Language / Polish Swear Words [1242]

There were question about etymology of the word: kurwa.

There are 2 hypotheses:
1) From Protoslavic (and still used in Poland and many other Slavic languages) word KUR meaning COCK, postfix -WA means collective noun.
Calling a woman kurwa used to suggest that she knows many cocks=males ie. was a prostitute or a lascivious one. (French word COCOTTE has analogical history.)

2) From Latin word CURVA meaning CURVE or ASKEW - suggesting that the way of life of kurwa wasn't so straight - ie. with many curves and bits on the side.

Recently this hypothesis is treated as obsolete popular ad-ideation.

Life / Lack of Spacial Acuity in Poland [69]

Different culture have different spatial awareness. Private zone in Polich culture is slightly smaller than in UK, but luckily for us - still greater than in Latin American or Arab culture.

Moreover Polish society isn't so monolithic. There are many cultural differences between social classes and regions including private zone or politeness.

But you're right. There are many louts in Polish streets and public spaces.
We can partly blame Soviet era - with scarce buses & trams going with no regard for timetables, with scarce merchandise in shops, attacked by crowds to get anything.

And - of course - bad education.

It could sound pompously posh, but I also hate these loutish crowds but learned how to avoid them. For example I'm not going to malls during peak hours.

UK, Ireland / Brits to protest against foreigners in the workforce, including Poles. [289]


Yes, indeed.
Socialism and nationalism are both collectivisms and statisms.
The former gives an extra authority to the state to fight for lower class at the expense of middle class tax payers - and of course - to decide who is who.

The latter gives the same extra authority to build walls against foreigners at the expense of both foreigners and countrymen.

Moreover special rights for local workers fueled by socialism support or lever discriminatory actions against foreigners.

We should remember that exact name of the Nazi party was Nazional-Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei and that Mussolini was a socialist activist at first.

Language / Polish Swear Words [1242]


Thank you for your good word, Gumishu.

So my hypothesis are crap and only you have possessed this deep reaching insight in the past far before the history started, before barbarians of Germanic or Slavonic origin even know how to read. Nice to meet somebody with these skills.

Take it easy - it is only etymology - and with languages with so short history like Germanic and moreover Slavonic - you have only hypotheses out there.

And you are right that Latin hypothesis is funny one - some folk staff but very old one. It was very popular from early modern times together with another explanation for curva meaning corner - you know where all working girls stand.

I can tolerate your German root proposal but only as one more hypothesis - let it be number 3). I have heard about that - but it has no clear phonetic path from Gothic HORS to Slavonic KUREW.

But we have one more and very promising hypothesis:
4) In very old Polish KUR = cock and KUREW = hen
If Polish KUR, English COCK and Latin PETUX mean male gender of chicken,
and if simultaneously all these words mean also penis,
so KUREW could mean also the complement or other part of penis or vagina.

Now we are just close to final association and here you are:
If KOGUT = rooster or penis - is used to call a horny man or a cocksman in slangish,
so KUREW = hen or vagina - could be used to call a whore or a c*nt in slangish.
It is some kind of pars-pro-toto association.

And, hello, Gumishu, suffix -WA sometimes is a transformed female noun form with -EW (it could be the case of kurew) but in the other words it could be a collectiva like in DZIATWA = all the children, GĘSTWA - all the shrub, LITWA - all the Lithuanians, TATARWA - all the Tartars.

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

OK. So let's look how difficult and complicated is Polish comparing to English.

English CH is pronounced like:
1. cz in Polish, tsch in German, c (before e) in Italian
2. not exact equivalent in Polish, ch in Spanish, c (before i) in Italian
3. ć in Polish
4. sz in Polish, sch in German, and... sh in English
5. k in Polish and all other languages
6. ch in Polish, kh in other languages
Enough?

