Polish Spelling Needs a Revolution (or at least – a sensible reform) Posted by Anna on May 28, 2009 in Uncategorized
I’m beginning to develop very strong feelings for Krystyna Bochenek. I’m not quite sure what kind of feelings, but I am sure they are strong. Why, you want to know? Ok, I’ll tell you.
I was watching the news yesterday, or rather, ignoring the news, as I normally do, until I heard a reporter saying something about how hard this wonderful language of ours was. By the time I managed to lift my head and pay attention, the shot changed to a group of school age kids grumbling about Polish orthography. By the time I managed to actually comprehend what was being said and process the information, the shot changed once again. This time to a lady who was saying something about a language, or rather spelling, reform. That Polish was long overdue for one – the last one had been before WW2.
The lady turned out to be Krystyna Bochenek and I realized I vaguely recalled hearing her name before. Ah yes, a politician? Or a journalist? I went to google her name and saw that I was correct on both accounts. Ms. Bochenek is a very multi-faceted person, and her passion is the Polish language. “Well, so is mine,” I thought. Good, at least we have something in common then.
Except that Ms. Bochenek is also an actual polonista (a person with a university degree in the Polish language, or as we are very fond of saying here – “Polish philology”) and I only pretend to be one on the internet.
So, where do the strong feelings come in? Well, if I heard Ms. Bochenek correctly, she wants to do something about simplifying the way some Polish words are spelled. (I love you, Ms. Bochenek!)
If you want to know my opinion (and even if you don’t, I’m going to give it to you anyway), it’s about time!!! If I had my way, “ó” would be the first to go. I hate that letter. More than you can imagine.
I’d get rid of “ż” – can you imagine how much neater using a Polish keyboard would become?
And I’d replace all single “h” with “ch” to make life easier.
(If my high school Polish teacher is reading this – I’m so sorry, I know you’re probably experiencing a sudden and profound sense of déjà vu.)
Alas, Ms. Bochenek is not going to go that far in her proposed language reform. She wants to limit herself to the problem of “razem czy osobno” – whether we write certain words together or not. Like “na pewno” or “napewno”. And “naprawdę” or “na prawdę”.
Hint: it’s “na pewno” and “naprawdę”.
What? You want to know the logic behind it? There is none. Dude, it’s Polish we’re talking about here, OK?
I’d implore Ms. Bochenek to be bold and go further than this. I’d call for a total spelling revolution! Just imagine what would happen if “ó” and “ż” disappeared altogether!
We’d need new dictionaries, which means plenty of new books would have to be printed and sold, which means plenty of people would keep their jobs. And that’s definitely a good thing in this economic crisis.
Somebody (well, pretty much all of us) would need to buy those new dictionaries, hence a big spending spree would follow. Again – good for the economy.
School grades would improve overnight. Kids, who otherwise might have been doomed to careers as cleaners and dishwashers in the UK, all because they couldn’t spell properly in their own language, would regain their confidence and dream big, maybe even of becoming Polish teachers. In the UK, naturally.
See what I mean? This is a win-win situation! Polish spelling needs a complete overhaul and we just need one brave person to step forward and say “enough’s enough” and “let’s break the tyranny of orthographic dictionaries!”
But of course, as with any revolution, this one would bring with it serious problems, too. Like for example, what would we do with Professor Miodek?
PS. A very cool interview with Ms. Bochenek, about life, universe and being a woman in politics is here. Only in Polish, unfortunately.
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Comments:
pinolona:
are you kidding? Polish spelling is a picnic and these kids are just whingers. How do you explain to a six-year old that ‘through’, ‘enough’ and ‘thorough’ do not rhyme?! Come on… there are plenty of things to moan about in Polish but spelling is really the least of all our worries!
Basia Lomnicka:
I totally agree with with Pino. Having to remember z (with kropka) versus rz is NOT a big deal. I find the Polish language to be quite phonetic. English spelling is crazy with very few rules, and mostly exceptions.
