No, I am not talking here about the butchered combination of Polish and English that some of my fellow countrymen, who spent more than two months abroad, are so fond of.
I’m talking about the signs I saw at one of the largest bookstores in Gdańsk. I went to Dom Książki (literally: dom = house, książka = book) in Wrzeszcz to look for some Polish guidebooks (I hate going places without reading a guidebook first). But since I like bookstores and books in general, I thought I might as well browse a little.
And it was then that a big sign caught my attention. “Audiobooki” it said on it. Hmmm… Interesting. A normal printed book is “książka” in Polish, but an audiobook is “audiobook”? I asked one of the ladies working there why it was so. She didn’t really know, she said. She added that while some people say “książki dźwiękowe”, “audiobooki” seems to be a much more popular (and preferred) term. The lady went on to explain that it’s the same with “e-booki” (e-books).
Just stick a Polish plural ending at the end of an English word, and voila, your work here is done.
There are many such “new” Ponglish words in common Polish use these days. Billboards advertise not new “mieszkania” (apartments) but “apartamenty”. Restaurants serve “lunche” (lunches), and lowly “sklepy” have morphed into “shopy”. And of course, all those words are pronounced the Polish way by combining some English sounds and some Polish, or simply – by how people see fit.
These are just the examples I noticed yesterday. I’m sure there’s many, many more. I understand this trend towards appearing worldly and sophisticated, and English is indeed THE language of global communication. But what’s wrong with a Polish equivalent if it’s available? For my part, “sklep” is still “sklep” and real estate firms can advertise all the “apartamenty” they want. To me, they’re still “mieszkania.”
We’ll talk about hard-core Ponglish another time. 🙂
And what is your opinion on incorporating foreign words into Polish, especially if a Polish equivalent is readily available?
Comments:
basia:
Don’t like the trend. Reminds me of my uncle who spoke something like this:
“Zaparkowalem kare na streetcie”. Never learned to speak English properly and seemed to forget all the Polish he ever learned. It was painful listening to him.
Gabriel:
Foreign words can be accepted, but we have to care care to avoid the excess.
If there are polish equivalents, it’s unnecessary to use them in english. When the word has no equivalent, at least they could try to create a polish version.
The same thing happens here in Brazil, wher many people use, for example, ‘hot-dog’, instead of the portuguese “cachorro quente”.
Foreign words
thomas westcott:
Anna,
I would prefer to learn the proper Polish words.
Polish does not need these hybrid words. If the bookstore wishes to use English signs then those signs should be in English and ‘audiobooki’ is not English. Or better yet would be signs with both languages.
In my opinion the use of ponglish shows a lack of breeding. I use ‘breeding’ here for want of a better word. Maybe a lack of class. I might say that the people at the book shop are to lazy to use their own language properly. From an American viewpoint ponglish does not show a sophisticated use of English.
I believe that ‘extra’ is used by some Poles. Even though x is not in the Polish alphabet. XL on clothing labels for instance.
I could see using a foreign word if that word communicated better than any Polish equivalent could.
I am slightly familiar with spanglish. However that uses words from both English and Spanish interchangeably.
pinolona:
In Kraków, ‘apartament’ refers to a luxury flat for tourists. Maybe it’s a marketing trick to target a particular consumer group?
Languages borrow from each other all the time, it’s just that at the moment English is the fashion. And almost the whole of the English language is borrowed from somewhere else anyway, so what’s the problem? 🙂
In any case, we wouldn’t be the first to pollute the Polish language: what about pomidory, karczochy, kalafior?
Or handel, szuflada, apteka (I don’t know very much German)
Or, better still, frapujący, nonszalant, szantaż, zbulwersowany…
(Gabriel, my sister once ordered a ‘chien chaud’ in a restaurant. I’ve never seen French waiters look so happy).
David Honley:
Hi Anna!
Instantaneous communications, globalisation, TV, marketing people, advertisers etc all, in the name of profit, corrupt all languages. Just ask the French! They now have to cope with ‘Hier, j’ai fait le shopping’, as opposed to ‘Hier, j’ai fait les courses’. (Yesterday, I did the shopping). Language purists (I guess I’m one) detest these horrible Americanizations. Americans also corrupt the beautiful English language!
