Life / Polish authors, books & literature. [94]

Andrzej Stasiuk

I read two of his books.

"Opowieści galicyjskie" ("Galician tales") - a semi-fictional travel to a god-forgotten village in the provincial Carpatian foothills - back in time to the last days of PRL and early post-communist times. Some fragments are almost brutal in their exposition of immoral characters of some villagers. Not quite "The Delivery", but tough to read sometimes.

"Jadąc do Babadag" ("Travelling to Babadag"), a nostalgic report from the "second class" Europe: Ukraine, Romania, Hungary. The action is set during the post-communist transformation period. Attention to details, great observation ability, good style. I liked this book.

Here is a fragment from his profile on culture.pl:
[i]
More than a cult

by J. Andruchowycz, translated B. Zadura

History / Poland Lithuania - current relations [124]


Today's Gazeta Wyborcza re-prints an open letter of Lithuanian intellectuals "Litwini do Litwinów", dated April 10, 2011:

With blazing anxiously and sadly observe , as in Lithuania every day is destroyed and desecrated the germ of European Christian civilization : the wisdom and tolerance , humility and charity.

I have seen something similar few weeks before, published somewhere else.

It is an appeal to Lithuanian society to stop playing short term political games and to start seeking agreement with Polish-Lithuanian minority, which are, after all, the citizens of the Lithuanian state, and who wish to live in piece and take care of future of their children.

... Nawołujemy do przezwyciężenia politycznych sprzeczności, do uśmierzania ognia wrogości wzniecanego przez krótkotrwałe cele polityczne, do szukania porozumienia z Polakami z Litwy jak z obywatelami jednego państwa, pragnącymi, jak wszyscy inni, w zgodzie i spokoju układać swoje życie, dbać o dobro swoje i swoich dzieci na tej ziemi.

Signed by:

Antanas Gailius - an intellectual, philosopher, poet, translator, member of the Foundation's Thomas Mann, a former editor of Catholic ed. IDEAS,

doc. Irena Vaišvilaite - Rector of European Humanities University, an opposition activist, former advisor to President V. Adamkus,

prof. Alvydas Jokubaitis - prof. of Institute for International Relations in Vilnius, a political scientist,

doc. V. Paulius Subaeius - expert in Lithuanian affairs, president of the Catholic Academy of Sciences,

prof. Danute Gailiene - prof. psychiatry;

Julius Sasnauskas - Franciscan friar, philosopher, former dissident, songwriter about multiculturalism of Vilnius,

prof. Rimvydas Petrauskas - medievalist historian at the History Faculty of Vilnius University

Love / Looking for a Polish love song [78]


It appears in many Polish sites. The trick is to google it as a phrase, in quotes.
The much longer version, entitled "Rozmowa", starts with:

Można w kraju żyć swobodnie, gdy się dobrze język zna !
Ale czasem jest wygodniej, gdy się zna języki dwa !
Ja do ciebie po angielsku, ty po polsku do mnie mów !
Może nam się kiedyś przydać tych niewinnych parę słów:
....

It's all here:
tasmania.blox.pl/2004/09/Dwie-ojczyzny.html
(scroll down to the middle of the page)

Life / Polish authors, books & literature. [94]


Right. This is the obvious connection, which escaped me - thanks for pointing it out. It has been long time since my introduction to "Czarodziejska Góra". Memory, memory! All I remember from "The Buddenbrooks" is one or two details and the general climate but that's about it.

Oh, I forgot to mention: the Castorp has been translated into English.

Life / Polish authors, books & literature. [94]

Paweł Huelle, Castorp

Quite different from, although kind of complementary to Grass'es "The Tin Drum", or Mann's "The Magic Mountain".

