Babcia or Busha - any social class difference?

My mother did as well. and she also taught my daughter ( oldest) how to say in polish
in the name of the father and son and holy ghost amen.. which was very very beautiful to me
because my daughter and my mother were very close and when she died , she remembered that
to this day.

I certainly wish I could have spent the time with my grandmothers , but it wasnt meant to be
for me.

that's Bozia, another word

you know when I looked at a polish to english dictionary, some of the words people write on here
match what someone Who is polish wanting to speak English , its used to help pronounce it.

so if thats how its spelled in Polish.. thank you

so the Z is actually SH in English. interesting.

That's weird!Strzyga is right the only word that comes to mind is Bozia.Refering to God or Jesus as Busha is weird as ****.

Sorry but I can't understand you, could you please rephrase this sentence?


actually it's not but English has no sound for the Polish ź or zi and it's quite possible that to an American ear it might sound similarly to ś or si.

Bozia is sort of diminutive of Bóg - God, still used sometimes by older village women or when talking to children.

And there is also a diminutive "buzia" (a face, a mouth, a kiss), "buziak" (a kiss) and "burza" (a storm).

The female given name "Bożena" also clearly derives from that, as too the male name "Bogdan"-:)

I live in Milwaukee, Wi. and had always thought busha was grandma. I was just checking the spelling when I found out that it wasn't even a Polish word! Learn something new every day!

Don't sweat it, many nations like to recreate the original language. British versus American English is just one example. ;)

I must say I cringe when I hear "busia" but it's even worst if I hear "busha" (it sounds foul, very Russian to me). ...but then I just pretend I missed the first "ba" syllable - "babusia" is a common polish name for grandmother. :-)

Maybe when you are 4 y/o girl it is.Same for "dziadzia".I mean, you "Polish" Americans call them what you want "dziadzia","babusia" or whatever else but be aware that a Polish person hearing a grown man refering to his dziadek as "dziadzia" may think that you are retarded or if you like it better mentally under developed.

I only wonder how did you managed to come up with "busha"???Because this word is totally not Polish and no Polish person will know who are talking about.


Or "balls".

All true, well many Polish Americans chose somewhat infantile terms of showing an appreciation for their Babcia's and Dziadek's. LOL

This thread has many posts, who knows what the origin of Busha is? Maybe it's a derivative of the Russian Babusha, maybe it's simply an Americanized spelling of the Polish Babusia that somehow became Busia and eventually Busha?

Who knows, but it's too late, people on this side of the pond (ie. M.Ski) actually believe those are Polish words! :)

It's ok,I personally have no problem with that,I only think it will be good for them to know how it sounds to native Poles in case they ever meet any.

If it makes you feel any better I never understood why the Muppet Show's chef was supposedly Swedish. Sure doesn't sound Swedish to any Swede. LOL

youtube.com/watch?v=sY_Yf4zz-yo

More like ZH as in the English "vision" - no?

television
elision
illusion
fusion
etc etc

ale these are clearly ż for Polish ears and far from ź or zia -

oh ok gumishu....sorry I need new specs and was not paying enough attention to those tiny dots and accents..;)
So you cannot think of ANY English word that has that sound in?

not really - it does not mean there are no such though (but I think the sound is alien to English phonology - many are after all - even in Polish dialects there are sounds that are alien to standard Polish phonology - you would be surprised that Kurpian dialect has the sound very similar to English 'th' in 'that' among other peculiar sounds)

It's used in Yiddish, my Busha (great-great maternal grandmother) was a Yiddish speaking Pole who immigrated to New Jersey. Hope this is helpful in some way. :)

bzdura!

• babcia [BAHP-chah] - "ch" as in "China", "ah" as "a" in "father".

Also Busha (Babcia is Fathers mother and Busha is mothers mother.)

Wrong. Babcia is the word for both.

People may have their own words, but "Busha" is very much an American invention.

It depends which part of Poland people who talk like that came from (and if they're from the city or countryside). I got a friend who comes from the Lomza area and calls him mom "mamenka" I've never heard that word in Stalowa Wola where I came from. Busha sounds like it could be how they speak in Bialystok.

doesn't it actually depend on babcia and what she wants to be called.

i mention it because my grandma nearly gave me a thick ear for calling her granny.

This is how it was used in my family. My father's mother's mother was called Busha. I doubt the term is an exclusively American invention because she was from Poland, having come to America as a young adult.

hahaha yeh. SOme Grannies like to be called Nanny,others prefer Grandma and still others (well one of my aquaintance) hate all of these and insist on either "Grandmother" or first name.

All this Babcia/Busha thing is really getting boring. I bet its a class thing or something. It's so unimportant, why do certain Brits who havent even got a Busha get so hot under the collare about it? Call yer nan wot u like.

The question is why so many allegedly Polish (but we all know that they're of uncertain peasant origin) people are using a word which is unknown in Poland.


You're welcome to try and find the origin. My best hypothesis is that it comes from the Ukrainian "babusha" - certainly many Ukrainians were more likely to identify as Polish than Ukrainian in those times. Nothing wrong with that, as such - but it's my theory that many "Polish" people in America were actually a mix of ethnicities, but identified as Polish as they weren't German, Hungarian or Russian.

It's certainly not a word found in any Polish dictionary at any time.

Is not good enough!

Do you have any better suggestions?

It was never found in any Polish dictionary, so - where could it come from? Most of those that went to America were poor peasants from Eastern Poland - where the language was heavily mixed with Ukrainian. It's quite logical to assume that such poor people wouldn't know or care that the proper word is babcia.