'Ciężko powiedzieć' (anglicism?) - is it a copy of the English 'hard to say'?

Yes, I would say that. I wouldn't replace them in the second case. The words are mostly intechangable and finding cases where they are not does not mean they fall outside of that 0.1% I suggested earlier (admittedly I pulled the number out of my cztery litery :), but it's probably correct, in spoken language at least).


Maybe, I had not thought about it. In polish using 'to have'+'internal state' is indeed not very common (as opposed to French or Spanish), though it is proper in some cases (mieć nadzieję or mieć przeczucie). Maybe using 'rozterka' in the same way is indeed incorrect, I don't know. I'll refrain myself from saying mieć rozterkę in case it is incorrect.


I'm calling it how I see it.


Three things:
-to sustain your ridiculous statement, you'd have to prove that every Polish word whose meaning shifted over centuries was not influenced by foreign languages, a formidable task you cannot do in you lifetime

-to sustain your ridiculous statement, you'd have to prove that dziewica and kutas were definitely not influenced by foreign languages. I think dziewica could very easily be influenced by foreign languages, seeing how all South Slavic languages use very similar words for it - dewica (Macedonian), djewica (Croatian), dewica (Serbian), djewica (Bosnian), dewica (Slovenian), dewica (Bulgarian) (Polish phonetic spelling) - the shift of the meaning could easily have come from Balkans. If it did, you'd have to categorically call the modern Polish usage of dziewica incorrect (even if it's not, you'd have to say that about any word in modern Polish that was changed by outside influences)! I hope you can now see how absurd your reasoning is.

-the theory that "ciężko" is an anglicyzm is not proven and far-fetched. The most basic meaning of hard and ciężki is very different (they denote different physical properties which are not easily mistaken, unlike for instance weight and mass). Ciężki is supposedly an anglicism because it was used as a translation to the word hard in a song 50 years ago, but only became commonly used (according to the same article) a couple years ago!


"Ciężkie zadanie matematyczne" - a mathematical exercise that requires a lot of effort to solve it. Equivalent and interchangable with "trudne" in this case. Etc etc. Since it is equivalent and interchangable in such cases, it's not a long stretch to see that it became interchangable in other cases, such as "ciężko powiedzieć". You should move on and accept the broadened meaning of "ciężki", because even if current Miodeks of the world disagree, Miodeks of the next generation will agree. It's a natural evolution of any language and fighting it is futile.

I do not understand why some of you would go into such intricate and lengthy defence of bad language habits. While I agree with the statements: "there are word loans in every language", "meaning of words changes with its usage", I disagree with cheap arguments of "language police" sort and I do not see any justification for supporting mental laziness and bad habits. Polish Language Council and similar institutions, which care about quality of Polish language, have been designed for a good reason and the people that are part of such institutions are not slouches.

Quoting Koala:
"They are also senior people who are simply annoyed that younger generations don't speak Polish in exactly the same way people spoke 40 years ago, which they consider canon of proper Polish."

Using his/her own words from one of his/her other posts - such statement is ridiculous in the context of this thread. This thread is about bad language calques - not about reasonable language loanwords or natural language development. In other words this thread is about "stoi kara na karpecie na kornerze" of old Polonia and similar idiotic expressions popular among some lazy or pompous new generation, including lazy media.

Thank you from the mountain for your attention, Boletus

Businessmen ... and authors of textbooks became the next target of the Polish Language Council (Rada Języka Polskiego, RJP). The Council just presented its biennial report to senators about the state of protection of our native language. The report is quite damning.

Every two years, Polish Language Council checks functioning and the state of protection of the Polish language in various usage areas. Their report for the period 2008-2009 concentrates on the business environment and the textbooks for students of vocational schools.

(...)

... presence of foreign names for professions and positions.
- The convenience of such treatment could be understood, but one should take into account the fact that for many people, the Polish text imbued with such names as "junior account executive", or "event manager" is not only hard to understand, but also blatantly ridicoulus - reads the summary report prepared by prof. Andrzej Markowski.

(...)
- But what struck us most, is the nonchalance in the approach to linguistic correctness. Business communications broadcasters seem to believe that effective communication is more important than its quality - said Dr Kłosińska.

(...)
The analysis of language textbooks for vocational training also leads to pessimistic conclusions. In the opinion of experts, these manuals are too difficult to understand. - Even though, for the last dozen of years, textbooks suppose to be carefully scrutinized and reviewed, many textbooks are still written incorrectly. First of all, they are inappropriate for the perceptive abilities of students to whom they are addressed - stressed Dr. Kłosińska.

As assessed by the experts, sentences used in the textbooks are too difficult to understand - they are too long, overly complex and full of long words of foreign origin. - Objections can be also raised to methods of communication in many textbooks. The prevailing method is a narrative monologue: the authors solely focus on the factual transfer of knowledge, using impersonal style - says the RJP report.

According to Dr Kłosińska, textbooks for vocational schools are written mostly by junior researchers. Publishing houses often have no experience in handling textbooks, and reviewers do not pay attention to such issues. This is because the regulations regarding textbooks, issued by the Minister of Education, have been very vaguely formulated - explains the Secretary of the Council.

(...)
The RJP specialists also looked at the language culture in colleges and universities. According to Dr. Kłosińska, such courses are provided only to some selected faculties, such as Polish Philology or Journalism, but not much attention is being paid to the language culture in science and natural science courses. One would also wish that future teachers were exposed to at least some minimum of language awareness - the secretary said RJP.

• 
  Position offered
  

Good luck with that. Like business is going to give a sh1t.

From experience (English): You know you're culture's irredeemably f*cked when marketers start using words like 'leverage' - the verb - (which in finance actually has a technical meaning) to mean nothing more than 'use'.