Genealogy / Looking for any and all information on Dabrowski/Dombrowski from Poland [87]

Midas was a bit faster ... :-)

I assume you realize that the original name of your grandparents was Dąbrowski. Good luck with your search, but this seems like a tough case, since the name is the 11th most common surname in Poland. Wikipedia has few pages devoted to Dąbrowski:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dąbrowski]
Jan Henryk Dąbrowski (the one mentioned in Polish National Anthem)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Henryk_Dąbrowski
Jarosław Dąbrowski
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarosław_Dąbrowski

Language / się - explanation needed ? [13]


Or more common: "umyj się!", perfective aspect.

Life / Polish authors, books & literature. [94]

Many Polish books of the historical genre - especially those written abroad - are bitter and argumentative. Jarosław Abramow-Newerly, son of Igor Newerly - the author of "Pamiątka z Celulozy", or "Chłopiec z Salskich Stepów" - somehow manages to talk about controversial issues with the great sense of humour. I like his book "Granica Sokoła", Styl, Warszawa 2001, where he easily moves from Zaleszczyki, to Czortków in Tarnopole voivodship, and later to Warsaw and finally to Toronto, Canada - covering about 80 years of time, and exposing the reader to various cultures (Polish, Ukrainian, Jewish, Russian) and beliefs, including hardcore Communism.

- To moje hobby, panie Jarosławie. I sens życia. £owię te perły od czasu studiów (...) Oto strofy pańskiego mistrza, mistrzu:

Life / Polish authors, books & literature. [94]


Great, I enjoy his witty humour appearing in these little stories from both sides of the Atlantic: "Bronek i Roksana", "Arthur Miller i Joseph Papp", etc.

Life / Polish authors, books & literature. [94]

Here is a little pearl, which I discovered last year in a local store:
F. Antoni Ossendowski, Huculszczyzna, Gorgany i Czarnohora, Cuda Polski, reprint on the basis of the first edition, Wydawnictwo Polskie, Poznań [1936]

[The entire series of "Cuda Polski" used to be banned from Polish libraries during the communism]

Antoni Ferdynand Ossendowski (1876-1945) was the second author, after Sieńkiewicz, having the largest number of translations into foreign languages (142 translations in 19 languages ). Highly original, colorful character, having an exceptionally turbulent life. The writer, thinker-futurologist, journalist and editor of several journals, a passionate hunter, wildlife expert, explorer-globetrotter, doctor of Chemical Sciences, professor of many universities, a member of the French Academy. At some point in his life, a revolutionary activist and strong opponent of the Bolsheviks. He was the author of four volumes published in the series "Miracles of Poland": Huculszczyzna, Gorgany and Czarnohora; the Carpathians and the Subcarpathia; Polesie and the Wild Forests of Poland. [Translated by me, from the book's cover]

See also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossendowski

On the surface, this book supposes to be just a tourist/anthropologic/ethnographic guide to the Eastern part of the Carpathian mountains, now Ukraine, east of Polish Bieszczady. But this is more than that: the author's unbeatable sense of observation and rich vocabulary makes this little book a real pleasure to read. Anyone frequenting Bieszczady would also find it a very valuable source of information about Hucul peoples, and their customs and art. Plenty of white and black photographs and sketches supplement the author's colourful language.

Life / Polish authors, books & literature. [94]

Take it easy! The term "culture shock", when used in some silly context, quite often makes me laugh and this is why I put it in quotes.

Life / Polish authors, books & literature. [94]

Krynski


x2
Also available online, 1Mb pdf file.
But be prepared for some "culture shock" and a (stylized?) peasant dialect from NE Poland. Here is a sample from the first page:

Jesienio gospodarze wstajo długo, po trochu, posmakować lubio. Jakby taki był, co by widział przez ściany i przez ciemno, to on by może i widział co gospodarze robio jak koguty w sieniach odśpiewajo im trzecie pobudkę.

