Polish-American mutilation of the Polish language

So what's the proper word for weekend? I'm all ears...


as above.

True but this lady is my friend's wife and she speaks Polish pretty well, it sounds like eastern Polish to me but I understand pretty much everything she says (whenever she wants to practice her Polish). Her family came to the US from what would be Ukraine today but she says her entire family was Polish.

mine too

You mean to tell me these words have always been used in the Polish language? I don't think so.

The point of the post is that somebody is complaining that Polish Americans have changed the language. My point is that Poles have done this all by themselves.

the thing is Polish does not have (and never had) equivalent words - the English words just came in handy (Polish can adopt English words easily and make them fit into the fabric the language (it was a bit different story with Latin for example) - it is a different story (and a quite new phenomenon) when things like job titles are directly accepted into Polish and left in the origianl shape - Human Resources (Polish had Kadry/Dział Kadr before), Managing Director - there is even a direct translation of this dyrektor zarządzający still the English term gets used more and more often (like we can't incorporate English words into Polish polonizing it somewhat - btw managing director was simply dyrektor in Polish (dyrektor was also headmaster and similar - the main person in charge simply)

Yes. There are no equivalents for "parking" and "weekend" and people used it always since the idea of parking and weekend emerged. I'm pretty sure that I heard word "weekend" even in pre-war movies!


part of my family is also from the former parts of Poland and none of them know the word busha/busia.

I can give you a good example of modern day language. In Iceland it is very important to maintain the language as much as possible. Computer is a new word, however, in Icelandic they have literally translated it to be "box with numbers". Poles can do the same but they choose not to.

Why to do that? Language evolves. How many French word exist in English and you even are not aware of that? "Bizzare" is the first which come to my mind.

maybe because komputer is not just 'a box with numbers' - btw before Polish adopted the name komputer we had 'maszyny liczące' (literally counting machines) - it appears though that komputer is much more a handy word than 'maszyna licząca' ('maszyna licząca can still be used in more general meaning)

True but they also come up with cute names for volcanoes, i.e. Eyjafjallajökull. :-))

I struggle pronouncing it and I speak another Scandinavian language fluently. Island is a tiny nation and they're protecting their language but I don't think we need to.

Merged: AmPolonian colloquial speech

Here are some of the anglo-polonisms encoutnered in the US Polonia now and in the past;
hauza - house
flor - floor
giejta - gate
jarda - yard
kara - car
trok - truck, the DP generation woudl said trak
sajdłok - sidewalk
sztor - store, shop
siapa - shop meaning factory
buczernia - butcher's
giezolina - gasoline (petrol)
majna - colliery
druksztor - drug store (pharmacy)
policman - policeman
fajerman - fireman
drajwer - driver
stepsy - steps
strytkara - streetcar (tram)
tomejdusy - tomatoes
korna - sweet corn
musztryk - mustard
sklep - cellar (immigrants friom wielkopolska)
drajwować - to drive (a car)
pejntować - to paint
klinować - to clean
orderować - to order (place an order for something)
Just a tiny sampling..... If anyomne's interested, I can easily provide many more examples, all of them personally encountered in speech and/or writing.

Both sides of my family migrated to the Chicago area. Some were from near the Warsaw area (owned land) and others from a couple small towns not far from the mountains. We used Busha on the side of the family from Warsaw area, but it was for our great-grandmother.

I remember listening to music it was mostly rhyming of this pre war Warsaw artist. He was singing in the local dialect which I believe went extinct after the war with Warsaw's population dead or misplaced.

Hmm - perhaps this starts to lend credibility to the theory that it comes from the East, then?

You can still hear traces of it, but most Varsovians nowadays are a couple of generations away from hicks from the countryside.

PennBoy
Was it perhaps a guy named Grzesiuk? Later Jarema Stępowski did songs in old Warsaw street slang.

He's good, but personally I prefer Fogg.

Phileas or...? ;)

Mieczysław

:-)

It was Jarema I remember his distinctive voice.

I was thinking maybe so, too. However, I did a little research and found from a cooking blog a bit of information. I posted this on the other thread about if there is a social or class distinction between the two words for grandmother.

