Job Discussion Forums

[hrvatski]

I enjoy the Polish use of the English word 'full' in conjunction with Polish slang, and I personally use the following expressions as often as possible.

full lans
full czad
full luz
full wypas

[Nauczyciel]

This "full" thing goes all the way back to German Vollblut, being a direct translation of full-blood as in relation to horses - the Polish word for such a horse used to be 'folblut'.

As for the words given here as loans from English, a short correction:

ekstra is from Latin

maks is short for Latin 'maximum' (the previous short form was maksi, but today it's outdated)

super is also from Latin (but English helped it spread immensely)

All in all though, the lists you all give are correct. However, I knew a Brit once who thought words like problem, sytuacja or inwazja came into Polish from English

An interesting article on loanwords and other features of Polish: http://hubpages.com/hub/Most-difficult-languages-Polish

[dynow]

you're theory on the Latin connection would only hold true if the Poles have always used these words, but say 50 years ago......I doubt you would have heard many (or any for that matter) ekstra's, super's or maxa's in Poland. speaking strictly about the origin of words.....well sure, one could argue all day long about every word in any language that exists today and say, "well that word was originally from X language 500 years ago...."

words like maxa, super, ekstra, and now words like cool are being used because they are exposed to it all the time. for example, these words constantly appear on "supermarket products" like food, drinks, cleaning agents, candy, etc. and literally everyone in Poland is exposed to it.

Poles ripping it off from English is far more likely than the Poles deciding a few years ago to start using Latin more often.

[Nauczyciel]

I browsed Polish dictionaries to find out the exact etymology of these words. While 'recycling' and this kind of stuff are obviously marked as loanwords from English, with others it's clearly stated that they are from Latin. Naturally this in no way implies that English played no part in their popularity today - it obviously has. But those words were in some way or other present in Polish anyway (just read any pre-20th century Polish novel and you'll find copious amounts of "English-sounding" words that were in fact of Latin origin, but fell out of use, such as ekstraordynaryjny - extraordinary, modestia - modesty, kompasja - compassion, admiracja - admiration, ekscepcja - exception, dysgust - disgust, justycja - justice, I could go on and on) and English - or to be more precise American - culture only saved them from oblivion. In this way English loanwords - about which I actually have no qualms - help Polish expand not only by absorbing new vocabulary, but also by resurrecting the old. I hope that's a middle way that you can accept.

[maniak]

My favorite is "puzzle"... prnounced in Polish as "pooooozly"

[dynow]

[justflyingin]

"google" pronounced "gooooo-gle" and
a store called "mini max" I just laughed at that one.

I asked a lady the other day why "MarcPol" isn't pronounced "Marts Pol" esp. since it is a Polish store, since they pronounce "Levi" as "levy" and "Ikea" as "E-kay-a." Why in the world someone Polish named their store Marc Pol--I still can't figure that one out. Why didn't they give it the K on the end if they wanted the k sound?

This lady told me she had never even thought about it. It's funny because we had a (family) discussion on how the store name should be pronounced before we ever heard it pronounced by a Polish person. I thought for sure that Polish pride would make them pronounce it in a Polish way.

[Nauczyciel]

This c for k thing is quite common. Poles are aware that in many foreign languages c is pronounced like Polish k, be it in place names, surnames, company logos and so on. There might be a connection to Latin as well. Marco Polo is actually pronounced Marko Polo and no-one would pronounce that "Martso". Additionally, it lends the name some sort of exotic quality. Other examples include Cleopatra (the name of a beauty parlour just down the street from me) instead of Kleopatra.

[dynow]

this one is just precious: on a sign this weekend, I saw "łał" (wow)

[simon_porter00]

On a related note, I spent some time near Gdansk recently and saw a sign for Puck (Putsk in terms of pronunciation). Some artful chap blacked in the rounded bit of the P to form, well, I'll let you guess.

It was funny enough for my father to ask me to stop the car and take a photo of it.

[sharter]

Conversely, I often use the word 'remont' when speaking English to my English expat mates.

I like some of the Polish slang like; 'biurwa', a slapper who works in an office (plenty of them in Poland) or 'Blachara' a bird who likes blokes who drive flash cars.......(a lot of them too).

Is there one for women who mostly date foreigners?...y'know eastern block loves western ......... and all that?