Przecknąwszy sie oczow nie odmykajo, leżo, leżo sobie pod pierzynami jak bochenki w piecach, jak w gniazdach jajka pod kurami, każdy rozgrzany, rozpalony, baba jemu do pleców przylipła, dycha w szyje aż parzy, w nogach ciepło, w łokciach ciepło, pod pachami ciepło, aj dobrze, żaden nie ruszy sie, nie drygnie, żeb tego swojego przytuliska, ciepliska Broń Boże nie zruszyć, leży, poleży, jeszcze trochu, troszku, aj nie chce sie z gniazda ciepłego wyłazić. Ale to że tam dzieś słonko sie ocknęło i czas wstawać, świdruje to, poszturchuje.

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Well, I am the last person to provide advice on such matters - usage of definite/indefinite particles is not my strong point, to say the least. :-) What I really meant was "THE NOSE", the one and only one. :-). If it was an error I stand corrected. But I have seen the particle "the" in front of proper names, as in "This defeat really challenged the Merkel's government".

The idiom in question actually exists, in both figurative and direct sense, as in: "Russia received the next flick on the nose" or "With a young puppy, a flick on the nose most of the time will work". This subject was even discussed quite recently on some translators' forum, here:

proz.com/kudoz/polish_to_english/idioms_maxims_sayings/4085344-dać_prztyczka_w_nos.html

By the way, you must have caught my previous message during the editing stage, when I was correcting "this expression" to "the impression".

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

What are you like, modern Polish?
static.unilang.org/babelbabble/index.php?n=20&t=8#up

The question being the title of this article was uttered by one of the greatest modern Polish linguists, Professor J. Miodek, during one of his lectures. According to the Professor, the influences of foreign languages constitute the largest danger to the Polish language, and the most dangerous is English.

Chart 1. What annoys you most in the modern Polish, used in public?
(A public opinion poll conducted by the CBOS)

Chart 2. The number of English loanwords in Polish in the course of time.

• 
  Chart 1
  
• 
  Chart 2
  

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

I do not know French, but I have the impression that the text you quote is just a little flick on the Sarkozy's nose and the English words are used here intentionally as a joke - in the similar manner as the Mizerski's quote from my post #239.

Besides. the word «coaching» is enclosed in guillemets, so this would not count as an argument that the French just gave up. :-)

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Funny :-)


According to Bralczyk, this actually brakes the standard for Polish combination of "wiele/o-" with nouns - not the verbs, as in "wielomian", "wielopust", "wielościan", etc. But he says: "Wyraz wielopak nie jest zatem utworzony wzorcowo, niemniej sądzę, że można go dopuścić jako nazwę używaną środowiskowo." However, he still advices to use "zgrzewka" instead.

Over here we like to be more specific: 6-pack, 12-pack, as in twelve pack of beer. :-)

boletus
na na na na na
breaks, of course

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Sławomir Mizerski is a funny guy. Here is a small excerpt from: Następni do raju, Polityka - nr 6, 2004-02-07
archiwum.polityka.pl/art/nastepni-do-raju,382850.html

Kasting zaczyna się rano o dziewiątej, tłum zapisuje się przy stoliku, otrzymuje numery na przylepcu i pisze w skupieniu CV, które uśmiechnięci disnejlendzi uprzejmie zbierają, prosząc w obcych językach o zajmowanie miejsc, gdyż za chwilę nastąpi prezentejszyn z udziałem rzutnika oraz pani Madeline, menedżer talent kasting, i wtedy każdy się dowie wszystkiego.

On the site of "The Council for the Polish Language" (Rada Języka Polskiego), rpj.pan.pl there is a page devoted to linguistic advices. Prof. Bralczyk, the council's chairman, is a self-declared linguistic liberal, but even he cannot stand pretentious names sometimes.

Here are some examples of names rejected by the council: "szynek" (to be used as name of a product), "wielopak" or "multipack" (suggestion: use existing "zgrzewka"), "energetyzujący zapach" as a Polish translation of "fresh energy", Przysmak Świętokrzyski SNACK do smażenia, or "market".