The “ough” phonogram”
through
though
cough, trough
rough
bough
AACK
long “E” sound:
ea:hear, not to be mistaken with bread and heard
ee: seem, see
ei: weird
ie:field
e_e: here. mere
ae: Aesop’s fables
e: be
Do I need to go on? Polish spelling is pretty logical.
Anna:
Logical? It’s because you’ve been learning Polish as an adult using your adult size brain!!! It’s different when you’re a little Polish kid who has to memorize this stuff. Oh, and while I’m at it, I’d also throw out “ę” and “ą”.
Add to that all the other nonsense we have to learn – cases, declensions, verbs, blah blah blah, and you see that something’s gotta give. And nobody is going to miss orthography. Seriously.
A slow learner:
The regular orthography has helped me pronounce this alien language with some confidence – although I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to spell the sounds I hear, and I wonder how anyone was clever enough to work out how to do it using the Roman alphabet in the first place!
Thanks as ever for an educational and entertaining weblog.
Basia Lomnicka:
Hi Anna:
The same 6 year old brain has to deal with English phonograms. At least z (z kropka) and rz and u and o(z kreska) always make the same sound!!!
ch as in chat
ch as in school
ch as in chef
ea as in beat
ea as in bread
ea as in great, steak
ai as in train
ai as in air, fountain
ou as in soul
ou as in ouch, sound
ou as in cougar, soup, youth
ou as in touch
Having spent considerable time teaching my young son to read and spell, believe me it is tough.
Polish grammar is WAY harder than English, but spelling (orto) is much simpler.
If this is a wish list of “fixable” irritants, then please simplify numbers (so they don’t decline)…I would be so happy.
I owe you an e-mail
Anna:
Yes, but you don’t have to deal with:
miąć, or is it mielić, or maybe “mlec”, and then ja mnę, mlę, mielę, ty… and your ten years old brain is screaming – “Mooooooommmm, help! Which one is correct?”
Or is it “pastel” or “pastela”? “paszteta” or “pasztetu”?
There are so many other, more important, if not absolutely necessary things to learn in Polish that spelling is nothing but an annoyance.
🙂
And oh yeah, I see that the longer I’m staying in Poland the worse my spelling is becoming. In whatever language. Ouch!
Agnieszka:
I would miss orthography. I know I am not a master in that, but still I think it is something important. Imagine that in one moment you change all Swedish ö, ä and å into a normal a and o. What would you have? It is the same in Polish. “Morze” and “może” – the joke about Hemingway’s book would not be funny any more… Can you really watch at the word “ktury” spelled that way?! My eyes just hurts! It is the same with the “together or not” rule. I don’t know them all but when you see the word misspelled in the confusing way you just have to stop and think “what author really wanted to say”. And I prefer to think what he ment by that, not was he able to write…
Gabriel:
I agree, specially with getting rid of ‘ó’, although I would miss the masculine genitives ending in ‘-ów’.
Recently we had an orthographic reform in portuguese language, intending to eliminate the differences existing in many portuguese speaking countries. Most of my friends don’t approve, but I find it very useful.
Also, props to Ms. Bohenek, hehe.
[intentionally I forgot the C]
Elizabeth Sadus:
I agree with both viewpoints. I have been studying the Polish language for 7 years and, to me, spelling is pretty easy. I wish there was a way to simplify the learning of the 7 cases. That is a big pain. Although, having 3 different letters for the same sound is annoying at times (for example ż, ź, z or dż, dź, dzi). There are rules for using these special letters, but there are always so many exceptions in this language, it could drive a person crazy.
David Honley:
Hi Anna!
I’m afraid I agree with other comments previously posted. Compared to Polish numbers, the case-based Polish language itself and virile masculine declinations, Polish orthography is a doddle – certainly no more difficult than English, although messed up by Americans :):)… Whenever I encounter Poles in England and ‘suggest’ that Polish is a really difficult language to learn, they always reply saying that Engish is just as difficult, especially because of English spelling and pronunciation!
