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Is Poland Germanic or Slavic?


theguythatstart
22 Jan 2014 #1
Well I think that Poland and Polish language is a bit Germanic. About 1/4 Germanic.
Wroclaw Boy
22 Jan 2014 #2
No, its Slavic, the wars and borders have changed a lot over the years so there has been some cross breeding with Germanic people.
OP theguythatstart
22 Jan 2014 #3
Can Western Poles call them selves German?
jon357 74 | 21,758
22 Jan 2014 #4
Well I think that Poland and Polish language is a bit Germanic. About 1/4 Germanic.

No; it's Slavonic. Though it has some words of German origin.

Can Western Poles call them selves German?

Only if they actually are German. A lot of people moved after the war to North Western Poland from places much further East . There is a German minority in Silesia and parts of Wielkopolska.
OP theguythatstart
22 Jan 2014 #5
Would you say Gorzow Wielkopolski is in Silesia?
jon357 74 | 21,758
22 Jan 2014 #6
It's in Wielkopolska.
OP theguythatstart
22 Jan 2014 #7
Actually it's not research please
jon357 74 | 21,758
22 Jan 2014 #8
Indeed, Lubuskie, though historically Wielkopolska as the name suggests.

But definitely not Silesia. And very few Germans there.

If you knew, why did you ask?
PlasticPole 7 | 2,648
22 Jan 2014 #9
Well I think that Poland and Polish language is a bit Germanic. About 1/4 Germanic.

1/4 is barely enough to mention.
Harry
22 Jan 2014 #10
Can Western Poles call them selves German?

They can call themselves Susan if it makes them happy, doesn't mean that they actually are Susan (in fact it's very unlikely that they would be a Susan, given that Poles can't call their kids 'Susan'). Personally, having lived in western Poland for a year and still going there now and again (due to the Mrs being from there), I've never met a Pole there who called himself German. I did meet a few Poles who also had German passports due to their grandparents being German, but those Poles called themselves Poles, not German.

If you knew, why did you ask?

I think an honest answer to that question might well involve the word "fol-de-rol".
jon357 74 | 21,758
22 Jan 2014 #11
1/4 is barely enough to mention.

Quite. And in any case it doesn't make any sense to say that a language is 1/4 something.
Crow 155 | 9,025
22 Jan 2014 #12
Poles can`t be Germanics. Its impossible, when we know that all Germanics came from Slavic sperm.
OP theguythatstart
22 Jan 2014 #13
Is German spoken in Gorzów Wielkopolski?
jon357 74 | 21,758
22 Jan 2014 #14
Maybe by visitors or expats. Why do you ask?
Harry
22 Jan 2014 #15
heguythatstart:Is German spoken in Gorzów Wielkopolski?
Maybe by visitors or expats.

I'd be very surprised if we didn't find that the majority of the German spoken in Gorzow Wielkopolski was actually spoken in language lessons in schools.

Why do you ask?

fol-d....
Wulkan - | 3,203
22 Jan 2014 #16
Well I think that Poland and Polish language is a bit Germanic.

There are around 4000 German words in Polish that are of German origin, still that doesn't make Polish language Germanic, it's Slavic.
OP theguythatstart
22 Jan 2014 #17
Is East low German native to Poland?
DominicB - | 2,707
22 Jan 2014 #18
theguythatstart

No. It's native to Lower Saxony (Luebeck, Bremen and Hamburg), and spread with Saxon settlers and the Hansa to East Prussia and Pomerania. It's now extinct in Poland, although related dialects of Plattdeutsch are still spoken in the northern part of the former DDR. It contributed a modest number of words to the Polish vocabualry, chiefly in areas dealing with sailing, trade, city administration and technology. By the way, it's closely related to English more than it is to German, and not at all related to Polish except distantly as a fellow Indo-European language.
OP theguythatstart
22 Jan 2014 #19
Is there any dialect of German native to Poland?
DominicB - | 2,707
22 Jan 2014 #20
No. All Geman dialects originated in areas than are now in German speaking countries.
OP theguythatstart
22 Jan 2014 #21
Any Germanic languages native to Poland?
jon357 74 | 21,758
22 Jan 2014 #22
There's Wymysorys which robably evolved among Dutch and Scotttish settlers. It was only ever spoken by a few people and is now all but extinct.

Why are you asking?
DominicB - | 2,707
22 Jan 2014 #23
theguythatstart

None. All Germanic languages originated in northernmost Germany, Denmark and southern Sweden, and spread out from there.
OP theguythatstart
22 Jan 2014 #24
I am from Gorzów Wielkopolski in Poland do I have German in me?
jon357 74 | 21,758
22 Jan 2014 #25
Only you can answer that. What's with the one line questions that you know the answer to already.

Instead of Gorzow, perhaps you're from Trollhagen.
DominicB - | 2,707
22 Jan 2014 #26
I am from Gorzów Wielkopolski in Poland do I have German in me?

Chances are you have a lot more Ukrainian or Lithuanian in you. The local population is mostly descendants of Poles relocated to Gorzów after the war from the Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, as well as what is now eastern Poland. Few Germans remained after the war. Very few.
Harry
22 Jan 2014 #27
From memory a fair few of the 1945/6 settlers in Gorzow were from what's now Belarus.
jon357 74 | 21,758
23 Jan 2014 #28
Few Germans remained after the war. Very few.

In the entire voivodstwo (which borders Germany) there were only 500 Germans in the last 2011 census, and that includes people who moved after EU entry.

A bigger question is why someone from Gorzow would be asking people on an English language forum if they think he's part German.
McDouche 6 | 284
23 Jan 2014 #29
No, its Slavic, the wars and borders have changed a lot over the years so there has been some cross breeding with Germanic people.

Correct, genetic analysis has shown that people in northwestern Poland have an unusually high frequency of the I1 Y-DNA haplogroup which is common in Germanic territories such as northern Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and other areas. This data clearly shows the Germanic heritage of some Poles. Western Poland in general also has a relatively high frequency of the R1b haplogroup which can suggest additional Celtic/Germanic ancestry.

As far as the language goes, Polish is obviously a Slavic language but it does share some words with the German language. For example, the word kino which means theater in both Polish and German.
jon357 74 | 21,758
23 Jan 2014 #30
Western Poland in general also has a relatively high frequency of the R1b haplogroup which can suggest additional Celtic/Germanic ancestry.

That doesn't make someone German or mean they 'have German in them'.

I suspect most people would be a bit surprised if they did a DNA test.


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