Travel / Poland wildlife and similar wild life where you live. [243]


what you saw was gil (in Polish) Pyrrhula pyrrhula (bullfinch)
the ones met in Poland are mostly migrating here for winter from Scandinavia or northern Russia, they migrate back north in quite big swarms (this year this was a sign of the spring approaching some time in the middle of March) - the ones brightly coloured are males

the interesting thing about bullfinches is they can often be watched from quite near in winter (1 meter) - this is what i read but also have seen this winter (i was not as close as 1m probably 2m but most birds would fly away if I were several meters further already)

as for other birds that come here mainly for winter rooks are a good example - some of them nest while in winter in Poland - some do remain in Poland for summer but not that many

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

and I can understand a lot of Slovak partly because I understand quite a lot of Czech as I have the benefit of Czech TV availability. And very often Slovak sounds as Czech with Polish accents/pronounciation (to Polish ears)

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

maybe a blessing in disguise ;)

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

is this your theory or is it based on some studies Polonius - i guess it did happen from time to time but I don't think it was any significant thing - but still I have never studied the issue

so you may actually be right
yes there can be a lot of confusion - many Jews adopted the surnames of nobility they worked for (as tenants etc) - this is just one example - I'm sure it was quite complex

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Polonius maybe I am mistaken but I think only nobility or perhaps city dwellers were called any surnames before say 18th century and only zaścianek szlachta - nobility who had no serfs and worked their own fields would be called a surname after their zaścianek name not being 'lords of the place' just inhabitants (in my family there where Wszeborowscy from Wszebory north of £omża) - these people couldn't be told appart from peasantry already in the second part of 19th century (after the January uprising when the peasants became free and acquired land they were working on for themselves - the big land owners (mostly rich nobles) kept their land until 1921 or even 1944/45)

there were areas in Poland where zaścianki (villages of nobles) were numerous sometimes even occupied most of the land

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Latuszewski (btw it would often be pronounced as Latuszeski in colloquial speech - i don't know what this phonetic phenomenon is called but it does have some seriously looking scientific name to it ) :)

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

nobility were not as a rule wealthy people - they were just free contrary to peasantry who were in fact half-slaves (serf class) - even had to stay where their masters/lords wanted them,

but as a rule you can say nobility were land owners even if petty.

there is good possibility that some of your ancestors where from nobility but it's not for sure
for the reasons I mentioned in previous post

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4500]

Polonius you are mistaken as for one thing - the rule was such: toponymic names like that were born by noble people - not any inhabitants of the place. Latuszewski or any other ski or cki can be a regular adjective in Polish. The origin of noble class names of that type is from notion of pan latuszewski (Lord of Latuszew) - e.g. Hieronim pan na Latuszewie/pan latuszewski - noble class constituted a large part of Polish society in the end of 18th century (10 per cent) - most of them were not rich, they lived liked peasants but were free. Noble-like names were taken later (made up) by some other people for snobism, and other reasons.

Genealogy / Last Name: DOWGIALLO from Poland [44]

Dowgiałło (Dowgiallo when anglicized) is a polonized Lithuanian name just like Jagiełło, Radziwił (originally also double łł), Rogałło (the guy called Rogallo in the States)

as for Jews bearing this name - many Jewish families accepted names of their noble 'patrons' - the noble families (mostly large land owners) they worked for as tenants of auberges, forests and other - so there are lots of Jews in Poland whose name is Potocki etc (I knew myself a Jew who's name was Potocki)

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

polska język trudna język :P

ona być najtrudniejsza - nie wiedzieć ;)

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

I heard a story.
Some Albanians stole a truck in Greece and they were heading towards Albania. Police pursuit followed. The thieves approached the border. But there was no road there to cross the border. They went into a field but stopped there, got off and ran away to Albania. After some time when the Greek police were trying to get the truck out of the field a tank (Russian made thing obviously) appeared from Albania (don't know if it fired) but it crossed the border definitely making the Greek police take flight. The truck was hauled afterwards into Albanian territory.

I am not sure if this story is really true

but certain things I know make it quite believable - there was once chaos in Albania after some breakdown of financial pyramids - army depots were run over, lots of military equipment stolen (they say everyone now owns a gun in Albania (AK 47 for that maatter)

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

Marku is your surname Loeffel??? ;)

you have too many passwords to too many places in the internet I guess Marku ;) go for something strange for example a corruption of memorable name (mine is such) it's corruption of Ariadna (but you will never guess) :P :)

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

osiol - no vocative is not slipping away - maybe it is more rarely used than in the centuries gone by but it is well alive (well I actually do not follow the language of those fresh generations too closely - but I know they make quite a lot of grammatical mistakes (it spreads TV-wise) and what is more they are not familiar with a whole of Polish words which look strange and exotic to them (this is simply limited vocabulary) well actually they speak slang don't they

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

osiol well I can't actually imagine dropping it in Polish; gender thing is simply overgrowing the language, running through it in every direction (isn't it called enmeshed?? :)). This is quite different to German where you could simply use more general Artikel (gosh forgotten the English name for a/the) - could perhaps be der instead of any other. and that's almost it.

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

is it not correct to say - whom did you see on the ball/game?

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

so Poles should abandon Polish and learn German instead then it would be easier for the English to communicate with us (not meantionig the Germans )

wait - why shouldn't then Poles abandon Polish for English instead of German? and should Germans stick to German?

:P

Language / Polish Swear Words [1242]

it is spelled like this - cholera jasna

cholera is a serious contagious disease (bacterial if I remember correctl7y)
jasna is bright

it does not make much sense together

but is used quite often nethertheless

jasna/y is used in many Polish swear phrases as sort of augmentative

jasny gwint - bright screw thread
do jasnej Anielki - bright Angela :)
a niech cię jasny szlag/piorun trafi - let a bright hit/thunder hit you - this one make most sense as a phrase

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

you don't get it Bratwurst - in polish one can most often tell a gender of a noun when seeing it's basic form (nominative) in German you cannot get the idea of which article you should put before many many words (der oder das Artikel - you can't figure it out very often - you have to memorize it)

but in general Polish is much more complicated than German (although those sentences where two parts of a verb are at opposite sites of a sentence can really make you suffer ;P)

Language / Polish slang phrases - most popular. [606]

pijany - drunken

that's my guess

pijana lady - drunken lady

Food / Polish Milk Soup [72]


I think you should look for zacierka recipe

Life / Polish Nursery Rhymes [253]


This is a short lullaby (well a short version of a longer one)

Aaa, kotki dwa,
szarobure obydwa,
poleciały do lasu,
narobiły hałasu.

Aaa, kittens two,
both are greybrown,
they ran to the woods,
and made a lot of noise.

Language / Your perception of the Polish accent [145]

I can recognise people from Trójmiasto and vicinity (they have their ways of saying things not that much the sound of the language ) they say jo instead of tak most of the time for example (but I guess it is more widespread in Pomorze area (not only Tricity)

Language / Your perception of the Polish accent [145]

yes there is little difference
the more people are educated the smaller difference there is