So try now with an English vowel - may favourite one is I - here you are:
1. aj in Polish, ai in Italian, ei in German
2. i in Polish, i in Italian, i in German
3. something between Polish i and y, sometimes i in German or u umlaut
4. y in Polish

So guys, if you managed to learn all these funny inconsequences in English language (inherited from deep past and different languages: Latin, Anglosaxon, French, Greek, Gaelic), don't worry Polish is boringly predictable.

You just attacking it from the wrong side.

Polish vowels are plain vanilla.
With one exception of o-accented which sounds exactly like u.
Besides of this what you hear is what you write.
And of course always - even in this exception - what you read is what you say.

The case of Ę in word endings (ultima) is slightly exagerated.
It used to be full nasal vowel like IN in French or EN in Portuguese.
However now there is tendency to pronounce it like E proper - you know on the end of the word young guys have no more power to blow through nose.

So you have here:
Word PROSZĘ (I ask/here you are) you can pronounce:
PROSZĘ (full nasality, sounding artifically and rarely listened),
PROSZE' (with reduced nasality, often heard) or
PROSZE (with no nasality at all - very popular).
CHCĘ (I want): CHCĘ, CHCE' (most popular), CHCE, CHCEM (used by louts and of course by some politicians)
CIĘ (you = thee): CIĘ, CIE', CIE - with even more popular reduction of nasality.

But believe me all forms are equally understood - it's a matter of style not of intelligibility.
And you never learn this small differences of still changing language but only through listening native speakers and repeating.

The same with consonants with very few exceptions and some general rules.
Voiced consonants sometimes are becoming voiceless to make the pronunciation easier.

UK, Ireland / Recently beaten up in England by 3 Polish guys [93]


By the way - Fakt is German owned newspaper.

Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]

Take it easy - it's only etymology.

Let's have a look to another source:

PL: Murzyn, jak czytamy w Etymologicznym słowniku języka polskiego Andrzeja Bańkowskiego, pojawił się w języku polskim w XIV -wiecznych psałterzach, jako przekład z łacińskiego Aethiops (gr. Aitiops), znacząc tyle co ciemnolicy.

EN: Murzyn as we can read in Etymological Dictionary of Polish Language by Andrzej Bańkowski was firstly reported in 14th century in psalters as an equivalent of a Latin word Aethiops (Greek Aitiops) and meaning a dark faced man.

And here you have: Latin mauros (acc. to Mirosława Siuciak) and Greek mavros (acc. to any Greek dictionary) meaning black.

Having in mind that Polish was under very high Latin pressure in medieval and early modern times, the Latin etymology is the most probably one ie. Murzyn means black.

Language / The meaning of some Polish Diminutives [23]


You're taking it from wrong side. All these endings are to make diminutive without any difference in meaning but in degree.

Polish diminutives (zdrobnienia) have different roles in itself - the same as in English - but in English you have so small choice of wordings here.

It can mean smallness, lightness, tenderness and of course by contrariness - so popular both in English and Polish - toughness, and extreme hugeness.

And the endings. The whole mess about it is due to medieval history of Polish language. There were 2 small semivowels which was lost. They are called yers - soft one and hard one.

They are responsible for all these confusions with declination of piesek (doggy): pieska, pieskowi, pieska, pieskiem, piesku.

All the rest is a plentifulness of tenderness:
0) pies, kamień, Jan | kura, gazeta, Anna
1) -k: piesek, kamyk, Janek | -ka: kurka, gazetka, Anka
2) -cz-k: pieseczek, kamyczek, Janeczek | -cz-ka: kureczka, gazeteczka, Aneczka
and so on...

And all these not only with nouns but also with adjectives and adverbs:
mały (small): maleńki, maluśki, malusieńki
drobno (finely): drobniutko, drobniuteńko, drobniusieńko

After some training with word formation rules you can easily create a diminutive of your choice with every word and every degree of tenderness, but beware - some of them will sound idiotically and not used at all - but quite well intelligible by your listener.

Language / Slovio - the international simplified Slavic language [37]

Slovio could be interesting linguistic experiment - if only the etymology and rules were well founded. However they weren't.

