkish.
There are also KAZAIMI in the Middle East who are predominantly Semitic but a mix with probably some Asian ethnies.

News / Polish language diacritical marks at risk! [20]

A good topic! But the nuances get saved when you spell words creatively and you can use synonims or add information to prevent guessing.
There are further methods like creating new words, using idiomatic phrases, what not.

Love / My Polish GF cheating on me? need polish speakers help in the conversation [17]

Wow, that is something!

Why? Do you want to control a Polish girl?!
Just forget it. Flying a fighter jet could be easier! :D

Life / Men in Poland in the forest? Just men? [133]

That is from Wikipedia
"Po wojnie w granicach Polski pozostały 2 wsie tatarskie w dzisiejszym województwie podlaskim (Bohoniki i Kruszyniany), ponadto Tatarzy żyją rozproszeni w Gdańsku, Białymstoku, Warszawie i Gorzowie Wielkopolskim. £ącznie ok. 3 tysiące ludzi."

Transl.:
After the war (WW2) twoTatar villages were counted both in Województwo Podlaskie - Bohoniki and Kruszyniany.
Other Tatars live in Gdańsk, Warszawa and in Gorzów Wielkopolski. Total Tatar population counts around 3 thousand people.

WRONG REGION! :(

Member Maybe could be right. I am reading Roma population goes back to the 14th century!

wrota.podkarpackie.pl/pl/kultura/mniejszosci/etniczne

Wow, just read Dreadnought's posts again. Karaimi fit to his description better. And his Polish girlfriend said they were not Romani.

Life / Men in Poland in the forest? Just men? [133]

Dreadnought, Ironide sais it! I'll be damned! It seems my lead was not all that wrong. Possibly Tatarzy Polscy. You can find them on Google. And they have their own websites!

Language / Word clarification (Polish): the word for axle stands. [9]

"Warsztatowy" stands for an axle stand. In Polish, mechanisms are often named after the place where they are used instead of their main functional feature or principle when they are standard equipment anyway. You can use additional information like "regulowany" for clarity.

Regulowany stojak warsztatowy. I am not a car mechanic but remember how someone was using these terms.

Nastawny stojak warsztatowy

Yeah, regulowany means that you can regulate it while something is standing on it while NASTAWNY means that you have to set it to a position before you put something on it. It is a pro term that I have just found on car repair related sites.

Language / Word clarification (Polish): the word for axle stands. [9]

Stojak warsztatowy =
Kobyłka warsztatowa =
Podstawka warsztatowa =
Podstawka pod samochód

:)

Life / Men in Poland in the forest? Just men? [133]

I have lived in three countries and learned for fun how to tell peoples ethnic backgrounds even mixes and I swear I used to be very good at it. Tell me their features and I tell you who they are. I am fascinated already! They could be clan members or a minority or locals who just took to squatting in the woods as a local trait which is imaginable to me. When two groups of the same bird species on either side of the Golden Gate bridge sing differently so can some locals develop their specific hang out behavior as well :)

Life / Men in Poland in the forest? Just men? [133]

Dreadnought, the region knows all kinds of indoeuropean tribes, including germanic, slavic, celtic, finnic, huns and what not. Later it was challendged by the tartars, turks, germans, there were even dutch settlements in the 14th c, possibly also before and after that. That is what I read in the academic literature.

History / WWII - who really was the first to help Poland? [900]

He might be right about navigation or rather cartography and espionage, optical ingeneering, radio communication. The naval ship building was very progressive though not all strategy clever - if you heard about Bismarck, Tirpitz and Graf Speer for that matter they were rather doomed unlike the U-Boot fleet which were relying very much on cartography and related maritime research further on espionage, encrypting techniques and perfect logistics. The U-boats became an easy prey for the bombers operating from land and from the only British aircraft carrier when they begun to decipher the enigma code that Poles cracked before the war for the first time. Enigma was being improved and so the Brits and Poles had to constantly adapt to it but they were decrypting the new versions soon and so they knew the positions of German U-Boots very often and could destroy them when they resurfaced during the day even in bad weather.

Life / Men in Poland in the forest? Just men? [133]

Hahahaha!!!
I like the Asian trait explanation!
One other possible explanation - they may have begun to squat only in recent times!
:)

Life / Men in Poland in the forest? Just men? [133]

Hello Zetigrek! :)
I was born in Poland. I am of mixed descent and not living in Poland for 30 years. I speak Polish pretty well still.
Are you Polish?

