Language / 'ucha' [23]

Please notice that the contemporary double forms: uszy-ucha or oczy-oka are traces of the old dual number forms in Polish:

jedno ucho - dwie uszy - trzy, cztery etc. ucha;
jedno oko - dwie oczy - trzy, cztery etc. oka.

Language / "There will always be a Poland" in Polish [9]


That's along the lines of the well-known English patriotic song "There'll always be an England". I remember it from the "Keeping Up Appearances" ["Co ludzie powiedzą!?" - the title in Polish] series. The setings for this song were not patriotic, though, as everything in this most un-patriotic British TV production ever.


No, no, no! JAKAŚ doesn't sound good in this context. And we don't want it look like a thing from the "Keeping Up Appearances" series, do we?

Travel / Travel from Krakow to Sandomierz [7]

I'm sure there must a bus service from Kraków to Sandomierz. Apart from the castle (only one wing is left, the two other ones were blown up by the Swedes in the 17th century) the Old Town market place is a charming place. The church nearest to the castle (the cathedral, I should think) has a tremendous interior which was under renovation a year ago, definitely worth seeing.

Love / What are the best love poems in Polish to receive? [77]

Mów do mnie jeszcze... Ludzie nas nie słyszą,
słowa twe dziwnie poją i kołyszą,
jak kwiatem, każdym słowem twym się pieszczę
mów do mnie jeszcze...

History / What Was Happening in Poland around 1905? [73]

An interesting case of Polish heritage in Texas is the village of Pana Maria (the name after Panna Maria, the Virgin Mary). It is thought to be the oldest Polish settlement in the US, dating back to 1854. Though Polish, the settlers came from ... the Prussian Upper Silesian, more precisely from an area near Oppeln (Opole). The area ceased to be part of Poland as early as in 1327 when these lands were made tributary by John of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia, so it is definitely not the question of people inhabiting the territory of the partitioned Poland? According to the views of TheOther they should undoubtedly be seen as Germans by the census. Yet the reportage of 1996 on the Polish TV showed a significant proportion of them speaking surprisingly fluent Polish with strong American accent to this very day (the rest lost their Polish through mixed marriages with Americans).

I couldn't have believed it, had I not seen those typical American farmers or breeders with my own eyes on TV talking about themselves as Polish Americans either in a little old-fashioned Polish or in Amercan English. Not a word of German language in their talk, and the letters of their 19th century ancestors written in Polish. Who were they for the Americans: Polish or German?

Language / Polish words difficult to translate into English [66]

"Dutki" is "money" in the language of mountineers.
I wonder how to translate the word "klecha" into English.

The other way round, I think it is often difficult to translate the English word "integrity" (in the sense of a certain quality of a man) into Polish.

Genealogy / Leszczynski surname, Balcerzak [51]

King Stanisław Leszczyński had only one daughter. This I may conclude from his own saying: "there do not exist two more boring queens in the world than my wife and my daughter" ("nie ma na świecie dwóch nudniejszych królowych niż moja żona i córka!"). I haven't heard of any (legal) sons he may have had. So, his only descendants would be the offspring of king Louis XV of France and Maria Leszczyńska.