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

But don't you think Silesian might have dialects? Like Czech and Polish Silesian?

Absolutely, yes. Two places 40 km apart in the Polish Silesia speak two different dialects and we have even not reached Cieszyn, not saying about crossing the river Olza/Olše. The language revival in Silesia will be long process. Yes, there is literature, and Ruda Śląska is the very heart of the revival. Note the alphabet; taken in the account general easy-going nature of the Silesians, I even doubt if they will ever care to make Formal Silesian and learn it. They have been there since 14th-15th c already, so why should they care?

Would you like to say anything related to the Czech language or are you flaming, MediaWatch?

Would you like to say anything about all of Delphiadomine's flaming?

So when Delphiadomine says people who are Polish are subhuman or that "he wishes there was anti-Polonism", that doesn't concern you??

Something seems odd that you keep defending all his anti-Polish trolling.

Yes. I'd like to say that the one interesting thing for me is that Czech/Polish hasn't merged in border areas.

Czech pronouncation seems much harder to understand than Ukrainian pronouncation, at least for me.

the current borders are kind of unhistoric - and still yes there was a continuum of dialects between the Polish and Czech language (between Silesia and Moravia -

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lach_dialects
(btw Polish entry is much more informative)


man if you can trace a word of German here I will pay you 10 000 bucks

neither it is Czech - sure it most resembles Polish (everyone Polish will understand most of it if only after reading it a bit more carefully - one can argue it is language of its own - well maybe to some extent

What about posuchejcie?
There are more Czech words in the Silesian language, have you heard about "nadawać komuś", "nadawka"?

posuchejcie - posłuchajcie - poslouchejte - Polish is still the closer then Czech


these are not Czech words - there is are dialectal words - influence of state Czech language on Silesian is minimal if not null

btw I don't know tbh what nadawać komuś means here - but maybe it is a copy of a German phrase

Give me an example of a Polish song including the exact word "posłuchajcie".


You are lucky I didn't quote more of the Gelynder Blues:

W Katowicach na banhofie, elektryczne schody som
We wieżowcach szwedzkie windy, automatic full
Ale ja mom w rziyci te wygody bo...

have you never used an expression 'Posłuchaj no, ...'

Look up my edit above ;-)

When I speak to a group of people, I say: "Słuchajcie..."

youtube.com/watch?v=y58XWGaJzRU
Guess who of those people are Silesian ;-)

well, they are. nadávka means insult.

this only serves to show how Polish and Czech overlap in Silesian, which btw is a perfectly normal linguistic phenomenon at any long-established border.

"Słuchajcie uważnie, bo wam coś wyjaśnię", but
"Posłuchajcie teraz mojej opowieści" -
absolutely normal in Polish.

my only point is Silesian dialect/language (whatever suits you) is not a mixed Slavic-Germanic language - it is just a Slavic language that has been influenced by German language mainly in the form of word borrowings (because it was outside of the Polish state culture and in the German state culture) and some language calque contstructions - btw many of these word borrowings are at the moment barely recogniseable to a German-speaking person

one more point - kiery - it is not a Czech word by any measure

Antek must simply be not aware of a phenomenon that is called a dialect continuum and that Silesian is a part of a dialect continuum between Polish and Czech

Any song including these words? ;)

I have to tell you something. The Silesian is not only about the words, grammar, it is also the pronunciation making the Silesian Silesian. If you listen to the singer in my video of "Gelynder", you'll notice he actually pronounces "mój" as "můj". I can assure you, gumishu, you could not pronounce like that. This is why we are gorole and they are hanysy (lower-case).

well maybe I couldn't - but could they pronounce 'wiadro' or 'szczawiowy' the Kurpian way - I can :P

Of course they would not! Anyway, if you are by chance in some region really distant from Silesia (e.g. augustowskie), enter a shop and ask for "gorzoła", you'll get the question "A Pan to ze Śląska?" (You are from Silesia, aren't you) guaranteed ;-) I have already tried that ;-)

Just think gorzałka used to be an ancient Polish word...

this shows that Silesian dialect is recogniseable throughout Poland - I doubt Kurpian is

as an anecdote - I was in Kraków with a couple of friends some 15 years ago - we were all from Lower Silesia - when we were buying things in a small shop the owner asked is if we were from Białystok - cause he said 'bo wy tak jakoś zaciągacie' ;)

Yes, the influence of Lwow in Wrocław, right?