A marketing director (...) asked for the council's blessing with respect to the word "market", which is customarily used in the name of a commercial network he manages. The chairman gave the negative answer:

[...]I cannot, unfortunately, share your opinion related to the usage of the word "market" in the name of the commercial network XXX. Contrary to what you write - this is not "a word functioning in Polish for a long time", and one could hardly find it in any Polish dictionary published before the year 2000. My own dictionary "Easy dictionary of difficult words" (Wilga, Warsaw 2000) lists it, but only in order to explain it to older people who do not understand what it means, and with an attached note that this is a pretentious word. I also disagree with your statement - sent to the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (OCCP) - that the word "sklep" (shop) has some association with a room equipped with "lada" - a counter, but not with a space for self services. Now, newer dictionaries of Polish language, commencing with "Słownik języka polskiego" edited by Witold Doroszewski (vol. 8, p. 280, year 1966), provide a phrase "sklep samoobsługowy" (self-serving shop) but nowhere it appears that the "counter" (lada) is a necessary element of such "sklep" (shop). Therefore, I agree with the opinion of OCCP that the word "market" should be replaced by the word "sklep" on the signboards of the commercial network XXX.

Language / Polish word "Dom" and its similarities in different languages [46]

Recent article from "The Economist"
Quentin Atkinson, of the University of Auckland, in New Zealand, has been looking at the evolutionary issue, trying to locate the birthplace of the first language. Michael Dunn, of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands, has been examining ontology. Fittingly, they have published their results in the two greatest rivals of scientific journalism. Dr Atkinson's paper appears in Science, Dr Dunn's in Nature.

economist/node/18557572

I followed some links. Apparently, not everyone is happy with the methods used and the findings. See for example this:

newscientist.com/article/dn20384-evolutionary-babel-was-in-southern-africa.html

Those phonemes again! Atkinson talks of Africa as a mother of all tongues, but Turkey is close enough.

Life / Sexual culture in Poland [66]

[Moved from]: Doctor Kurkiewicz - A pioneer of Polish sexuology

The online version of the weekly Polityka presents interesting article about doctor Kurkiewicz, a pioneer of Polish sexology. Unfortunately, the article is in Polish only. I would not even consider translating it, since it is full of funny slavic neologisms. A good challenge for some language experts here, though.

Here is a short excerpt:


polityka.pl/historia/1514802,1,pionier-polskiej-seksuologii.read

History / Why did communism in Poland fail? [180]


See: China and the end of the Deng Dynasty, Stratfor site:

stratfor.com/weekly/20110418-china-and-end-deng-dynasty

Genealogy / VILLAGE OF PIOTAKOWICE [3]

Could it be that you have misspelled names of villages you are searching for?

Piotakowice? This does not look good to me. Something is missing here.
Piotrkowice - 275,000 google entries. Wikipedia lists 11 such places in Poland.
Piotrowice - 835,000 google entries. Wikipedia lists 23 such places in Poland.

There is also a village Petrovice u Karvine, Polish: Piotrowice koło Karwiny, Moravian-Silesian region, Czech Republic - just on the border with Polish Cieszyn Silesia. The reason I mention it is related to your another name place "Choramnice", which could be also misspelled.

Choramnice does not sound Polish. But there is village of Hromnice in Plzen Region of Czech Republic.

Any place name with the root-word "chram" could be also acceptable - both in Polish and in Czech, since this is an old name for a church. However google search does not lead to anything significant here.

Coincidently "chram" and "hromnice" are somehow related.

Hromnice, officially Uvedení Páně do chrámu, is a church feast celebrated as Candlemas in English speaking countries.

The day of Hromnice is an important day for Czech weather-related folklore. It falls on February 2nd, the same day the popular Groundhog Day is celebrated in the United States.

myczechrepublic.com/czech_culture/czech_holidays/hromnice.html

The only additional information for Czech Hromnice is the origin of its name. Hromnice or diminutive hromnièky (from hrom = thunder) are church candles lighted during thunderstorms, i.e. the Czech name is analogical to English Candlemas.

myczechrepublic.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=29564

The Polish equivalent of "Hromnice" would be "Gromnice". However, there is no village with such name in Poland, as far as I can tell.

