Category: Polish

Word of the Week: ROTUŠĖ

3/11/2014

Here's another word I found during my trip round the Baltic Sea this summer: rotušė, the Lithuanian term for town house. The original German word is Rathaus. What you see here is the town hall of Kaunas (possibly including the mayor).

Polish and Russian also have words that come from Rathaus - ratusz and ратуша/ратгаус (ratuša/ratgaus) respectively. The Russian ратуша seems to have entered the Russian language via the Polish ratusz, howewer.

The image is from www.kauno.diena.lt.

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Word of the Week: URLOP

6/10/2014

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This is a picture I took in Gdańsk this summer. The text (which I unfortunately can't fully decode) contains a form of the Polish term urlop, which comes from the German Urlaub (vacation, holiday) and has the same meaning.

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Word of the Week: DURŠLAG - ДУРШЛАГ

25/11/2013

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Let's stay in the kitchen for a while. Last week we had the knackwurst, this week we're looking at an important kitchen utensil - the colander. Both Russians and Poles use the German term Durchschlag. In both cases, the "kh" sound of "Durch" has disappeared and the word is pronounced "durshlag" instead of "durkhshlag." In Polish, the spelling is durszlag.

Apologies to my colleague Steffen Heieck - I forgot to mention last week that it was he who told me about nakki.

The image is from www.900igr.net.

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Word of the Week: PUTSCH

16/9/2013

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This week's Word of the Week, Putsch (coup d'état, putsch, overthrow - isn't it interesting to see that there are two foreign words here in English?) has its origins in the Swiss dialect of German. It is used in French, English, Polish (pucz), Romanian (puci), Hungarian (puccs), Czech (puč), Italian (putsch) and perhaps even more languages that I am not aware of yet.

The picture is from www.charles-de-gaulle.org.

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Word of the Week: BRUDERSZAFT

9/9/2013

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Bruderschaft/Brüderschaft trinken was originally a drinking ritual that marked the passing from the formal "Sie" form of address to the informal "Du". Nowadays, there are a variety of other meanings that derive from the original one (such as "to fraternize", for example - indeed, not all of them are positive, as witnessed by this example from Poland.) In Russia and Bulgaria, пить на/пиенето на брудершафт (bruderšaft) is a well-known ritual, too.

My thanks go to my colleague Peter Reichstein for pointing out the Polish version to me.

The image is from www.radiopin.pl.

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Word of the Week: SZUFLADA

27/5/2013

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This week's Word of the Week is an example of a rather technical term that kept its original meaning in the adoptive language. Szuflada is the Polish version of Schublade (drawer) - sz in Polish is pronounced "sh", just like the German Sch. The ad above is for a poetry competition.

The picture is from www.aktualnekonkursy.pl.

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Word of the Week: WI(C)HAJSTER

25/3/2013

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Did you recognize the origin of this word? I learned from my friend Zuzanna Fruba that in Poland, wie heißt er (literally: what's he called) has turned into wihajster or wichajster. It is a useful substitute for any word you don't know or can't think of quickly enough - in other words, the Polish "thingy". There's even a Polish cartoonist who calls himself Wichajster. But in the ad above, the original plan was probably to replace wichajster with the technical term before publication.

Click here for further reading for Polish speakers, courtesy of my colleague Monika Kokoszycka.

The picture is from www.wiocha.pl.

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Word of the Week: ROTUŠĖ

Word of the Week: URLOP

Word of the Week: DURŠLAG - ДУРШЛАГ

Word of the Week: PUTSCH

Word of the Week: BRUDERSZAFT

Word of the Week: SZUFLADA

Word of the Week: WI(C)HAJSTER

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