Slavonic languages are only languages. There is so many dramatic differences between nations speaking them. The language similarity does not build any deep unity in this case.

There is almost nothing more. All these small liaisons between Slavonic nations are due to the neighborhood not to the common ancestry.

There are no Slavs. It isn't a race nor DNA-based group. There is no common history. There is no common civilization. You rather have here 3 or 4 civilizations fighting for these people: Western, Eastern, Muscovian and Muslim.

In terms of civilizations: Slovenians are closer to Lombards than Sicilians are - and by no means close to remote Russians, Croats are closer to Abruzzians, Slovaks are closer to Hungarians, Czech to Germans, most Poland to Germans.

Panslavism is stupid because it ignores the reality.

Law / Contracts for IT staff in Poland [12]


The split you have mentioned is in the case of payroll contract with all that awful SS (ZUS) overhead.

You can however have your workers on:
- contract for specified work with clause of the transfer of author's economic rights (umowa o dzieło z przeniesieniem praw autorskich) - the whole pay is under 50% tax rebate.

- contract for specified work with a self-employed one-man-business - which is possibly the best for you; there is no tax rebate but on the other hand many costs could be deduced by the business owner, moreover new startups has 2-years vacation with 70% reduced SS overhead.

Law / Contracts for IT staff in Poland [12]

Delphiandomine is right in most details but the most important is what is the strategy of your firm, slainte:

1) building a presence in Poland to expand your business here - to catch new contacts, clients, contracts and so on, or

2) just outsource some work to the Isle of Poland for some better terms-of-trade, or

3) start with 1 and see if 2 is possible, or

4) just make some appearances of the globality to be better sold by your company board to even more global company.

So if A=creative payroll, B= contract for specified work, C=self-employed employees, you have:
1 - A
2 - C
3 - A + support of B&C
4 - A (one secretary) + whatever

I hope it can help to develop your strategy ;-)

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4501]


Don't hurry with assessing nationality by name only. My family for example is of Austrian origin with very German family name, but polonized in the middle of Ukraine (what a mockery).

Furman was Polish proper noun for waggoner as early as in 16th century. It was, of course, a German borrowing, but made hundreds years ago, so it gives you NO EVIDENCE of the nationality or religion of the family - or let's better say - an origin of the first guy consequently described with this moniker.

He could be a Pole of Catholic or Lutheran denomination, or German living together with Poles, or Ruthenian (Ukrainian or Belorussian) or even Jew. In Yiddish (a German dialect with Hebrew and Slavic borrowings spoken by majority of Jews in former Poland) a carter was called: furman (from German) or bałaguła (from Ruthenian).

Genealogy / Kozlowski / Krzysik in the Korczyna / Krosno or Wapiersk / Lidzbark [18]

KOZ£OWSKI is a male form, while KOZ£OWSKA is exact form for a female in Polish.

Anyway KOZ£OWSKI has origin in a proper noun KOZIO£ or KOZIE£ meaning a billy-goat or a male goat. But it also could be from a toponym: KOZ£ÓW (16 localities) or KOZ£OWA, KOZ£OWO.

It's quite popular name with 34 204 persons with male form & 38 658 female form. Here you have a map with geographical distribution.
And here you have something about localities wiith names Kozłów dir.icm.edu.pl/pl/Slownik_geograficzny/Tom_IV/560 (in Polish).

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4501]

I know. The world is full of besserwissers (or knowing better), so please show them, if you like the map with geographical localization of persons with last name Furman in Poland - total of 6 193 persons, from whom - unfortunately - only very very few could be of Jewish descent.

Language / The meaning of some Polish Diminutives [23]

Nice work. You're almost completely right.
But as I mentioned you can easily create a diminutive of your choice with every word and every degree of tenderness, but beware - some of them will sound idiotically and not used at all - but quite well intelligible by your listener. And this is a case of: ptaś.

And the verbs... I have been looking in my memory any verb to have diminutive and I have failed. Your artificially created forms płakuniać, płakuńciać, płakusiać are however quite cute and maybe used in some family language when talking to a baby.