Surnames Slovik (Czech), Słowik (Polish) and Pazucha (both) are quite popular in both sides of the border and they correlate well with any place names mentioned here.

One advice though about Peter Pazucha search. Peter is not a Polish first name. It could be Czech, but more correctly it would be spelled Petr. If you are sure that your Pazucha is Polish, then Piotr is the correct Polish name.

News / Could Poland be self-sustainable in energy? [56]

Adding few facts:

The installed wind power capacity in Poland is ~1181 MW (on 14.01.2011). Wind energy density in Poland is one of the smallest in Europe. Installed capacity per capita is 0,012 kW, whereas per km2 of land area the figure amounts to 1,44 kW.

psew.pl/en/wind_energy.htm

However, a capacity is not the same as an actual power output. I could not find any data on current wind power output in Poland, so I will provide some estimate based on Ontario, Canada. Ontario's wind power capacity is roughly 1240 MW (planned 2600 MW by the end of 2011), quite comparable with that of Poland.

Current Ontario wind power output is 131 MW; that is, about 10% of the current capacity. Data taken at 12pm-1pm, Apr. 18, 2011.

ieso.ca/imoweb/marketdata/windpower.asp

Clickable map of wind farms in Poland:

psew.pl/en/elektrownie_wiatrowe_w_polsce.htm

Map of wind power in Polish voivodships in Poland 2010:

psew.pl/en/map_of_renewable_energy_sources_in_poland.htm

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Magdalena


One day, hopefully. :-)

I am going out for a glass wine now, before we start real nitpicking.

BTW, nothing important: I was thinking about why do you use "cofać" for "cancel" and not "zanulować", "unieważnić", "skasować" and then I realized that this might be related to the PC keyboard layout - with "backspace" key (cofać) and "delete" key (usuwać).

But not all keyboards are like this: Apple computers have just "delete" key and this works fine in editing. In other words, there is no "cofać" key. Something to think about...

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

I am sorry, Magdalena, but I can only agree with you on one point only:
"budowlaniec" indeed is not a "developer" - it is a builder. But the line between "developer" and "buider" is not that sharp since "development" translates to "rozwój, rozbudowa, postęp".

"Research and Development", R&D, "Badania i Rozwój". Hey, I use to be a "developer" for quite some time, so I should know what it means exactly. And I do not build houses, nor "zagospodarowuję tereny". I still dislike phrases like "konferencje deweloperów", etc. - this therm is ugly, pompous and funny, in my opinion.

But "manager" actually means both "kierownik" and "zarządca" - and before you ask me what dictionary I used, here is the pointer: translate.google.com.

Megabyte is fine. I was objecting to "megabajt".
"Deletować"? I never used this term in my last post. But since you mentioned it: 289 cases on google. "A ja bardzo proszę nie deletować"=> Last post: 3 Jul 2010.

So this was not "ages ago". Same goes for "kancelować".

Magdalena, the essence of what I said before is: some people are really mentally lazy. There are ways to express oneself in plain Polish.

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Absolutely not! But I'll take a bait!

Sailing terminology is just an exception to general rules. One cannot be any worse by replacing one loan word by another, especially when a situation demands it - as I described before.

I used to have plenty of objections to using technical English words in computer terminology; such as fajle, bajty, fajerłols -- and I still have. This is simply an aberration, in my opinion. But I am more relaxed now because I rarely read Polish technical papers, so such things do not affect me that much. But when I see such abuse, I still feel pain.

In writing - if I do not know a Polish equivalence of an English term I usually use the original term in quotation marks, and I do not attempt to decline or conjugate it. There is a marvellous mechanism in Polish that acts as an escape clause and is applicable to phrases like "na rzece Wisła", or "powieść Benois Dubois". This takes a little bit more time, but it does not look ugly at least. This technique would not be so easy to apply in speech, but fortunately I do not have to go through such hoops on daily basis.

