Czech language sounds like baby talk to most Poles. Similarities?

Antek_Stalich
I understand Czech is different from Polish. But then, which foreign language is most similar to Polish??

AS, look and you may find similarities :) :) Dobri den is close. Some Slavic languages are closer in some vocab and then more distant in others. Take uchets in Czech (rachunek, a bill). It's raczun in Serbo-Croatian. However, they say dobro jutro which might be baffling to Poles, not to mention zatrudniłem = zapłodniłem, kurcze = O, Ty ch*ju and opaliłem się is rznąć in Serbo-Croatian. So you see my point? ;)

Close like Hell.

Cz. deska, Pl. płyta (a disc)
Cz. kolo, Pl. rower (a bicycle)
Cz. laska, Pl. miłość (love)
Cz. hul, Pl. laska (a stick)
Cz. cena divaku, Pl. nagroda publicznosci (prize of audience)
Cz. divadlo, Pl. teatr (theatre)
Cz. pocitac, Pl. komputer (a computer)
Cz. plyn, Pl. gaz (gas)
Cz. fluid, Pl. płyn (fluid)
Cz. hudba, Pl. muzyka (music)
Cz. prst, Pl. palec (a finger)
Cz. hledat, Pl. szukać (search)
Cz. zapad, Pl. zachód (west)
Cz. zachod, Pl. wychodek (privy)
Cz. Nashledanou! Pl. Do widzenia! (Good-bye)
Cz. Ahoj!, Pl. Cześć! (Hi!)
Cz. Ano, Pl. tak (yes)
Cz. domov, Pl. dom rodzinny (home)
Cz. dum, Pl. budynek (house)
...
Do I need to write both dictionaries to convince you Seanus the number of similarities in both languages is minor? From the top of my head I can only tell you one obvious word:

Cz. struna, Pl. struna (guitar string)

Rower is koło here in Gliwice ;) ;)

Some say deska as płyta here too :) Must be the Cieszyn folk :)

Some say paliwo or płyn here too :)

Some Poles see more similarities than you do, AS ;)

Antek, from a formal linguistic point of view Polish and Czech are very close. Many of the funny differences are still based on cognates that any linguist can spot.

Czech laska is a cognate of łaska, kolo of koło etc.

The problem is that Czech and Polish built their 'educated' vocabulary (words you need for government, science and the arts) separately with different priorities accepting and rejecting different western words (as opposed to Romance languages which simply imported words from Latin). But the basic grammar is very similar to Polish though the relatively small differences will seem larger to Polish and Czech native speakers.

I like that one!

SILESIAN. You live in SILESIA, Seanus. Silesian is ancient Polish + modern Polish + German + Czech, boroku ;-)

"Some English see more similarities between English and Scottish" - this is what you've just said.
---
Edit: mafketis, I'll wait for Magdalena. I know what Czech people say about both languages.
I will only tell you one thing:
Czech lahev is lingustically Old Polish łagiew. No Pole will call a bottle łagiew. All will say butelka.

Ancient Polish? Not really. It's Polish with German and Czech influences and vowel changes. If you call 'Polish' food Polish due to all those external influences, aren't you prepared to call Polish language Polish despite the minor foreign incursions into it? ;) ;)

Seanus, I spoke with my Upper Silesian friend today about exactly those matters. He told me for twentieth time: "Silesia was not really Polish for most of history but it wasn't German or Czech either. We are folk people, no szlachta. People were speaking local dialects since 15th century. Due to lack of Polish influence, many many words in Silesian are retained from ancient folk Polish. Excellent example is gorzoła (wódka, vodka). It is enough to read last names of Silesians: These are very often ancient Polish folk words, decidedly not -ski, -icz, etc."

Read more here: szl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przod%C5%84o_zajta or szl.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Al%C5%AFnsko_godka

In case you cannot read it, go to: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesian_language

I can read it no problem. Read Marek Szołtysek as he is the leading expert to my knowledge. I have his gwara book.

Are you telling me you can read Przodńo zajta there without problems? And you are telling me you read Ślůnsko godka article just like that? And what could you read in the Historyjo section, please?

Anecdotal evidence, but the commonality of those local dialects could have been wider spread.

I recall my Dad (from Koblenz - about as Western German as it gets - with absolutely zero Polish) somehow managing a conversation about farming matters with my wife's grandmother (from Podlasie, speaks a pretty strong, rural form of podlaski dialect, never went to school). Dad went back to his Nordrhein-Westfal dialect rather than hauchdeutsch and found they had a lot of words in common.

Antek_Stalich
Please, tell us which foreign language is closer to Polish than Czech?
(BTW that the same words have different meanings in Polish and Czech still implies more similarity than when different words have different meanings, like in Polish and some non Slavic language)

With minor difficulties but I get the gist of it. I don't believe in over-the-board claims but more in showing in real life.

Slovak.

Slovak was also created/re-created about the same time as Czech but Slovak, being part of Hungary, were not paranoid about Poland and just used words from local dialects without further restrictions.

A Pole can take a Slovak book and just read it with minor problems. A Pole will not understand a Czech book, though.


OK. Seanus, I have to worry you.

"Koło", the Polish word means "wheel" and it is "kruh" in Czech.
"Deska", the Polish word means "wood plank" but "deska" means "plate" or "disc" in Czech and "prkno" is the "wood plank"

"Paliwo", the Polish word means "fuel" and it is "palivo" in Czech.
Poles do not say "płyn" when they mean "gas", they say "gaz".
Polskie Górnictwo Naftowe i GAZOWE.