Life / Men in Poland in the forest? Just men? [133]

Wow! That was a nice welcome! Must have touched something. If so, I am sorry. But I know Podkarpacie and Beskidy. I actually went there many times and stayed there for a few weeks at a time. And yes, people there act different in public than in other regions, say in Wielkopolska or Pomorze for that matter. And for my knowledge of the region itself well it is not Śląsk, Kraków, Mazowsze, and many other ones that attract lots of migrants but a place that suffered a lot alone during WWI, situated at a natural barrier on one side can pretty much be different than the rest and usually it is.

Food / "Poland - it's the new Provence of food" [56]

Crossing the border I have to make a stop for Flaczki and Chicken at a Zajazd.
Tomatoes and cucumber have a taste unlike anywhere else. In the winter it is Flaczki, Bigos and Surówki.
Then I drop into a few bakerys to find the best place for cakes armed with a bottle of fresh milk.
Yummmmy!!!

Forget to say that person saying Poland is a new Provence was right! It has always been! BTW, Poles and Provencales are even using the same herbs!

Life / Men in Poland in the forest? Just men? [133]

Hello! Podkarpacie is an ancient mix of various ethnical groups and I mean very old. They are different because they do not like to leave their region and since there is hardly any modern industry center there is no real mixing of population any more.

History / WWII - who really was the first to help Poland? [900]

Hello everyone! An interesting discussion. Indeed Gallipoli was erratic and a drop out and there seems to be a concensus about it in the academic world. The reason for that weird execution of that capaign was ignorance, arrogance and incompetence both political and military. In that era on the one hand one guy Laurence of Arabia could mobilze a considerable force out of nothing on the other you had armies from intolerant nations incapable of carrying out a single strategically logical operation. Let alone communicate about the goals of their madly developing industries and forms of ruling that could not contain any dangerous development in technology, society, economy - anything!

But when the WW1 was a warning which did more harm to male european population than any medieval epidemy, the beginning of the WW2 showed the total bankrupcy of crisis management not only in Poland but of all so called Allies.

We should not assume that socio-economic and political mechanisms were unknown back then, otherwise all the diplomatic efforts and pacts of the '30s would not have been so intense. During my undergraduate studies in Strategic Studies Dept. in the nineties those times were not even considered substantial for future global strategy as no alliance had any substance as there was absolutely no forum capable of down to the business and restrictive actions. There was no real concensus and no will to look over own plates.

The British had a chance to build Europe as they wished but they were still involved everywhere and nowhere. It was not just their failure that Germany again could try to trick all and do it in a "total" manner - there was not even anything new about it!

Even today in our naivity we like to think that the Allies just failed to react. It was not really so. Again there was no preparation in Britain, worse there was a sympathy for NS ideas especially in life style and economy model matters. And so Poland had to decide if they even fight or not because they knew that Brits would not budge. That awareness made them send all good ships to England before the outbreak of the war! Surely no sign of confidence in the Alliance!

But back to the original question - who was the first to help Poland - I think it was Romania which allowed the Polish armies to retreat through their territory.

One wonders what connections were there? Obviously we should give more credit to the actions of few influential people in the goverment and among the elites and to the sympathies between nations rather than thought out strategy even though these actions and sympathies just could not have a decisive, uniting and organizing power necessary not only to control Germany but to create vital plans for the benefit of Polish economic and military sovereignty and so for the whole of Europe. Let us not forget that it was Poles who have always had a paneuropean vane throughout their history since ... the Piasts, later through various foreign elected kings and including a union with Lithuania, efforts to unite with Ukraine, the help to the besieged Vienna, the Legions, the somewhat one side frienship with Italy, France and Greece, diplomatic efforts of famous public figures throughout the first 30 years of the 20th c, the sympathy and support for Spanish republicans.

Food / Polish Eating Habits [87]

Hello everyone!
I have read all your posts and all of you seem right and totally wrong in the Polish food vs. obesity debate!
Why. Poland's climate has an immense influence on eating habbits. So has the fact that Poles or Slavs in general developed and learned agriculture, fishery and holding animals early and were peasant tribes for a long time.

Slavs were not known as great builders, conquerers or tradesmen like other indoeuropean nations because their main interest lied in the pleasures of life instead of seeking realisation in "big things". Food has had a central cultural role as everything that happened has had its pinnacle around the table. The climate with its four distinct seasons created the need for food short term preservation methods that produced Polish dishes like Galaretki, Kiełbasy, Bigos, Kiszonki, etc. There was no need to dry or ferment fish like in Scandinavia or dry it like in say Caucasian countries. The soils in Poland are rich and the warm season long and so each time of year has its own dishes in relative abundance.

The eating habits that come from this abundance are comprehensible - you eat often and various foods.
But it needs to be said that there is a cultural ideal of well fed but not fat women. Only older married women had the priviledge of obesity.

Edit: professionalism, tradition and pleasures of life have been three central aspects of slavic civilisation and still are.