not sure - but I would say rural areas around Kraków have their own special way of speaking - I wouldn't say I 'zaciągam' when I speak normally - but sure I can zaciągawszy a little bit - the Kurpian dialect is a zaciągający one

two clarify a thing a bit - my mother's parents came from the area of £omża and they used to speak with Kurpian charasterstics especially grandma - it was cute

To be honest, what drives me nuts is when Polish Americans start making all sorts of generalisations that they've heard based on a couple of conversations with people and what they've read in the press. Like this nonsense about Czech being "funny" - the guy doesn't speak Polish, how can he possibly know? It's just insulting to Poland, especially when people start claiming that they will "stand up for Poland" and yet do absolutely nothing to help here. That, and their talk of "IM POLISH" gives Poles a bad name - I mean, if you read this forum, you'd think that Polish people were all racists. Yet - you hear very little racism from actual Poles on this forum - I think only Sokrates actually says anything dodgy? And that's the Poland I know - PO/PiS voter, doesn't matter - there's really not much racism here.

For what it's worth, Czech is very difficult to my ears - much more so than Ukrainian. I had terrible troubles in a supermarket in Nachod (just 200m from Poland!) trying to communicate with someone working there - and at least for me, it's sad that the people in border areas don't (or won't - I don't know which) speak each other's languages.

Weren't they speaking a local dialect of some sort? This would explain much of your problem. While a dialect of this sort would incorporate both Czech and Polish elements, they would be mixed and matched in a manner totally unfamiliar to you.

So true, Delphiandomine! If more Americans just north of the border learned Spanish, relations between our two countries would doubtless improve by leaps and bounds!

You are making generalisations about Polish-Americans all the time. Racist and derogatory generalisations. Even in totally unrelated threads.


How is Czech being funny insulting to Poland?
I repeat it for the third time: let's take some test (that only a Polish person can answer correctly in a short period of time) and if I get better results than you, you disappear, crawling back into you troll cave.


No, if somebody reads this forum he will find lots of hateful, libelous, polonophobic BS from you, Harry and other non-Poles. No real Polish person would ever write such stuff. That's why I want you out of here.


That's understandable cause you are Russian.

Funny to who?

It's difficult for me, a non-native speaker, to judge how Czech sounds to Poles or the other way round. Suffice to say, that to English speakers, Polish sibilants sound like constant hissing sounds, while American English has been said to sound to many foreigner like an elastic band or better still, like someone with a hot potato in their mouth, like to old-time US movie actor James Stewart-:)

not in Nachod Magdalena - all 'mixed' Czech-Polish exist next to the border with Upper Silesia - inhabitants of both sides of the border of Nachod area came there only after the WWII and I would guess they don't speak locally developed dialects


btw I had a completely different experience from Jesenik - maybe the lady was from Lach dialect speakin area who knows - I knew nothing of Lach dialects back then - still I wanted to order a meal in a bar - these were 'tasticky' - I tried that in Czech and the lady just asked 'Pan chtiel te pierożki,tak?' :)

Could be - I really don't know. But I'm not sure if there is actually much cooperation between Nachod and Kudowa - you'll know much better than me, of course.


You're insulting the intelligence of Poles, most of whom don't find anything "funny" in Czech. It's typical however, that a racist Polish-American would listen to racist Poles rather than the majority of ordinary people.


How about you just leave? Would be much easier.


Tough - there's not a damn thing you can do about it :) Incidentally - by using the term "polonophobic", you betray yourself as a support of Giertych's mob. Hah.


I could be wrong, but I think that there wasn't much in the way of Nachod/Kudowa contacts between WWII and 1989 as well, due to the (relative) inaccessibility of the border crossing at Kudowa-Slone. The other one, in Kudowa, was restricted in some way - I don't think it was freely open for all locals to cross.

there was not much contact for various reasons - (one was mutual dislike I guess) - but the crossing was not limited access area - I was travelling to Prague as a kid in the middle 80's and Kudowa area was normally accessible so was Nachod area from the Czech side

The Mieroszów-Golińsk one was open for sure. Passed there myself in 1989. There was at that time a railway crossing (international), car crossing (international) and a pedestrian crossing (local).

yes- this must be true - I think you needed an invitation to another communist country to enter - my dad worked in Czechoslovakia for some time back in the 80's and also my aunt lives in Ostrava (was married to a Czech guy)

I've heard Polish language sounds rather ancient, kind of eastern and uneducated to a Czech native. However, my Czech friend seemed to know very little about Poland, which is probably caused by the total lack of Polish movies, music and whatnot in the Czech Republic. Czechs have obviously never given a damn about Poland. Complete ignorance I'd say.