Questions tagged [polish]
A West Slavic language spoken mainly in Poland.
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Why do Polish and Belarusian have an atypical greeting if compared to other Slavic languages?
While chatting with a polish penpal, I've discovered that in Polish the expression for "good morning/good day/hello/good afternoon" varies if compared to the other Slavic languages; later I saw that ...
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Why does Polish have male and female accents?
This is particularly interesting to me as I can't seem to find any information on the topic, but, having listened to numerous Polish speakers from both sexes, the male─female pronounciational split is ...
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Do some Slavic languages have an "extra" gender distinction for animate nouns?
I seem to recall hearing and reading that certain Slavic languages including Czech treat animate nouns as something like an extra gender. Even Wikipedia in some places counts more than three genders ...
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Are different "aspects" of a Polish verb the same lexeme or different lexemes?
Polish verbs have two "aspects", imperfective and perfective, which means you use a different word depending on whether the activity you're describing is ongoing or habitual, or if it's definite or ...
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Why does Polish use "w" instead of "v"?
Polish spells /v/ as "w", and the "v" letter does not exist in the language. The other slavic languages using the latin alphabet are in a reverse situation, "v" is used exclusively and "w" does not ...
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Why is Mikołaj the Polish reflex of Nicholas?
The Polish name Mikołaj is held to correspond to the Nicholas family of given names, as evidenced by the Russified name of Mikołaj Kruszewski.
As this is an odd sound change, my question is why? My ...
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Declensions in Polish
Declension, as far as I know, corresponds to the act of creating boxes where you can pile up nouns that follow the same rule when inflected (generally due to cases). Classical Latin is often said to ...
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Why does "brother" have the instrumental case in this Polish sentence?
The instrumental case is used to indicate the instrument/object with which an action or state of being is performed. For instance, when you go to work "by car", car is instrumental because ...
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Why does Polish language not use letters Č, Š, and Ž?
Why does the Polish language not use the letters Č, Š, and Ž, and instead uses Cz, Sz, and Ż/Rz? Why has the Polish language never adopted the Czech convention to use caron/háček, despite being ...
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How similar are Polish and Slovenian?
I heard that Polish and Slovenian are both Slavic languages so how similar are they to each other? When I listen to both languages it sounds similar.
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Why is the Polish pronunciation of Łódź [wut͡ɕ] rather than [wudʑ]?
I've been told that "the word-final affricate dź in Polish should be devoiced to /t͡ɕ/". What are the linguistic precedents for this, and why is this devoicing not evident in the Wikipedia ...
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Influence of Polish and Czech on the phonology of German dialects
German has for more than 1000 years been in contact with West Slavic languages, notably Polish and Czech. This is highly likely to have led to borrowing or interference between these languages, in ...
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Instrumental - nominative inversion in Polish
While scrolling through a course in Polish, I saw the following sentence:
Wynikiem wyrażenia jest nowa relacja. -- *resultant (of the) expression is (a) new relation
This is not the first time I ...
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Suffix -sk[a/i] for adjectives derrived from nations in Nordic and some Slavic languages
I was wondering about the ending -sk(+ optionally an additional vowel) used to create adjectives from names of the nations in Nordic (at least Danish and Swedish) as well as some Slavic languages (at ...
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why in Polish we change ją to jej when negating the phrase?
ja lubię ją - I like her
ja nie lubię jej - I do not like her
Do I understand correctly what these sentences mean?
If yes, why do we change ją to jej when negating the phrase? In both cases the ...
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What is the origin of the instrumental case of predicate in predicative nominals in Polish/Russian?
The syntax of predicative nominals and predicative adjectives in ancient IE languages and, as far as I know, almost every modern one :
Subject (NOMINATIVE) + copula + predicate (NOMINATIVE)
In ...
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Where exactly was the Polish-German language border in Silesia around 1900?
I am asking about lower class rural population, I know that German was spoken in cities. There already exists maps which shows some details on the matter:
Map about german language extention
Map ...
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Is there a phonological division in Slavic languages as important as the La Spezia-Rimini line? If not, is there a most important partition anyway?
All divisions of Slavic languages based on phonological criteria that I have seen so far are rather minor and/or localized (e.g. spirantization (Czech, Ukrainian) or not (Russian, Polish) of g). Is ...
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How do you gloss a language with no definite or indefinite article?
Some languages have no definite or indefinite article, for example, I think, Polish.
So the Polish word kot could mean "a cat" or "the cat". So in a glossed example, and not knowing the context, how ...
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Can a case system in a language help resolve gramatical ambiguites?
One time in a linguistics class I sat in on, we were discussing ambiguous sentences such as "I killed the man with the spoon". In English, as written, it is unclear if the subject is using a spoon for ...
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What is the difference between Silesian Polish and neutral/standard Polish?
I would like to know what are the distinctive sounds of Upper Silesian Polish. Not the dialects, but the regular official language spoken by an upper silesian person with his regional accent.
Do they ...
