Poland/Analysis
Polish language
Polish is a West Slavic language, a group which also includes Czech and Slovak and a number of minority languages. [1] It is the most spoken member of the group and the second-most spoken Slavic language, with 40 million native speakers (38 million in Poland itself) and over a million second language speakers (no exact figure exists).
Brace yourself now, 'cause you're in for a hell of a ride.
Polish language is hard, meaning it is both hard to learn and pronounce. It has many "hard" consonants like:
- s (snow; sizzle)
- ś (similar to 'sz', but softer; bullshit)
- z (zoo)
- ź (like 'z', but soft; leisure)
- ż (mirage, like 'dż', but longer; also, it's transcribed from Cyrillic as "zh")
- sz (shampoo)
- cz (touch)
- t (tone)
- c (cent; schnitzel)
- ć (chicken, often transliterated as 'ti')
- dż (journal)
- dź (jingle)
- k (kite)
- g (gun)
The vowels are read like in Spanish. Sample words:
- strzelać (pronounced: [s t sz e l a ć]) - to shoot
- bezwzględny (notice 5 consonants in a row) - ruthless (if describing a person) or absolute
- Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz - [g ż e g o ż, b ż en cz y sz cz y ki e vi cz] a Polish name (the first name meaning: Gregory, last name means something similar to 'buzzing')
- To clarify, this isn't actually a popular name; it was used as a gag in a Polish comedy movie and became somewhat of a meme since then.
- In this gag the protagonist uses the name to confuse a Nazi officer who tries to write down his personal data (along with birth place: Chrząszczyżewoszczyce, powiat Łękołody). Hitlerity ensues.
- To clarify, this isn't actually a popular name; it was used as a gag in a Polish comedy movie and became somewhat of a meme since then.
Polish language uses several additional letters:
- ć, ś, ż, ź (described above)
- ą ("ow" not as in cow; won't)
- ę ("ew" not as in screw; you rang?)
- ł ("w"; bowl, why)
- ó (like "oo", only short; hoot)
- ń (sort of soft "Ni"; senior)
This means that when you see a Polish word in a generally English text, you can't be sure if it is really written like that, or just the Polish signs were left out. We'll try to make this article consistent, except for the links. The ą's and ę's tend to mess with namespaces, so they have to be omitted there.
By the way, ż and rz are pronounced the same way, except when "rz" is just "r"-"z". And ó the same as u and h same as ch. They, however, make a difference in how the word is inflected.
Many Polish words are impossible to pronounce by non-native speakers. Very few non-natives can speak Polish so fluently that their foreign accent will not be noticed. Polish is considered to be the most difficult of the Slavic languages for English speakers to learn, which is saying something.
Polish children are taught the poem: Chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Szczebrzeszynie i Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie. (The beetle sings in reeds in the city Szczebrzeszyn, which is famous for it.) Making foreigners pronounce the poem is a favourite sadistic pastime of Polish people. The other is making them pronounce the word pchła (flea). [2]
Polish grammar is even harder than the pronunciation. There are thousands of rules, each with thousands of exceptions. Some (irregular) words do not obey any rule at all. Most meaningful words undergo inflection.
Example
- wycierać - to wipe
- wycieram - I wipe
- wycierasz - you wipe
- wyciera - he/she/it wipes
- wycieramy - we wipe
- wycieracie - You wipe (plural)
- wycierają - they wipe
- wycierałem - I (a man) was wiping
- wycierałam - I (a woman) was wiping
- wycierałeś - you (a man) were wiping
- wycierałaś - you (a woman) were wiping
- wycierał - he was wiping
- wycierała - she was wiping
- wycierało - it was wiping
- wycieraliśmy - we (men) were wiping
- wycierałyśmy - we (women) were wiping
- wycieraliście - You (men) were wiping (plural)
- wycierałyście - You (women) were wiping (plural)
- wycierali - they (men) were wiping
- wycierały - they (women) were wiping
- wycieraj - wipe!
- wycierajmy - let's wipe!
- wycierajcie - wipe! (plural)
- wycierałbym - I (a man) would wipe
- wycierałabym - I (a woman) would wipe
- wycierałbyś - you (a man) would wipe
- wycierałabyś - you (a woman) would wipe
- wycierałby - he would wipe
- wycierałaby - she would wipe
- wycierałoby - it would wipe
- wycieralibyśmy - we (men) would wipe
- wycierałybyśmy - we (women) would wipe
- wycieralibyście - you (men) would wipe
- wycierałybyście - you (women) would wipe
- wycieraliby - they (men) would wipe
- wycierałyby - they (women) would wipe
- wycierający - a wiping man
- wycierająca - a wiping woman
- wycierające - wiping something
- wycierająco - impossible to translate, something like: 'wipingly' [3]
- wycierając - while wiping
- wycierany - a man being wiped
- wycierana - a woman being wiped
- wycierane - something being wiped
- wycierano - something was being wiped
The word wycierać belongs to classes: imperfect, transitive. Other classes may have different forms. For example, when one wants to say 'I have wiped', he must use the word wytrzeć (perfect counterpart of wycierać) - the past form: wytarłem. Note that we didn't include the archaic forms of Polish, which are even worse than the modern language.
In short, Polish language runs on For the Evulz.
...On the other hand however, Polish spelling is quite simple (almost phonetic) as compared to English (or traditional Chinese).
- ↑ Sorbian, Silesian and Kashubian, not counting the extinct.
- ↑ The rest of Polish sadism towards foreigners consists of bureaucratic activities and as such does not belong here.
- ↑ As opposed to other examples, it's here to show how grammar works. Don't expect anyone to describe anything as "wipingly".