Seriously though, spelling reforms bother me. The French also suffer from periodic calls for spelling reforms. But I’m sure the French would find it most odd to read Zola, Flaubert and Balzac texts for example, with reformed spelling , words lacking certain accents etc. I’m sure Poles would also find it deplorable to read texts by Mickiewicz and Sienkiewicz with ‘ó’ replaced by ‘u’ and the beautiful ‘ż’ totally absent.
Polish kids, just like English kids, just have to knuckle down, spend more time reading, trying to read, than gawping at television, from which incidentally the whole problem stems!
Pozdrawiam serdecznie
David
russ:
For the most part, Polish spelling is simple and phonetic, especially compared to English (which is so irregular that it may as well be using ideograms like Chinese instead of pretending to use an alphabet in any useful fashion), though there are some definite non-phonetic issues in Polish.
E.g.:
Every vowel is a separate syllable – except when it’s not. 🙂 Especially the letter “i”, which magically disappears if it’s followed by another vowel.
Is “au” two syllables or one? Depends on the word/context: nauczyć vs restauracja.
Voiced consonants lose their voice frequently: “chleb” is pronounced “chlep” but still spelled with a “b”.
Consonants in the middle of others often disappear, e.g. the “ł” in “jabłko” disappears and one says “jabko” (or “japko”…)
And the f-ing nasal vowels have all kinds of sounds depending on context.
But still, this is WAY better than English.
Where Polish spelling is becoming screwed up is from the rapid importation of foreign (mostly English) words. “weekend” is spelled the English way but of course no one says it “ve-E-kend” as it would be according to Polish orthography. “Notebook” of course is not pronounced as 4-syllabic “no-te-bo-ok”. Etc. The more Polish absorbs such words with unchanged original English spelling, the more it sabotages its own orthography.
The “razem czy osobno” problem seems more deep, and there seem to be no coherent rules about it. Polish friends tell me they have no problem with spelling Polish sounds (u vs ó, h vs ch, ż vs rz) but that they often have trouble remembering if some phrase is one word or two (na prawdę or naprawdę).
I (a foreigner) have trouble spelling Polish words because of the difficulty distinguishing ś/sz, ć/cz, ż/ź etc since English doesn’t distinguish those consonant pairs and I still usually can’t hear the difference, but that’s a whole different issue… :/
pinolona:
My only Polish orthographical complaints are about sz/ś and cz/ć – sometimes I find it hard to remember which is which on a word I don’t know all that well. But the main one is the voiced/unvoiced thing. I only found out recently that it’s ‘fszystko’ and not ‘wszystko’, likewise ‘chlep’ not ‘chleb’. This means I’m making basic pronunciation errors every day and it’s annoying!
michael farris:
I always thought Polish spelling was super easy and was flabbergasted that it has a reputation for being difficult among Poles.
I think this says more about how Polish spelling is taught to Polish speaking children than any real difficulties in the script.
In the US in elementary school I had selling (as a separate subject from ‘English’ for an hour a day for about five years). _That’s_ a tough spelling system.
Most of the supposed problem areas are pretty easy when you know a few rules.
u / ó = easy, ó is always related to o, morphologically or etymologically.
samochód – samochodu
mówić – mowa
Kraków – Krakowa
otwórz – otworzyć
there are a very few where that’s not the case (maybe również????)
ż / rz is the same thing (rz is always related to r)
morze – morski
lekarz – lekarka
otworzyć – otwierać
ch / h is another question entirely (except that h is a lot less common) and the difference could be jettisoned with no great loss.
it depends with ą and ę some could be replaced (like dzienkuję instead of dziękuję, bendę instead of będę but others can’t without introducing further complications.
