Do the new Polish emigres or job-seeking migrants in the UK use a kind of 'Polglish' half-na-pół jargon like the old US Polonia used to do. Some examples:
kara - car trok or trak -truck sztor - store sajdłok - sidewalk stryta - street strytkara - streetcar (tram) buczernia - butcher's gieradzia - garage giejta - gate druksztor - drugstore śtepsy - steps plus pelnty of verbs: pejntować, klinować (clean), drajwować, gredżuejtować (graduate), etc. (drive)... I could go on and on, but are these or other such hybrids common amongst the UK's new Polonia?
Not these. There are others: benefity, aplikować (e.g. for a job), konto personalne (instead of osobiste), być bizi, mieć brejka, supervajzor, iść na szifta, trafik (as in traffic jam), kaunsil (local council), kupić czikena, kupić salamona / salomona (salmon)...
There's lots more, can't for the life of me remember any right now ;-)
The correct Polish meaning of "aplikować" is "administer / dose" (choremu zaaplikowano leki) or "undergo an internship in the legal profession" (aplikował u radcy prawnego XYZ).
The new meaning of "aplikować" - "wnioskować o / składać podanie" is very very recent, probably no older than the 2004 wave of Polish immigrants to the UK. Unfortunately, it seems to have caught on... :-(
There are others:benefity, aplikować (e.g. for a job), konto personalne (instead of osobiste), być bizi, mieć brejka, supervajzor, iść na szifta, trafik (as in traffic jam), kaunsil (local council), kupić czikena, kupić salamona / salomona (salmon)...There's lots more,
Someone of the old Polonia of my great grandparents generation might have said: Ona zostawiła karę w gieradzi. The use of informal hybrid speech differed amongst indivdual speakers: radical Polglishers would actually say: hauza, stryta, bejzment, flor (podłoga), jarda (yard), bojsy as in 'Bojsy się fajtują na sajdłoku.' Such speech has been recorded by Witold Doroszewski who as a young reseaercher in the 1930s visited Polish communities Wisconsin on his motobike and recordred the speech on a wire recorder (predecessor of the tape recorder).
Someone of the old Polonia of my great grandparents generation might have said: Ona zostawiła karę w gieradzi. The use of informal hybrid speech differed amongst indivdual speakers: radical Polglishers would actually say: hauza, stryta, bejzment, flor (podłoga), jarda (yard), bojsy as in 'Bojsy się fajtują na sajdłoku.'
I don't understand,why would anybody talk like this?"kare w gieradzi"?Now,that's beyond ridiculous.
Yeah,ok but "drajwowac","kara" or "gieradz"(!) is not English.In fact I don't even know what it is.Maybe I am old school but I can't imagine myself talking like that.
My understanding is that they talk/talked like this amongst them then why they can't simply speak Polish?Makes no sense to me.
I work for an international company, where English is the official language and even when we are talking to each other stuff like "jaki jest dedlajn" is becoming a norm after some time.
OK, let me lay it all out. By Old Polonia I mean the wave of bread-seeking immigrants who flocked to America’s shores in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many came from rural backwaters and lived in primitive huts without floors only packed dirt (klepisko). In America they lived in houses with floors so they said 'pies leży na florze' or, if their dialect masurianised 'lezy'. Their kids knew only flor (not podłoga) and kept it up. They learnt English at school and many could speak only halting kitchen Polish enough to communicate with their Polish-born parents. The Old country village had only muddy, rutted lanes so they saw pavements for the first time in America and had to call them something, hence: sajdłok.
The third generation, if they still knew some Polish, it was mainly a few foods and swear words. Not knowing the proper verb, they would use an English one and give it a Polish ending. I remember cousins of mine saying (not as a joke but in all earnestness, because they lacked the right word): 'Mama frajuje (is frying) rybę' and 'coś tu stinky smeluje'. And here's a syntactical doozey which uses no hybrid expressions: ‘Kto ty idziesz do kościoła z?': That is an example of someone thinking entirely in English and translating word for word.
As there are lots of Britons in relationships with Polish people, I wonder how long it's going to be until the reverse happens?
Considering that most of the dumping is likely to be done by Polish women, I wonder if we will soon hear words like aliments, dziwkas, and blacharas on PF and on the streets?