"Also, I wanted to explain why it's called "Busia's" Sauerkraut. Modern day Poles call their Grandmothers "Babcia", however, as my husband's family is Polish by a couple of generations, prior to The Great War, in the Ukraine, Grandmothers were called "Babusia", shortened to "Busia", and sometimes twisted by accent and time to "Buzia" (which actually means "mouth" but I am just glad that they try and are close)..."

polishmamaontheprairie.blogspot.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-and-remembering-our-past.html

This information also points to the east, but a few others on PF also say that Babusia was used and still is to a degree in Poland. I think I also heard it was prevalent in the highlands. It's just a shortened form of Babusia, but in America the spelling and pronounciation have changed along the way.

I grew up knowing a lot of Polish words, but I had no idea how they were spelled. My grandmother could read and write in Polish, my mother could speak Polish. And so it goes within a few generations. It is only the past few years that I have learned how to sound out words and spell them.

You all fail to realize that the OP's original post were words that the Polish Immigrants used to communicate with native Americans. In the early 1900's when European immigration was at it's peak, people from other slavic countries intermingled with each other..Most of these people were poor uneducated peasants looking for a better life.. To intermingle ,some words were mangled.. Both my Mother and Father spoke no English. So they settled in communities with the greatest influx of polish speaking people.. Sorta like in unity there is strength.

We kids talked half Polish and Half American. We along with our parents learned from each other. This is where the words came out in a form of slang.

I can relate to 90% of Poloniuses slang words. Yes. We used those words. Although I can still speak Polish.. I would have trouble speaking to a native pole

I spoke to a number of Native poles that were very patient with me. They soon realized that we had no knowledge to the Polish language that is used today

I will also add that the second and third generation have lost the ability to hold a conversation in Polish.

We have a friend of the family who's been living in Chicago for 45 years and still speaks almost no English. There are so many Poles in and around Chicago that he really doesn't need to.

I notice a tendency on the part of PF posters to suffer from any identity crisis...The very same posters who criticize 'diaspora' Poles for imagined 'impurities' in matters of language and culture become outraged when any Polish nationalistic sentiments are expressed, whether by Poles in Poland or abroad, as this is considered reactionary thinking...We have here what is called a 'disconnect'...You wish to move toward a diverse or 'post ethnic' society, yet have an authoritarian attitude with those with whom you don't see eye to eye with.

In the matter of grandma, both of mine were referred to as babca or babci, and the one on my mother's side was a real pip, however she was referred to.

Yes I agree with you. Chicago is one of the few remaining cities that still have large polish speaking people. (Good for them). I came from Baltimore..There are no more Polish neighborhoods left. We blame it on white flight. The same is true with Pittsburg, Philly, Wilmington etc. All of our big cities are going to hell.

I agree there's nothing wrong with having a large ethnic community, that's how you keep your identity.


Detroit is a sad example. Went to the old Polish neighborhood it's gone run down and an Arab neighborhood now. Camden up until the 60s or 70s had a large Polish community. A 30 yr old friend of mine who's Polish American told me that when she was a kid 5-10 it was still a great place to live look at in now.

Most if my relatives from New Jersey have already fled the state.

Not really. I doubt that an American is able to guess that drajwować is to drive...
The real reason is obvious. People who doesn't practice a language starts forgeting it and that rule applies to a native language too. You're starting lacking of words and the first thought which pops to your mind is the foreign equivalent. To prevent it a person should read a lot and work on his/her language on daily basis. If not the word repertory will lessen and lessen to the point the person will straggle to speak without putting in foreign words. Simple enough?

ok, so let me get this straight. Assimilation only is important if you are not Polish. Having a large ethnic community is only ok if they are white?

Speaking almost no English in America is ok if you are Polish or white but those damn Mexicans better learn English.

seriously

Assimilation should ONLY be a choice. You can't force anyone to do anything. Everyone should maintain a large ethnic community but don't take over someone elses build your own this country is huge there's plenty of space for everyone. No one said Mexicans have to learn English, nationalistic white Americans say that not Poles. There are whole sections of Southern California where English is hardly ever spoken I have no problem with that, that's their spot. People who don't want other nationalities to maintain their communities and keep speaking their language are intimidated by it and feel threatened.