And I think English borrowings like weekend, jeans, gin, puba and French borrowings like jury and menu should be phonetically spelled: łikend, dżins, dżin, pab, żiri, meni. German borrowings are routinely respelled for Polish (no one writes “Byłem w Kneipie”)
Basically Polish speakers like to complain and “szukać dziury w całym”, Polish orthography is elegant, works well and is one of the most linguistically sound in all of Europe. Stop complaining and find better ways to teach it.
Master Polish:
Hi!
There is a logic behind “na pewno” and “naprawdę”.
The first one is a contruction of na + means of doing sth. So: “na główkę” (to jump, usually to the water, head-first), “na wariata” (to do sth as a crazy man), “na boso” (bare-foot), and “na pewno” (“for sure”).
On the other hand, “naprawdę” means actually the same as “prawdziwie” (truly), and both can be expressed in English as “really”. There is some etymological mixup, but it’s not completly illogical.
Another thing: “en” is a different sound than “ę”. We cannot write “włonczyć” instead of “włączyć” (to turn on), because it would force Poles to create a sound that does not exist in the language.
And in highly inflective languages, you can always help yourself how to write something if you know its basic inflection, or alternances. There are some strange things like h/ch, and ż/rz. It comes from the fact that most Poles are not aware of different pronunciation of each item, depending on a dialect. It’s only now when the “only correct” dialect took over other and we think there is no difference in pronunciation of the above whatsoever.
Hence in my opinion, excepot for 50 things in Polish, everything is almost as logical as an ethnic language can be 🙂
Kuba:
Wow !. I have been trying to learn Polish and the grammar for years. I make so many mistakes it is butchering the language. But I plod on and keep trying and let those who hear me smile.
Elizabeth Sadus:
This is a reply to Kuba. Making mistakes is an important learning tool. I do it all the time. Sometimes the most embarrasing mistakes are ones we won’t make again. I feel your pain. All-in-all, I love the Polish language and I would change very little. That’s what makes the language unique!
Kuba:
Elizabeth,
Thanks, seems the more I work at it the more mistakes I make which I guess is good. I have made some good one.
Never had a class in Polish, never found the right book or school.
Elizabeth Sadus:
Kuba,
You’ll never find the right book. The best one I have found is Polish in 4 weeks by Marzena Kowalska. That really improved my understanding of the language, but had some problems. Dana Bielec has a good series. Although I don’t like Oscar Swan’s books because they are too dificult and confusing, he released a new book in 2008 that is fabulous. It is about 100 pages and it breaks down a lot of the grammar concisely. I can’t think of the name, but it is something like Polish verbs & basic grammar.
As for mistakes, I went to Poland one summer and made the greatest attempt to speak grammatically correct. That didn’t happen, so I spoke in one case. My Polish friends were very kind and patient with me. When I return to Poland, someday soon, my goal is to do it properly.
The BIGGEST problem is that if you don’t use it frequently, it doesn’t stick.
Master Polish:
Hello Kuba!
I have been looking for some good books in Poland, and there is few of them, but they are. However, they do not seem like a reliable mainstream self-study source. But I know there is a site under construction for beginners and advanced learners on the Polish language that is due to be launched in a few weeks, so stay tuned. If you’d like, I may let you know when it’s made public 🙂
Kuba:
Master Polish,
I would like to see the site when it is up.
I have Veritus Books, Czesc Jak Sie Masz plus others. It just hard to do it yourself. I need a push.
Let me know when the site is up.
Regards
john Morgan:
Love your comments about Polish language.However, being English, any chance of an English pronunciation?
Dziekuje (jyenkooye!)
Master Polish:
Dear John,
Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_Polish
Writing Polish in English has no use – it’s just a huge approximation. Polish words can be read only in one way, so better learn the rules of reading instead of getting a few examples. The above was meant as an essay for people that are more acquainted with Polish.