But languages evolve, it is a natural process, and can be a good thing. Look how the English have done away with gender and most cases.
At the end of the day it is everyday people who decide how we speak and how we write. When more and more people adopt a certain new word or expression from whereever, that new word or expression eventually becomes incorporated into the standard accepted language, however horrible that word or expression might appear or sound at the beginning.
If these evolutions did not place, the English for example, would still be jabbering away like Chaucer and Shakespeare – Heaven forbid!
Pozdrawiam serdecznie, David
pinolona:
David – often there is a slight semantic difference between the borrowed word and the original, so it has a slightly different usage. Generally I hear French people use ‘faire les courses’ to mean going to the supermarket to buy food, while ‘faire le shopping’ is what teenage girls do on a Saturday afternoon at the mall.
A Polish example would be ‘drink’: general drinks are ‘napoje’ and ‘drinki’ refers to spirits with mixers.
Whether or not it sounds horrible is a question of personal taste and any previous associations we might have with that word. For example, I’m assuming – whether correctly or not – that you are from the US and that your distaste for ‘Americanisation’ comes from a desire to dissociate yourself from certain aspects of your home culture. This would lead you to have an irrational or emotional response to certain words. But it’s all purely a question of personal aesthetics – at the end of the day, language is a tool, it evolves as we need it to.
ps generally the French don’t ‘have to cope’ with an invasive horde of Anglo-Saxon expressions: they fight them tooth and nail via the Academie Francaise. Hence the proliferation of words like ‘ordinateur’, ‘baladeur’, ‘courriel’, etc, while everyone else just imports the English version.
Anna:
Hi guys!
I had a feeling that this would be an interesting discussion, and I’d like to thank you for your comments.
Personally, I have nothing against borrowing from English, German or Swahili, whatever, if there’s no equivalent word in Polish. “Laptop” and “notebook” (when talking about computers) come to mind. But why say “sandwicz” if there’s a perfectly good Polish word already – “kanapka”? Or “maskara” instead of “tusz do rzęs”?
And Pino, here in Gdańsk, a bunch of perfectly ordinary new flats (I even went to check them out and there’s nothing luxurious about them whatsoever) is being advertised as “nowe apartamenty”.
When a new word comes with a new item/idea/concept and there’s no other way of naming it, like it was back in the olden days with “pomidory” (tomatoes) or “apteka” (pharmacy), or more recently with “laptop”, we have no choice but to embrace the new word. But why replace perfectly good words we already have with foreign ones? Because they sound more “fancy” or “cultured”? Because we want to be seen as oh-so-worldly and cosmopolitan? No offense, but it’s just plain stupid.
And why is it that places that have “sandwicze” on their menus are more expensive than plain “kanapki” joints, huh?
Tom Wysocki:
Where common Polish words exist for something, they should be used when speaking/writing for a Polish speaking audience. No need to “borrow” a word to replace a common existing word.
On the other hand, nothing wrong with borrowing words to describe ideas, things, etc. which originated elsewhere and have been “imported” into Poland or anywhere, especially if the word leads to a more precise or more “compact” designation.
Audiobooki – why not? More precise and compact than książki dźwiękowe (sound books). Maybe English should pick this one up!
Just came from the store in U.S.A. where pierogi are advertised as pierogi. Sure they could be called “dumplings” but “dumpling” isn’t really an accurate name for it. So the American store “borrowed” the Polish word. Good – all in order.
russ:
Older borrowed words from other languages like “pomidor” mentioned in another comment were correctly adapted to Polish pronunciation and orthography. The problem with the wild influx of “trendy” English words into Polish is that they get pronounced and spelled randomly, breaking about the ONLY nice thing about Polish for learners: pretty regular pronunciation and spelling.
E.g. the “Polish” word “weekend” should be pronounced “ve-e-kend” according to Polish orthography. More and more of these enter the language, and Polish orthography will eventually become as haphazard and difficult as English.
It’s funny because I’ve taught Poles learning English who complain about English’s ridiculous spelling, and proudly talk about how Polish spelling is allegedly so much more phonetic than English – and they don’t realize that Poles are ruining that nice property of Polish by haphazardly importing so many English words.