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How Polish influenced Ukrainian
I have noticed some complexed loanwords in Ukrainian from German via Polish like the word for taste “smak”. Is it just slight influence that Polish had on Ukrainian or was it related to assimilation ...
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What caused seemingly irregular cases of Polish raising /o/ > /u/ (graphically ó)?
According to Bethin’s Polish Syllables (a 1992 work I have seen cited but am unable to consult firsthand), the regular environment for raising of *o to /u/ (written as ó) in Polish is closed syllables ...
user41876
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What is the nature of the voiceless velar fricative, [x], in Polish?
My surname is Cuch. Though I don't know much about Polish, I assume that this derives from the Polish word for chain, łańcuch. I pronounce my name as I've been briefly told by relatives: /tsux/ in the ...
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What is the difference between sibilant sounds in Polish? (ć,ś,dź,ź vs cz,sz,dż,ż,rz)
I decided to start an online Polish course, but I am still confused about the Polish sound system.
My question is (I am still not so good in phonology):
What is the difference between the following ...
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Can the voiceless velar fricative, [x], be represented in Japanese?
I was specifically thinking of whether the voiceless velar fricative [x] as in Polish could be represented in Japanese, but [x] would be the same or very similar in every language which contains it, ...
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Why is there a Second Palatalization in personal nouns but not in non-personal nouns in Nominative Plural in Slavic languages
Using Polish as an example, why in personal nouns like "robotnik>robotnicy" or "włoch>włosi" Second Palatalization takes place in the nominative plural, but in non-personal ...
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Are Polish-> Russan translations generally better than Polish->English?
I speak Russian natively, but 95% of what I read is in English.
Which translation of a Polish book should I read, Russian or English?
The question may sound strange, but I mostly prefer English ...
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The easiest model for mapping Hindi oblique case onto Slavic languages' case systems
How can Hindi Oblique case be mapped into Slavic cases of languages such as Polish or Russian? My intuition is that Oblique case stands for all the Polish cases, except the nominative. That is, for ...
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Acoustic description of Polish vowels
Using formants, it is possible to produce an acoustic description of vowel quality. Basically, the first formant (F1) corresponds to vowel height, and the second formant (F2) to vowel backness, as ...
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čьrnъ > czarny, čьrvenъ > czervony (Polish)
According to Wiktionary, Polish czarny is from PSl *čьrnъ, and czervony is from *čьrvenъ. At least prima facie the soft yers appears to have become different vowels in Polish.
I'm aware of the ...
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Question about cases in Polish
Cases are baffling and puzzling to me. I'm trying to learn Polish and trying to master the cases, and I'm sincerely confused at all the different uses one case can have.
If one case is, say, used with ...
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In Polish, how do people say "Call <name>" when giving their phone a command? [closed]
In phones, you now can use speech to do VAD (Voice Activated Dialing). As in, "Call Bob". This works fine in isolating languages.
I was told that in Polish (pl-PL), it is more natural to say "Call ...
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When does the voiceless velar fricative, [x], undergo voicing?
The voiceless velar fricative, [x], appears as ⟨ch⟩ in Polish. Apparently, [x] undergoes voicing and becomes [ɣ] under certain circumstances:
Voiceless obstruents are voiced (/x/ becoming [ɣ], etc.)...
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Why does the pronoun and verb order vary in Polish language?
My go nie lubimy - we do not like him
On nie kocha mnie - he does not love me
Why in the first example go is followed by nie lubimy, but in the second sentence we have the opposite: nie kocha followed ...
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Do languages with long clusters have minimal vowel or consonant inventories?
I assume, considering the Onset principle, that there are not many languages that have a structure with VV or VVV but are there languages that have a CV.VV structure? If there is, I would assume that ...
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Unclear Polish case usage
I saw the following two constructions in Polish:
Za około dwadzieścia minut
Po około dwudziestu minutach
And I don't really understand their grammatical rules.
Za takes accusative, 20 and około take ...
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How can the polysemy of the Polish instrumental case be explained?
If the instrumental case in Polish is used to designate the tool with which an action, or state of being, is being performed/is, how is it that the instrumental is also used to express time and ...
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Question about a phrase with the Polish case genetive (dopełniacz)
in the following sentence:
"Teraz idę do żabki po sok"
What is the function of the genitive case applied on the noun "żabka"?
I'm aware that with the preposition "do", ...
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Is "str" a legit sound in Polish?
"str" is legit in generic Slavic ("*strel-", arrow), so I wonder if Polish has it, maybe in leanwords. A small dictionary computer search gave nothing. (Frankly, I just want to ...
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Are alveolo-palatal consonants more likely to be followed by high vowels, whereas retroflex consonants are more likely followed by low vowels?
It seems to me that high voles like i would more naturally follow alveolo-palatal consonants because the need to "spread the lips" (in the popular description of the latter) seem to more ...
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Do Polish 'rz' /ž š/ and rhotic English have something in common? [closed]
This is a bit of a silly question that will need an explanation of the background that motivates this question.
Background. I met a man named Andrzej. He was called approximately An-jay /dʒ/, or ...
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