I think that an operative expression that should be used in this thread is "mental laziness" - so much displayed by Polish technologists, media (including bloggers) and politicians. Add to it the everyday's posers ("developerów" but not "budowlańców", "menadżerów" but God forbid "zarządców", or "kierowników") and political language manipulators (I will not name anyone here, since this post is apolitical, but I have seen a plethora of dozens polonized English words in one document alone, which did not make any sense to me) and we have the ugly picture indeed.

I bet you that after taking any English word and appending some Polish ending to it you can easily find it in Google; meaning - some lazy fellow has already come with similar idea.

Let's see... How about "surwiwaliści"? Here you go: 144 results. "Surwiwaliści nie walczą jednak z rządem federalnym", Polityka. Polityka? One of the best Polish magazines?

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

English. Mixed crews are not unusual here and many Polonia youths do not even speak proper day-to-day Polish. Typically there is very little formality on board of day cruisers, but when a command is issued the response must be automatic; there is no time for translation or explanation.

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Yes I know that they are still in use, but not where I am now. New Polonia is not familiar with it. This is a big headache to unlearn the middle column if one used it for years. Most of them are foreign anyway, with few exceptions, such as "ostrzyć", "odpadać" and few more.

I cannot find any link now, but I was told long time ago that in early 20s Mariusz Zaruski and others were seriously considering replacement of all the Dutch/English/German terminology by its Polish equivalent, but they had to give up after few unfortunate choices.

He helped to establish the Marine Terminology Commission which included representatives from Marine Academy and Universities. The Commission edited six volumes of the Polish - English - French - German - Russian Marine Dictionary. In Poland, before the Second World War, boy scouts movement was important part of marine educations among Polish youth.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariusz_Zaruski

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]


Or this:

ENGLISH/ POLISH/ DUTCH

Sailing points/ Kursy/ Zeirichtingen

close-hauled / bajdewind / aan de wind
beam-reach / półwiatr / halve wind
broad-reach / baksztag / ruime wind
down-wind / fordewind / voor de wind

Rigging/ Osprzęt i takielunek/ Onderdelen van een boot

mast / maszt / mast
spreaders / salingi / zalingen
boom / bom / giek
centreboard/ miecz / zwaard
rudder / ster / roer
main sail / grot / grootzeil
jib / fok / fok
spinnaker / spinaker / spinnaker
forestay / stag / voorstag
backstay / achtersztag / hekstag / Achterstag (GERMAN)
running backstay/ baksztag / backstage
shroud / wanta / (staat) want
halyard / val / fał
sheet / szot / schoot
guy / bras / loefschoot
spinnaker pole/ spinakerbom/ spinakerboom
camcleat / knaga / klemkikker

From:
ilo.org/public/french/snl/nautica/dictionary.pdf

Language / Polish Poetry: Should one only translate into one's own native tongue? [39]

The link bellow points to some department of Gonville & Caius, a college of the University of Cambridge. The content of the subdirectory .../Chinese/ suggests close interaction with some academic and cultural institutions in China.

Tips on translating poems (into or out of English)
babylon.acad.cai.cam.ac.uk/students/study/english/chinese/trans-po.pdf

This short tutorial touches some of the points raised in this thread, and provides many tips. My first impression was that of Master Po advising the little Grasshopper, but I have to admit - it has its charm.

History / Civilian life in Poland (Krakow) during the WW2. [30]


So many questions. I advice you to go some specialized fora: history buffs, reenactment groups, even internet actions, such as eBay, where they sell little items, such as buttons, field caps, etc.

For a start, here is a pointer to a thread about WWII uniforms. You can see there plenty of colors and many details. But watch it and make sure to read the captions - some of them are German or Russian items.

militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?81050-WWII-uniform s-equipment-and-gear