The same case is with comparative - they have no dictionary entries for diminutives, but I understand your prędziusiej and I'm almost sure I have heard it talked to a baby.

And once again about meanings: diminutive (with no matter which ending) means in most cases lesser scale or intensity but also tenderness.

And with the scale, yes you;re right - if you're adding more one more diminutive it makes the word even smaller, so pies = normal dog, piesek = doggy, pieseczek = small doggy.

Endings -eńki, -śki sounds more tender than other.

And last remark: all these forms aren't declination (or declension) they are effects of word forming i.e. completely new words, but made according to Polish word forming rules and inheriting any phonetic properties of the root word.

Language / Polish Swear Words [1242]


You're probably right. The root of Lietuva is probably of Baltic origin.
Wikipedia proposes "Since the word Lietuva has a suffix (-uva), the original word should have no suffix. A likely candidate is Lietā." However the ending could Slavonic as well. If not it was well assimilated and used together with Moskwa, Tatarwa.

In old Polish also MOSKWA was used as a collectivum:
Moskwa się pocza dziwować skąd się wziął, jednakże rozumieli, że go do tego czasu było utajono. [from the period of Dymitriada (wars with Muscovy 1604-1610]

archive.org/stream/archivfrslavisc00pastgoog/archivfrslavisc00pastgoog_djvu.txt

And TATARWA: ..niedola nas ściga, najechała wraża tatarwa. A kozak śpi.. (Bolesław Londyński, Bajki Słowiańskie); see also: Stanisław Vincenz, Prawda Starowieku.

News / Poland: In Top First 15 Countries in the WORLD by the number of CRIMES [286]

It is really safer now in Poland.
Before 2005 there were many violent crimes here.

There were big problem with Russian and Polish (Wołomin, Pruszków etc.) mafia. It was connected with:
- liberal policy in law enforcement performed by excommunists and left-wingers,
- many secret service officers dismissed and without well paid job,
- Russian soldiers without pay but with good knowledge of Poland, where they garrisoned,
- and maybe some infiltration by Russian secret service.

There were some machine gun fighting and car bombings. Even Chief Police Officer was killed by mob. I remember one car bombing and one police pursuit with gun firing on my housing district. I've heard about forced tributes from business, mostly restaurants.

But now it's quite different. Main criminal group were smashed.

However it's true that Police tends not to register small criminal acts notified by victims. They don't want to worsen traceability statistics. The pay depends on it.

There is still many problems: police staff is underpaid, prosecutors politically dependent, the courts procedurally archaic, many judges with lack of moral qualifications and practically unpunishable and last but not least awful laws.

I was never robbed or beaten in Poland, and last year while in Madrid I lost all credit cards and ID, in London almost beaten and in Rome almost deceived. Nice string. In Madrid I have visited my daughter in a student house - all parents visiting her colleagues had some petty theft incident.

But on the other hand I did feel very safe there even by night. And the same in Poland.

Genealogy / Kozlowski / Krzysik in the Korczyna / Krosno or Wapiersk / Lidzbark [18]


Yes, indeed, Kozłowski could have Jewish origin in some cases - all depends, when they left former Poland.

As you may know, Jews in Polish Commonwealth of Both Nations (ie. Union of Kingdom of Poland & Great Duchy of Lithuania 1569-1791) used to speak a German dialect called Yiddish. Jews had by royal privileges far reaching autonomy in laws and ways of live. They hadn't even last names - they used to call each other by first name and reference to father's name. For example: Mosze ben Jakov (Moses son of Jacob).

After the partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795) all the territory fell under the new police order of Prussia, Austria and Russia. Comparing to Polish liberty they were police states. They even wanted (what violence) to list all people, and in order to do that they all had to have last names.

