Babcia or Busha - any social class difference?

My comment wasn't addressed to you, Harry. I was explaining things to Sofijufka as she seems to be unaware of all the things "in the background". If Polonius agrees with you at least on this, you're a lucky man!

Direct your lies to whomever you wish ziemowit, I'll still point them out as lies. As for 'tradition', its not me who is claiming an American word is a Polish word.

Why are many of you looking up words in the dictionary!? The dictionary is meant to be a mere representation of the vocabulary we use to speak, not the other way around! A dictionary has nothing more to say about a language than being providing definitions to but a subset of a language's vocabulary, all stopped in time of printing.

While "Busia" is non-standard (e.g. I haven't heard it myself here in Toronto), this does not mean that it is not part of a regiolect of the Polish language. And the Polish language is definitely not confined to the political boundaries of Poland. It is used all over the world where there are Polish people, and it influences other languages and is influenced by them as well, in different ways.

Do not misunderstand me: I am not promoting the word "Busia"; I simply think discussing whether it is in the dictionary or not is ridiculous. As an alternative, I think you should keep nana's question open and see: perhaps there are many other people who have heard this word.

So I urge all Polonophones, regardless of your citizenship, to stop limiting yourselves to such superfluous things as deciding whether a word is correct or incorrect, and instead, get together with fellow Polish-speakers and make authentic non-limited conversations! There is more to speaking a language than staring into a dictionary.

we always spelled it buszia and dziadzia - I was raised in chicago and called my grandparents these

that must be some American dialect of Polish language

Why are we still beating this dog? If that was an honest question, it was answered: it is not a word used in Poland. Otherwise it just getting rehashed for the sake of argument.

but it wasn't answered by me, I can't see where is your problem

It wasn't just you, Wulkan, I was simply expressing my amazement that this subject gets brought up so often.

This one does keep coming back.

It seems that it's a word used mostly in the US that seems odd in Poland - perhaps like some of the words that mostly went out of English English centuries ago but are still used over there. Like cordwood, gotten or

Furlough was a favourite recently.

jon357


I would think "busia" is more likely an evolvement in a Polish-American dialect than a holdover from Polish not used in Poland anymore. My Polish grandparents were from the same generation as many others mentioned in this thread. However, they were farmers not around a Polonia community. There was no "busia" in their language and I think the reason is the lack of exposure to other polonia and that "busia" was not part of their language in Poland.

We always called our grandma busha

My Busha died 20 years ago at the age of 87. She was born is Poland and that is what she called her Grandmother.

How was she born in Poland in 1906?

I feel sorry for her

Why? My father allways called his Grandmother for Busia. Just as everybody else in the family


Republic of Poland (the state) =//= Poland the geograhpical area in an literal sense. Although since it has the state of Poland has been fairly unmoved for a time people would easily understand where in the general area it's being spoken about. Of course you seem to pretend your stupid to heat up an senseless argument or well... No words for that sorry.


Not really I would say... Depends on the family, most likely if the family had lived under the Russian yoke then they were most likely to continue it I guess.

because it's incorrect and she as a native Polish speaker knew that and had to put up with it


You guess wrong, both of my parents grew up in this part of Poland and none of them ever heard of someoone calling their grandmother "busha"!

I suspect that the resurrecting of this thread could be a tireless work of a loving grandson, trying to keep the memory of his babusia alive.

But dude, your busha lied! :)

I think it is entirely plausible that somebody could have a busia that they love so dearly.

Yes. And that generation have a habit of dying on you. And when they're gone, they don't come back.

And if they do, get a priest.

I don't guess I know my family called my fathers grandparents for Busia... I was only pointing out the most likely scenario of why they did that. Unless you call my family aliens coming from outer space or Ukrainian idk then their Polish.

Also I was thinking about territories that was part of former Poland. Like east of nowadays Poland up to Kiev


What? What are you even talking about?

That option actually makes some sense


It's not that hard to figure this out.

Hi everyone! This conversation is good to have! It reminds me of the people here in the USA-we have different regions and people say things differently (like Ya'll or you guys:)

It sounds like the different regions there have different ways of saying things too!

I am looking at some cute Polish mugs to get my mom and mother in law for Christmas gifts and one says Babcia and one says Bucia. I have found this conversation helpful as to whom will get what, but again-it reminds me of how we say things differently in different regions-most certainly all over the world. Love the diversity!

Are you sure it isn't busia with an "s"?

It was the opposite in my family. Babcia was my mother's mother while busha was my father's mother.

My aunt was born near Ternopol early 1900's in a mixed Ruthenian/Polish village. She used the term babushka to refer to a woman's headscarf. Now that is also an accepted English word now, but it is considered to be considered of Russian and Polish origin. Remember that in the kresy mixed marriages were common, so a Ruthenian influence in the local dialects is to be expected. Usage of the the term may be more common among those from the East.

My mother's mother went by Buszi, and her father by Dziadzi.

I have never seen a Polish word where you have "i" after "sz"

Jesziwa - pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesziwa

Tut tut, call yourself a native speaker? ;)

I said I have never heard not that it doesn't exist so you can't google it like you did.