I've just learnt from Prof. Miodek's TV show on language that hejka is a trendy youth greeting. Are you fmailiar with it? Do you yourself use it? It seems to be the addition of the suffix
-ka to the hippie-era hej. Miodek also noted that English sorry had mutated into sorki and sorka. According to some of the young people in Warsaw interviewed on the show, some said hejka was used mainly towards girls. Do you garee?
Hejka and sorki have been around for literally ages... Why don't you get in touch with some Polish teenagers and talk to them directly? They would be the ones to tell you what's really trendy.
I'm teenager, and IMHO 'hejka' is a bit, you know, stupid. For sure, it's not trendy. I would recommend you to greet your friends by saying 'siema'. It's the best youth greeting.
And to say goodbye use 'nara', 'narka' or 'na razie'. If you would like to learn some polish either informal or formal words, write to my email ;)
The thing I don't get is that I hear people saying it as a way of saying goodbye, now I realise that it's because czesc is one word to use for both hi and goodbye, but saying hej as a way of saying goodbye is something I don't think I'll ever get into the practice of saying. I do say it as a hi though, but that's coz back at home I used to too.
In my experience hej has always been more common as a leave taking expression rather than a greeting. I assume the same would go for hejka.
yea, mostly I've heard it as that, sometimes as a greeting tho. Which is a bit weird as I can only presume that it comes from the Americanism of saying "hey" for "hi" As I said I used to use it in Ireland too....I blame the influence of such crap tv as Friends & Scrubs.
do zobaczyska
I can honestly say I don't even attempt to say that as it's far too difficult to pronounce.
one of the easier words to pronounce in Polish - should be no problem for an English person to repeat it after hearing it - run it through ivona.com and you'll see
'Tera' and 'zara' are dialectal forms of 'teraz' and 'zaraz'. 'Siora' is slang for 'siostra', 'herba' is a funny abbreviation of herbata. I guess your mother-in-law just speaks like that for fun or she has an inclination for catching some slang.
I'm in my late twenties and I say' hej' 'czesc' 'siema' . My friends who are in their 20s, 30s and 40s also use 'hej', so does my mum who is 60 and even my grandma:) It's a very versatile informal way to say hi to someone you know. ' Hejka is not cool because noone uses it :) Professor Miodek is usually 10 years behind in regards to slang/colloquial expressions:) He's a language purist, so his advice is great when you're writing a novel, not so much when you want to learn which colloquial expressions are in:)
I would say the meaning is pretty much the same - informal greeting. The difference would lie mainly in the age of the speaker, as each of these greetings was cool at a different time ;-) Of course, they are all used interchangeably, sometimes ironically.
I like the Góral's "hej" - it may mean anything you want, because Górals are such people that they can say "hej" in the "yes" and in "no" meaning. Among Górals "hej" is everywhere. Hej can be a greeting "heheeejjj", milk is "hej" and butter is "hej", "kwaśnica góralska hej", and everything can be "hej".
Just go on youtube and check the Górale songs: Hej szalała szalała, Hej Górale Hej Górale nie bijta się Hej Malućki, Malućki Hej bystro woda Hej ponad regle turnice
But this not only specific to Górals:
Ciągną, ciągną sanie, góralskie koniki Hej, jadą w saniach panny, przy nich janosiki Coraz który krzyknie nie wiadomo na co Hej, echo odpowiada, bo mu za to płacą
Spod kopyt lecą skry, hej lecą skry Zmarznięta ziemia drży, hej ziemia drży Dziewczyna tuli się, hej tuli się ... tekstowo.pl/piosenka,skaldowie,z_kopyta_kulig_rwie.html