Christians used to have last names. But Jews had none. So then it produced many ad hoc creations made by occupational administrations clerks. Sometimes it ended with quite well sounding last names like Kohen, Schohet (from profession name) or Lemberger, Tarnopoler,

jewishgen.org/JRI-PL/psa/plock_surn.htm
Kozlower (from locality name).
(By the way the clerks were underpaid and found the way to get some extra money. They invented many derogatory or funny names like Pommeranzengelb (Orangeyellow) to force bribes from guys who wanted to escape such an abasement. But many Jews were very poor so their descendants still must grapple with conseqeunces.

But returning to your case. Some guy form the township of KOZ£ÓW, could be presented with the last name of KOZLOWER, KOSLOWER or KOZLOVER.

However, having in mind that all these territories were still under Polish cultural influence, many Jews chose to be a Pole and be a part of local elite. So they changed names to KOZ£OWSKI.


Yes. Firstly you must determine when they emigrated and from which part of EE. You can start with Ancestry.com. They have many immigrant listings form XIX and XX centuries.

Saczek could be SĄCZEK or SACZEK.
SACZEK is a diminutive from SAK = big travel bag (pannier, purse) or purse seine for fishing.
SĄCZEK is for filter, drain but more probably it's from a nasty moniker for a guy who sips or trickle (Polish verb SĄCZYĆ), maybe he was drinking very slowly or even doing all very slowly.

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


What about DŻDŻYSTA DŻDŻOWNICA (drizzly earthworm).

News / Poland: In Top First 15 Countries in the WORLD by the number of CRIMES [286]


Yup! You must have good sources, some Deep Throat.

But I haven't. I only read newspapers (online of course), watch TV news and look around. And you know, there is silence. The only clamour is from politicians barking on each other.

Genealogy / THE MEANING AND RESEARCH OF MY POLISH LAST NAME, SURNAME? [4501]

Broszkiewicz looks like having an origin in broszka a proper noun for brooch or it is a toponymic from
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broszk%C3%B3w
Broszków, Broszkowo, Broszkowa.
Ending -ewicz is composed of 2 parts: -iew which is alternate form of -ow (which - as you may know - is a classical form of creating derivative words from nouns in Polish).

and -icz which formally is considered as patronymic (from Eastern part of Poland).
West Polish equivalent could sound like Broszkowski.

There is 770 persons with this name in Poland.

There were also 2 writers of this name:
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Broszkiewicz]Jerzy Broszkiewicz
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Broszkiewicz]Stanisław Broszkiewicz


Kashubian and Polish are very similar but in this case it is evidently Polish.
Kashubian words for laska cane or walking stick are:
palëca, krëcziew, palëga, karkulëca, dębówka, kramólc, krokulc, palcôter.
Quite different, isn't it?

Laska looks like a moniker for a tall and slender guy. By the way laska was a name for old measure of length. It equaled 15 ells ie. circa 8,9 meters.

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


In fact Romanian has 3 cases:
- Latin accusative which works also as nominative,
- Latin dative working also as genitive,
- Slavic vocative.

Romanian is probably the most mixed language and is very interesting for the researchers.
First etymological dictionary of Romanian from 1870s by A. Cihac listed:
- 2350 words with Slavic origin,
- 1150 Latin/Romance,
- 950 Turkish,
- 650 Greek,
- 600 Hungarian,
- 50 Albanian.

In XIX century it was written in Cyrillic script (the only Romance language I suppose). However there were many language engineering afterwards to make the language cleaner and closer to Latin and Romance counterparts - especially French.

Even the name of the language was lifted up. In XIX century it was called rumîneasca what sounded very Slavic (in Russian it was rumynskiy, Polish rumuński). To make it sound more Roman a special letter (â) was introduced and now you have limba română. Many words were reconstructed or invented basing on Latin stems.


Baltic and Slavonic languages have 7 cases, Sanskrit and Indian languages have 8 direct cases and some oblique ones made with postpositions, Lezgian - 54 cases, Tsez - 64, Hungarian - 29 or so.

Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]


Olaf do not exaggerate. I have found, of course your murzać. It's enough to google it.
But contrary to you, I'm not convinced. Yes, there is a few links, but all they look like they are going from one source (you maybe know the theory of mems' diffusion). Unfortunately in most cases, when authors link Murzyn with murzać, they're doing it to underline how derogatory is this word for example guys from the portal: afryka.org.

I'd prefer to believe to what well known authorities in linguistics have to say.
Aleksander Brückner, the greatest Polish etymologist wrote: common -in (as in Rusin) singularis added to German Mohr from Latin maurus, 'black'. and asked if murzyć isn't from murzyn.

Samuel Bogumił Linde, the author of first modern Polish dictionary in 1809 wrote:
MURZYN - in Czech mouřenin, èernoch, Slovak mauřenin, Serbian mor, Russian - муринЪ [murin].. from Latin maurus, der Mohr - Nigryczykowie abo murzyny, nazwisko które daiemy narodom czarnym; powszechnie tak nazywamy ludzi czarnych, z kraiów południowych pochodzących (English translation: Nigerians or murzyny, name given by us to black nations;we usually call in such way black people from southern countries) and he presented additional meaning = German ein Mohrenkopf i.e. a horse with black head.

Encyklopedia PWN, Polish main Encyclopaedia: from Latin Mauri (Moors).
encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3944532

Language / NAMES POLES GIVE THEIR DOGS [76]

What about Huba?

Language / Old Polish Vs New Polish [29]


Isn't it a German or Yiddish: Wie geht's? [vee-gates] meaning How is it going? or How are you?

Language / Old Polish Vs New Polish [29]


Yeah. But yers were vocalized in XII-XIII century or so. You have very scarce written material from this period.

Polish flourished and stabilized in XV-XVI century. Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584) was the greatest Polish poet and the most part (I think >90%) of his works is still comprehensible.

Later trends consisted of simplifying of consonant groups, elimination of accented vowels, uniformization of grammatical forms, adaptation of common European set of neologisms.

There were some downfall in clarity during the late Baroque-Rococo periods when Polish text were heavy interleaved with Latin words and erudite antique allegories. Much smaller drawback can be met in XIX century were some artificial syntax fashions were popular in literature and administrative language.

Much greater changes were made in dialectology: Polish regional dialects are nearly extinct now. As an effect quite big lexical resources and word forms are not used anymore. Moreover many words for tools or activities, which together make up material culture are dead as well.

News / Polar bear attack - a Polish guy survived [38]

I met bears two times in 80s in Tatra mountains - first seen from large distance while eating berries on the slope, second when he attacked a mountain shelter home Dolina Roztoki in the wake of food. In fact it was Eurasian brown bear (PL: Niedźwiedź brunatny, LA: Ursus arctos arctos) not grizzly, which is a larger subspecies. Third time there were only an alert from national park service about some bear winding in vicinity and attacking sheep.

So don't try to make fun of it. It's very serious ;-)

News / Polar bear attack - a Polish guy survived [38]


Damn! They were doing a really big job. I was totally taken in. Even the paw traces on the doors. Perfection. No wonder that they managed later to grab so many jobs in England from Englishmen, who hadn't such an opportunity to practice so hard.

Language / The meaning of some Polish Diminutives [23]


I can't recall any right now. I've found some partial listing, especially connected with toponymy. However, I'm sure there are some sources. I'll try to find and share it with you. I've found only till now a thesis on Formal description of the derivation in Polish (Formalny opis derywacji w jezyku polskim): members.chello.pl/jrw/doc/jrw_thesis.pdf

But it's difficult to give any suffix one exact lexical meaning. Sure, they have their etymology. But now it looks like they have two main aims in word forming: distinctive and emotional (which often used to interfere). Professionals used to say some suffixes are more productive which mean they are more frequently used.

Here you have some examples complicating one-one lexical interpretations you tried to establish: zjawisko, lotnisko, wysypisko, wywierzysko; łupina, zwierzyna; mitręga; znajda; łatwizna.

History / Polish-German alliance. [489]


You mean an older state organism?
You're kidding, of course.