How ENGLISH has been affected by POLISH

ShortHairThug wrote:


first and foremost, these are not american words, they are polish ones.

secondly, americans don't use these words in conversation to describe anything, they're just names of food. most americans have never uttered the words "kasha", "schav", "bigos", "babka"........many not even "pierogies".....because they don't know what they are. "kielbasa" is the only one that most americans know and if you were to pronounce "kielbasa" correctly, you might lose them.

It's Czech I think

Sejm is unknown, and Zloty isn't particularly well known either.

The word "voivode" and "voivodeship" are in English too, although virtually everyone uses "province" for "voivodeship" and "Governor" for "voivode".

What about ogórki?

I doubt even a few would know what that was.

I think it was made to gherkins or something similar.

Yup, something I cant stomach :D I always take them off my burgers and give them to my polish friends :D

russian...........
i think,unfortunatly a lot of what Poles presume to be Polish is actually Russian or, plain "generic" slavic,so it will be very hard to pin down just where some of these words came from,but again,most of those words listed so far may be known to english speakers but they never replace english words as such.

I concur with an exception of the Russian bit, I wouldn’t put too much faith in that as they themselves are confused as to who they truly are, just recently they wanted to reinvent themselves and called themselves Soviets :). While I don’t dispute the fact that those words came to English directly from Russian language (no argument there) the etymology of those words is a different matter so I’ll leave at generic Slavic. Are we all happy now :)

Influence of a foreign language on the English language is not confined exclusively to the words borrowed as this has been the focus of this discussion thus far. Proverbs also influence the language. Here’s an example of a few that made its way from Polish to English.

Man cannot divide beauty into dollars.
The devil alone can cheat the Hebrew.
Who places his confidence in a woman is a fool.
A common word is always correct.
Better under the beard of the old than the whip of the young.

Other angles you might consider exploring as your talking point is literature or English authors with Polish roots like Joseph Conrad etc.

Very good point. Consider also Wordsworth's sonnet on Sobieski:

FEBRUARY 1816

OH, for a kindling touch from that pure flame
Which ministered, erewhile, to a sacrifice
Of gratitude, beneath Italian skies,
In words like these: 'Up, Voice of song! proclaim
'Thy saintly rapture with celestial aim:
'For lo! the Imperial City stands released
'From bondage threatened by the embattled East,
'And Christendom respires; from guilt and shame
'Redeemed, from miserable fear set free
'By one day's feat, one mighty victory.
'--Chant the Deliverer's praise in every tongue!
'The cross shall spread, the crescent hath waxed dim;
'He conquering, as in joyful Heaven is sung,
'HE CONQUERING THROUGH GOD, AND GOD BY HIM.'

(The poem commemorates the lifting of the siege of Vienna - liberation obviously being a central theme for the Romantics)

Yep,good excuse to play a few clips from apocolypse now too ;)Sajgon, cholera, jeszcze tylko w Sajgonie,Uwielbiam zapach napalmu o poranku,


certainly :), I should have """" russian :)

Leci B52
lECI b52
Wietnamczyki - skurczybyki
Spierdalają gdzie sie da!

Zapach to mało.

tyger!tyger!

delphiandomine wrote:


nobody knows these words. just come out and say it. same goes for "ogorki". nobody knows it.

as i said before, this is bound to be a very very short presentation.

Yes, Zloty is not well known, but we do know Sejm in the USA. Not a common everyday word, but people who are in history class would be familiar that it is a type of parliament.

I am surprised that any Polish words influenced English. I liked the example about spruce up. I learned something new. :-)

The reason Polish is so hard to learn for English speakers is that the words are not similar at all. In French, Spanish, or German you can find words that sound something like the English equivalent and it makes learning the vocabulary easier.

This is a difficult assignment. However, while many foods may have Russian origin, everyone in the USA associates kielbasa with Poland. And in most big cities people know pierogie and eat them even if they are not Polish. Heck, I can even get frozen pierogie in South Carolina. And there are hardly any Polish people here.

from Wiki:
The word "vodka" was recorded for the first time in 1405 in Akta Grodzkie,[6] the court documents from the Palatinate of Sandomierz in Poland.

Most people dont even know what they are without a translation on the clear jar......Ive seen stickers over the label saying ghurkin........no,really.....frankly most Britons prior knowladge of ghurkins was that they were that orrible bitter cucumber slice thingy you always throw out your 1/4 pounder with cheese.......seriously, Sunday mornings and britains streets used to be carpeted with ghurkin slices :)

Thank you all for help!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) I'm sure I use some of your suggestions. Fortunately, today I spoke with my teacher about the difficulties I have with this subject and she said that I can talk about how English affected Polish and about so called 'false friends' :) But anyway - thank you all so much!!! :)

What a strange nation you are

So you all emigrated from no-ogórki country to ogórki-lovers country. No surprise we don't understand each other he he he

In North London we always called them "wallies"....
Also in the same area I suppose there was a quite a storng Yiddish influence and some of the wrods we heard or used then maybe we can now connect up with Polish, one that springs to mind is "schmutter/Schmatta" (like stuff or cloth)

Schmuck? anyone?

So, what's a dill pickle ?

ain't it cucumber ?

pickled cucumber... with dill...

There 's szmata in Polish, but from what I remember it came from Yiddish. I never heard anything like Schmuck in Polish, but I just checked, and:

from E. Yiddish shmok, lit. "penis," from Old Pol. smok, "grass snake, dragon."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmuck_(pejorative)

Although contemporary 'smok' is just a dragon, yet I recollect some dragon-like creatures of Slavic mythology, which were rather huge flying snakes (Żmij, Zmiej), so the snake connection seems legit. On a side note (or maybe not) 'smoczek' (a little smok) means 'teat', something to suck.

Still, it seems English was influenced by Yiddish here, not by Polish.

Yiddish


so-called "U.S." English, not Polish


ditto

I can see why they call you a matzo ball.

Redzina or rendzina can't possibly be Russian because Russian doesn't have nasal vowels nor the 'dz' sound

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Polish_origin

List of English words of Polish origin Wiki

I always thought that schmuck is English for Polish ćmok. Live and learn.

Has anyone mentioned spruce yet?

First page of this thread.