How can you say Polish and Czech are similar if you may-be know some Silesian words and draw similarities of that?

AS has a fair point! Slovak is easier for Poles but I don't think it's as big a difference as some would lead us to believe.

What about cislo (number) is there czyszło or czyslo or something like that?

Also, quickly, there are two different issues.

1. degree of closeness - how 'close' the languages are in the linguistic family tree

2. mutual intelligibility - how easy it is for native speakers to communicate

They're two separate issues. Polish and Czech are very close in the Slavic language tree (closer than Polish and Russian or Ukrainian or Belarussian) but are less mutually inteliigible.

IME Czechs understand more Polish than vice versa (this kind of assymetry is very common). One reason (suggested by a Czech I knew) was that Czechs are used to hearing different kinds of Czech (regional dialects, informal and formal registers) on a regular basis (not to mention Slovak) while Poles mostly just hear Polish (which doesn't have so much dialect or register diversity anymore).

I don't know why some of you jumped on the guy so hard. In fact Czech language indeed makes sometimes unprepared Poles laugh their asses off. It is not like it is all about diminutives. In general it is with all kind different cases they used, and with false analogies (similar words meaning something totally different). Well, to visualize my point some bold example of Czech song subtitled by some Pole. Maybe not an elegant thing, but... the final exam for those of you who learn Polish and don't know a bit Czech (that kind of spoils the effect). So, true Polish speaker (without Czech exposure) would roll on the carpet during this little show:

Because Tea Who You Yeah Bunny is the ultimate proof of total similarity of Polish and English.... And it is equally funny.

Probably because this forum is full of polonophobes (don't let the Polish sounding nicks fool you), who constantly look for opportunity to accuse and offend Polish people. As polonophobes they must have thought this thread is an attack on Czech people.

You said a wrong story about "similarity" of Czech and Polish languages. These languages are not similar -- they are very different because of the history of the modern Czech language that was created the way not resemble Polish. Any conscious and honest person would say "I'm sorry, I did not know all the facts".

mafketis, it is ordinary people who speak languages, not linguists. If you tried to tell your Polish gf "zrób mi tę laskę" in the sense laska = łaska = love, she would slap your face unless both of you already were in intimate situation. I can assure you that asking for "łagiew" of any drink would made no results in a Polish shop, and asking for "gorzoła" up north of Katowice brings the inevitable question: "A, pan ze Śląska?!" (You are a Silesian, aren't you).

A friend told me how his Silesian aunt went in Okęcie Airport and asked for some flowers at the florist. I cannot repeat what that Aunt said (she spoke pure Silesian) but the florist asked her if "Aunt" were Silesian. The Aunt was totally surprised and asked: "Jak Pani to zgadła?" (How did you guess that?). You should listen to the original story...

1. This thread isn't about the similarity of Czech and Polish (although you made it so;). It is about how Czech language APPEARS to average Pole, specifically that it seems like baby talk.

2. I fully accept your arguments that Czech language is in fact much more different from Polish than it seems like. However, you still place it second, after Slovak. So me saying in another thread that "Czech is the closest language to Polish" is not a terrible mistake. Note the difference between "being the closest language to Polish from all Slavic languages" and "being very similar to Polish". I never claimed the latter.

3. No, I don't mean you when talking about resident polonophobes.

A lot of farming and agricultural vocabulary in Polish is actually of German origin, especially the names of the farming tools. Could it have been helpful too?


agree. Any Pole is able to understand that "Potraviny" is a grocery store :)
But with Czech web pages I understand about 50% of what's written there, so is not too bad. Russian helps sometimes. After a 5-minute meditation over a sentence it slowly becomes very clear.


I don't know either... Czech does sound funny to Poles. I rolled with laughter over a Czech girl admiring a baby: "Taki papulaty babulinek!"


no. It means "date" in Russian, I can't recall any similar Polish word.
Although there might be some relationship with ścisły, uściślać.

No. It means "number" in Russian. Same in Czech "èíslo". Nothing like that in Polish. We say "numer" for number and "liczba" for count. "Count of" is schtschyot in Russian and 'souèet" in Czech, "liczba" in Polish.

I use to give technical training to Czech companies. Very often, they ask me if we could have the training in Polish because "they watch Polish TV and understand every word". Then I tell tham that:

Pl. temperatura, Cz. teplota (temperature)
Pl. ciśnienie, Cz. tlak (pressure)
Pl. przepływ, Cz. prutok (flow rate)
Pl. gęstość, Cz. hustota (density)
Pl. lepkość, Cz. viskozita (viscosity)
Pl. azot, Cz. dusik (nitrogen)
Pl. orurowanie, Cz. potrubi (piping)
....
After 2 minutes of my talking they agree to have an English training ;-)

Date too.

The word is "data" in the first place, and dyen' in the second place.

Strzyga, as much as I love you, I keep a Russian contract opened here ;)
"Data vstuplyenya v silu" ;-) (effective date)

ok, my Russian is a little rusty, but I do remember that "what day is it today?" is "kakoje sjewodnia cislo?"

They may use different wording too, esp. in legal papers.

Im a savage street urchin then, Id just say kak dien?Mind, I learnt what I know from lazy leningraders :)

that's shorthand, sort of text speech ;)

I'm waiting impatiently for Magdalena to tell us what they are singing about in fact xD