POLAND: EASTERN or CENTRAL European country?

Amen to that.

Both labels are okay. Nothing wrong with being Eastern European unless youve been brainwashed by Judeo/WASP propaganda.

Oh no! your map from of the UN is missing a bunch of slavic countries which is contradicting your theory about Eastern Europe being slavic, how sad is that?

Hurray for Romania, they are linguistically western-european. Now, we must inform the UN! ;)

Congratulations kcharlie!
You won the jackpot of discussing with an unreasonable bunch that likes to deviate from what you said for 7 pages just because they think of themselves as the epicenter of the world.

You may of course just choose to ignore them. ;)

You may read what kcharlie wrote several pages ago to understand he's not quite on your side :)

You mean to say that you are reasonable? you must be using some other definition of the word.

you presented here are stream of posts filed with nonsense. You haven't posted a single argument in the favor of your claim.

And where did you read that Slavic languages are considered only Eastern?

"Throughout Central and Eastern Europe and Russia"
(I don't quite get it why there's no mention of Southern Europe, though lol)

From: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_languages



Now, if Poland was geographically in Eastern Europe and West Slavic languages didn't differ from East Slavic languages I wouldn't even utter a word as far as classification of languages is considered.

So, could someone explain it to me why is Polish, Czech and Slovak considered Eastern and by whom?


As Harry would say: you're lying, berni23 :) I didn't claim that I think Poland is the epicenter of the world nor did anyone else claim that.

If you really think that saying Poland is a Central European country stems from thinking of Poland as "the epicenter of the world" then you have some serious problem O_O

Why do some people on PF have such a problem to be called East Europeans then? Back to page 1 ... :)

Why do some people on PF have such a problem with Poles being called Central Europeans?? :)))

LOL! As I said: back to square one.

:))))

The funny thing is that I think of myself as... European :) That's what I think of Germans, the British, Greeks, Serbians, Russians. We all share common culture and in most cases: big language family (Indo-European languages).

Once I talked to a Japanese guy here in my city who was all around Europe and was surprised that there's some division into the East and to the West. And differences in religion lol "Aren't you all Christians?? We have some Christians in Japan too!" :)) He said that all European cities look the same to him, the same architecture, the same people lol So I guess it depends on the point of view :)

Paulina,I'd always heard Poland referred to as being in eastern Europe.Is this an issue because it's a reminder of the eastern bloc?

No,because it's simply wrong.Poland is Central European country.I don't care if someone's calling Poland Eastern Europe as much as other posters here but it's simply not right.We are not Western or Eastern European country.Poland is mixture of these cultures.

P.S.Edited.
When someone reffers to Eastern Europe it usually has dregatory hint in it.As is the only valuable culture is in Western Europe.In the same manner some Europeans say words like "African","Asian".

Lenka,cool,I can respect that,I will refer to Poland as being in central Europe.

I had never heard the term Eastern European until I came to England when I was 22 yo and was suprised why someone was indicating Poland to be there.

Many Poles would appreciate that.

Honestly? It's not an issue for me lol But when I see people like berni23 and jon357 having such a big problem with Poland being called Central (at least when Poles call it this way lol) and being so ignorant at the same time this is when I usually intervene.

Of course I wouldn't do that if facts weren't on my side, so to speak :)
I think that people in the West (and that's both Western Europe and the US) usually think of Poland as being Eastern Europe becuase of the Eastern bloc. You could see that in jon357 and rozumiemnic's posts. Rozumiemnic wrote that "politically there isn't really such a thing" like Central Europe :) So you see what I mean... ;)

Paulina,I know exactly what you mean and I agree with you.I know that for me it was this association that had me believing that it was an eastern European country,I guess I should have trusted my eyes and not my ears lol :).

lol Hehe :)
That's what I think too - we all have minds of our own (that's something you learn when you grow up in a communist country with all that propaganda bull*t attacking your ears ;)).

there is also the hint of ignorance in the term Easter Europe that makes many people think like it's some big backwards country divided by boarders.

guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/22/advertising-racism-meerkats

you can see in the comments there how little people know about it, not to even mention the clown who wrote the article, I cant find it now cause there is 581 comments but some idiot wrote something like that "even if meerkat is imitating some Eastern European dialect" lol so according to that Polish would be not a language but some dialect of a big sh1t country called Eastern Europe where in fact languages are in most cases not even mutually understandable

Good one ;D

I agree totally...
The gutter press in the UK (and the morons that read it) will always refer to 'Eastern European' countries/migrants etc in a derogatory way. They use these label to refer to any or all Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Lithuanian migrants. They do this to imply some sort of inferiority. This is rather stupid as the average British journalist knows sweet f all about about other EU countries.

Just nationalistic, xenophobic idiots writing trash for the uneducated masses in the UK...
Let's just refer to Poland as a Central European country and have done with it.

Geographically: A little bit of both along with Northern European and Baltic.

Politically: there is only Western and Eastern. And again I'd say a little of both. Poland was basically the front lines of the Cold War and both the West and Soviets fought for influence in the country.

lol
As I wrote - some minds are still stuck in the Cold War era (in Russia too, btw lol) ;)

That's definitely the wisest thing to do.

I suggest that Western or Eastern Europe is almost purely geographical term,not cultural.For example if native English will, for same reason, migrate to Ukraine and with time constitute majority of population there and will bring there their own culture,will Ukraine become Western European country?Pure absurdity to me.And geographically there is no sense to divide Europe into Western, Central and Eastern.It is effectivly cut in two parts: Western and Eastern.With Scandinavian countries due to their special georaphical position going to Nothern Europe.Sometimes they refer to Czech republic as Central European country to emphesize its unique geographical and cultural specifics.But Praga is situated almost on the same longitude as Berlin what is really unique.But still both Czech and Poland is regulary Eastern Europe geographically.

For me Poland is central european country in every aspect. I've written arguments few pages ago.
Only one debetable point is a language because polish is in a slavic group. But still WEST slavic, we don't have sings typical for eastern european languages ( cyrylic) what makes us closer to the rest of Europe.

My foreigner friend told me polish sounds for him as mix of french, german and russian.

another voice in debate:
timetemperature.com/time-zone-maps/europe-time-zone-map.shtml
Poland in Central Europe TIME ZONE.

Poland is East Europe, they are Slavs .. they are the "Ostblock", "Osteuropa" ..

I dont know why Poles act to be Western .. I dont like those statements ..

No matter, what THE TIMES or someone else say .. for the people and in history books Poland is the East. They have nothing in common with Middle or West European culture ..