Polish-American Grandma used to say this word!

Bear with me, bc I know very little, if any at all of Polish, so i will type it the way I 'remember' her saying it. If my Grandma were alive today, she would be in her late 80's and both her parents from from Poland, so this maybe a word that she 'made up' or is no longer in use, but she used to call me her pŏŏtka, or pŏŏptka, or something along those lines, is what it sounded like to me. When i asked her what it meant, she would tell me it meant, 'doll' or 'baby doll' in Polish. Like a term of endearment Can anyone help? :) thanks a ton!!!

That is my old grandmas should be kept away from babies. Contaminating their trusting minds with made-up meaningless foreign words borders on child abuse. Polish language is full of those. This is why we never allowed foreign baby talk. It was always face, nie buziuchna, or some other linguistic tumor.

I am confused....why is this so bad??

Because I have seen the results. Instead of getting and learning straight American English, kids growing up on the mixture of Polish and English suffer when interacting with their peers who quickly find them different and weird. No child ever wants to be different, ridiculed, harassed or bullied.

If that Polish were at least the reference-grade Polish - that would be tolerable. Typically, it's not. It's a mixture of cute local made up words and phrases from various regions, not what you hear on the Polish radio.

Before I left, I would seldom hear the word "kobieta" pronounced properly. It was "kobita". Just an example.

@erinegront
It might have been germanism in a regional dialect. Pupka from German 'Puppe'. In Polish it's 'lalka' , 'laleczka'

@Rich Mazur
It still makes no sense to me....there was never any ridicule, or suffering, I never learned Polish or even tried to....most of the grandchildren/children in America have 'pet names' given to them by their family members,. I am not sure your ethnicity, and/or where you grew up, but in the US, this is not uncommon and no cause for harassment

Kobita is not a pronunciation option but a slang version

Pay no attention to him, he pretends to be an immigrant to the US from Poland but often displays frank ignorance of Polish realities.

pŏŏtka - what does ŏŏ represent? the oo sound like boot or the oh sounds in boat? Something else?

Nothing so far is ringing a bell...


In other words you grew up in a melina?

It's German dialect, not Polish. Puppke is a diminutive of Puppe, which means doll in English, so little doll is a good translation.

Your grandma apparently lived in an area under German or Austrian rule at the time, and/or spoke a dialect of Polish which was heavily influenced by German.

I was wondering about that possibility, or if it was a non-standard version of pupcia (behind, buttocks) and she was being diplomatic by saying it was a doll...

@Rich Mazur
my grandma was fluent in both English and Polish, thank you @mafketis Thank you, Geesh, I never thought a simple question would bring up so much hostility from someone! lol I didnt want to learn "Polish" at the time and wasnt trying to, but anyway, yes the double o thing, was to represent the sound I was trying to make oo as in boot, yes :) @DominicB This is Probably correct, as it was my great Grandparents who were born in Poland, which would have been around the early 1900's...I did read somewhere that province Silesia had a lot of German, Czech, and Polish heritage/influence, so could be they were from that area.

@mafketis @kaprys @DominicB @Jaskier thank you all so much for your help, info and guidance!!

@mafketis lol, my grandma always used to say that i had such a 'cute little dupek' as well, she used that as a slang for butt/booty lol who knows, my family obviously has a lot different cultural influences. Ill have to sign up for an ancestry.com account!

Don't! Today, the law enforcement agencies go there with the DNA samples collected from the crime scenes. If your DNA matches their sample even marginally, you may get the visitors at your door step you really don't want.

@erinegront
You're right about Silesia having a lot of German and Czech influences.
Dupka is butt in Polish indeed ; )

And "dupA"? We all know about that one:-)

what is Dupa? that means butt, as well, correct?

It's basically a**.

As for learning more about your family, you may start by looking for some information online yourself - starting with some birth records or simply reading about Silesia.

Although things may really vary. I remember one article by a guy from Silesia who wrote that even people living in one street would use different words for the same thing like babcia, oma and starka for grandma.

Do you remember any other words she used?

Babcia is standard Polish. Starka is truly Silesian.

google.com/amp/s/slask.onet.pl/starki-i-starziki-felieton-marka-szoltyska-po-slasku/xce89.amp
Have a look at it.