And no amount of pleading by tweed-jacketed autorytety, however accurate their observations, is going to take away that warm, fuzzy feeling in a marketer's trousers every time they get a word like that into their (usually utterly unnecessary and drawling) powerpoint presentation.

The theory that "ciężko" in expression "ciężko powiedzieć" is an anglicyzm, seems to be supported
by the fact that it has become common in recent years, in the period when the influence of English
on polszczyzna has been a lamentable, yet undeniable, fact.

You may argue that it is simply a natural broadening of the word's meaning, but this "broadening" seems
to have occured under a heavy influence of the English language :-) Anyway, little profit will accrue from
further speculation in these territories, so if you prefer to trust your own linguistic intuition, you are free
to use the abovementioned anglicyzm, but allow me to continue relying on the opinion of top-class
experts in the matter.


That remains to be seen. Until then, it would seem reasonable to believe the current experts.

^ Circumstantial evidence is not evidence.

Just a remark to the discussion. Personally, I find the expression "ciężko powiedzieć" clumsy, but not an anglicism at all. As the word "ciężko" has been rooted for long in other expressions of Polish like "ciężko mi się żyje" or "ciężkostrawny", it is natural that some people tend to transfer it into other expressions.

As for "mam z tym problem", applied in the context of some minor issues, it sounds rather pretentious, and it has certainly come into such usage under the influence of English. Some 20 yeras ago people would only use it when speaking about complex 'issues' like in "Mamy problem z naszym starszym synem' meaning some serious trouble they had with him. Then people started to use the word "problem" to describe minor, if not trivial, issues. This sounds really awful to speakers accustomed to the older meaning of the word 'problem' denouncing some 'more or less complex issue'.

Isn't a tassle still a kutas in Polish? Is there some other word for the decrorative bunch of threads adorning draperies, fancy clothes, etc.?

I don't know, depending on the particular item I'd call it kita, frędzel, wisior or dzyndzel. Kutas is not used in that sense anymore.

Polonius, was Adam Mickiewicz the last native Pole you have spoken to? :))

"Mam rozterkę" sounds like an aglicism, but "ciężko powiedzieć" is definitely not. I can't even imagine where the idea might have come from. "Hard" is not "ciężki" in Polish

MY Gosh...even I don't say that :O


LOl, ok that made me burst out laughing.

I think this thread made me feel much better about my rather "weak yet fluent" Polish. If that makes sense. :) :)

That was precisely my thought when I read P3's comment. LOL

And yet pretty much everyone in Poland does.

Haha, I was waching a Polish TV series when a peculiar "on ma teraz ciężki czas" appeared. Now that's an anglicism (the correct and traditional Polish phrase would be "przechodzi ciężki okres").

Dokładnie!

Just joking, I meant, "no właśnie!" :-)

In 1790, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz wrote in his comedy "Powrót posła":


221 years have passed. Poland had been under partitions for 123 years, yet the Polish language has survived and developed. There were no linguists trying to keep the language pure, yet Poles managed quite well. People like Mr Szarmancki and Ms Starościna, ridiculed at by Niemcewicz lived already 200 years ago here, and nothing wrong has happened. Nothing wrong will happen to the language for next 200 years, with linguists or without.

If the language police were there at Niemcewicz times (and assuming the Partitions would not have happened), we would still speak like Podkomorzy:


Podkomorzy was a language purist. However, a Pole would rather say today:
Cóż w tym dziwnego, że Starościna nie rozumie polskiego? To nie jest jej wina. Obwiniałbym raczej tych, którzy ją wychowali nieroztropnie przyjmując obce wzorce za wzór elegancji. Mając w pogardzie swój język, historię, Kraj, wychowują swe dzieci na wzór anglosaski. Dbając o nie od urodzenia, sprowadzają zagraniczne opiekunki. Kto dalej uczy nasze dzieci? Ano, jakaś babka co w Stanach prowadziła zajęcia z aerobiku albo nieudacznik z USA.

Have you noticed that the language spoken 200 years ago was completely different from the one spoken today? How can you people support defending the language purity if the Podkomorzy himself spoke the language "foreign" to the current Polish?

I am happy to say that I completely agree with you for once :-)

You're disappointing me, Magdalena. I have hoped you would oppose and had a handy answer already prepared :-DDD

Cheers!

If you had looked through the other "too many English words in Polish"-type threads on PF, you would have known that I am all for the unbridled development of languages... ;-p

That is very right, Magdalena!

I only regret I could not use this greps on you:
"Kurczę, ciężko mi to powiedzieć, ale jedziesz w złym kierunku!" ;-)
A message of NaviExpert, voice of Joana :-)

Could someone please tell me the difference between dokładnie and właśnie?

dokladnie - precisely
wlasnie - exactly, indeed

The practical difference is minute based on these examples and in fact both appear to be interchangeable as they belong to the same semantic field. "Dokladnie", as a synonym of "wlasnie" was in use fairly long before the present onslaught of English, although not as frequently as it appears today.

As for "ciężko powiedzieć", I would be siding with those who reject the English origin of the expression, but based rather on an educated guess than on fact, as we don't have the facts. There is no proof the expression is an aglicism, but there is also little hard evidence to the contrary.

The English "hard" has multiple meanings with "difficult" being just one of over a dozen. Each of them has had an even chance of becoming a linguistic calque and yet we do not say "twardo powiedziec", "ostro poweidziec" or "odpornie powiedziec" etc. Conversely, possibly the primary word for the expression of substantial weight (ciezki) is heavy, and yet anglos do not say "heavy to say".

"ciezko...", as pointed out by others, has been in semantically similar use in Polish for a fairly long time. So again, there is no proof either way.

I think that "dokładnie!" instead of "właśnie" has been borrowed from German, long time ago.
Ja, genau!