My favorite absurdity is Poles saying “cove boy” for “cowboy” (pronounced neither the English way nor according to Polish orthography!) Makes me laugh every time. 🙂
khrystene:
One other that irritates me is NEWSY from news. When really it’s always just Wiadomości.
khrystene:
As a total contradiction, weekend I don’t mind, especially when you spell it: Łikend.
Karen:
I have to agree – Ponglish has appeared in a lot of places! As a kid growing up with spoken English and Polish and having never learned to write in Polish, I found myself inventing words when I wasn’t sure what the correct Polish word was. I love Polish Blog as I’ve learned to write so much now! I recall playing a game of Monopoli with my sister and a Polish friend and when she landed on one of my properties I said “ty musi pejować” Turns out that the word I wanted was “płacić”! She asked my mum what “pejować” meant as she hadn’t heard it before. For about 2 years while we were still in touch, we continued jokingly to use the same Ponglish word!
David Snopek:
I agree with russ. All languages will adopt words from other languages, its a natural process. But the should be adopted with normal Polish spelling!!
So many people study atleast a small amount of English right now, so it isn’t a big deal to pronounce “Audiobooki” or “Snowboardy” or whatever. But eventually English language will fall out of fashion and leave these weirdly spelled words in the Polish language with no one remembering how to pronounce them correctly.
Kinga:
But why say “sandwicz” if there’s a perfectly good Polish word already – “kanapka”?
this perfectly good Polish word ‘kanapka’ comes from French kanape.
And as I understand it kanapka is used for the ‘traditional’ kind with one slice of bread, whereas sandwich is the two slices of bread, often grilled and bought in shops.
Generally I hate when people complain about “polluting” the language. So we already have a word for that? So what??? It’s quite useful to have synonyms.
And “ksiazki dzwiekowe”? Please! How about “zwis meski prosty” instead of krawat – which is a foreign word as well? Any attempts of controlling the language are just ridiculous.
It’s been like that for centuries. And the original “Polish langauge” you’re defending is just a patchwork made up of all sorts of influences. One day someone will protest against some new word to mean “audiobook” because we already have a “perfectly good Polish word for that” (‘audiobuk’ that is).
justyna:
Hi,
I totally agree with Kinga; I get the feeling that she really understands the nature of the language, especially the spoken form; there’s no point in controlling the speech as it is spontanous and by nature not organised; it’s natural that people draw from the resources available to them to pass the meaning and if they have two languages in their linguistic repertoires then why not to use them, and why not to combine them??
to me it’s either creativity in using the language or the economy of language use! I bet those who think similar things have been travelling or living abroad at least for some time 🙂
Anna:
Justyna,
you’ve completely missed the point here. There’s a fine line between linguistic creativity and tackiness. And what’s happening in Poland is simply tacky.
Anybody who uses English on a daily basis should have been able to notice that. 😉
Kasia:
I went back to Poland after a 17 year absence. I found all the use of bastardised English quite confusing. I wasn’t sure whether to pronounce it the English way or the Polish way. I wasn’t even sure how a Pole would pronounce it!
So apart from feeling stupid with my broken Polish, I then felt stupid not knowing how to use their Ponglish as you call it.
I understand how it might be popular or trendy to use some English words but surely there’s a limit.
Mark Shepherd:
I have to say, whatever one’s feelings about the inflow of foreign words into any language, the presence of borrowed words can be an enormous boon when teaching. I have compiled a list of around 400 ‘English’ words (the inverted commas are deliberate; how English is the word ‘bikini’ for example?), which are at least recognisable by Polish people. When giving students the opportunity to practise speaking, it can really help to boost confidence when you supply them with a list of several hundred words they already have a degree of familiarity with.
Olka:
Some of the Polish words you pointed out sound just like my bilingual (“pinglish” we call them) children.
They spoke like that when they were three… We had ” Winnie Puchatek”, make me a jajecznica, moj kolega ma małego doga, kanapka z hamem, mała froga, babcia’s house, etc… It is utterly charming when little toddlers say that and deeply embarrassing when heard from Polish adults in England.
We insist on proper speech in both languages now they are older.
As to Polish , English or Pinglish language I suggest you have a look at mariany.pl.
It looks like a new race is about to appear in Europe. It is the Poles in the Uk.