I am, however, working on Polish phonology. Stay tuned 😉
Shamick Gaworski:
Jako Polak zyjacy za granica (USA) od 15 lat! BRAWO BRAWO za ten artykul! W koncu widze iz nie tylko ja mysle tak!
Ulica Chopin, nie ChopinA, itd itp.
Nasz polski jest tak nie potrzebnie skomplikowany iz nawet Polacy ledwo go umieja!
Shamick Gaworski:
At the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY, I played clarinet with piano accompaniament by Russian professor.
He said “Polish is like Russian with a really really bad grammar!” 🙂
I completely agree that there are tons of unnecessary complications in Polish and the language is actually going into a direction that soon it will be so complicated even Polish people won’t understand (soon = 50 years)
I just read this on the cover of Polish film “ożeniony z Jadźka Kargulόwna”
The name is Jadźka Kargul” but since it is a women, Polish person wants to add “a” at the end, but this makes “Kargula” which means “of Kargul” which seems strange to Polish person, so one tries (in head) “Kargulόwna” but that is also bad, in head of Polish person – THERE IS NO WAY FOREIGNER would KNOW that!!!!
So they say “Kargulόwna” which still seems complicated and I would bet 50% of Polish people would be having problems with this …
Why not Kargul? Well, Polish PRIDES itself on this NOT being just Kargul.
But this is not the end, Polish language PRIDES itself on having LONG LONG sentences are often in Pass tense, run off sentences are also common.
Instead of paying much attention to that, EDUCATED Polish person prides itself for knowing where to put “rz” instead of “ż” or “u” instead of “ό” …
Trust me, I am forgetting where to do that and I get plenty of people pointing that on Youtube or elsewhere.
Poland as a country has always been “orphan” of cultures and countries around them, not a country for 150 years. This made the language over time this way. But GOD FORBID you would want to say that to Educated Polish people (elite) … Trust me, don’t even try! 🙂
Kuba:
Anyone know what this means in English.
Łacie
Master Polish:
Kuba, there is no such word. Maybe it is a proper name. Or you meant ‘połacie’, meaning stretches of land, expanses; patches (of) (pl. of ‘połać’)
Shamick Gaworski:
Łacie
This is not proper but it could mean
– shoes … in jargon
– Łata means “a piece of clothing over a whole in some other clothing, such as shirt … or pants … ” It is used to cover a whole in clothing
Otherwise it could also be a name of animal, meaning a name given to an animal by human …
Kuba:
I’m sorry I should have given you the whole sentence. This is a sentence from my cousin who wrote his memoirs about his time in Stutthof.
Był namalowany na białej łacie 87.558 i odtąd już zostałem numerem, już nikt nie używał nazwisk ani imion, tylko numerów,
He wrote this in 1995 but the one word is one I can not translate to English,
It is a white something,,,,,,,,,,,
Master Polish:
This is a very simple alternance of “t” into “c”. The preposition “na” determines the instrumental case. Therefore, as Shamich Gaworski wrote, “łacie” is an inflected form of “łata”, meaning “a patch”, as a fragment of clothing.
In the sentece, it means that the number was written on a label/patch, probably sewed to some cloth 🙂
Kuba:
Thanks I was thinking it was on cloth but could not find a word that looked close. Makes sense to me. He also had the red triangle on the patch with a ‘P” in the center.
I did find a slang word for łacie but it implies obscene,
Dzięki
Wish I knew Polish grammar better ; (
Shamick Gaworski:
seems then this sentance sound like something from a prison or concentration camp
“Był namalowany na białej łacie 87.558 i odtąd już zostałem numerem, już nikt nie używał nazwisk ani imion, tylko numer”
“It [number] was painted on white patch and from that time I became a number, [;] since that time nobody used first or last names, just number”
Kuba:
Shamick, you are right my cousin was in Stutthof from 1943 – 1945. He was picked up in Rypin south of Gdansk.
Kuba:
One more question if I may ask for your help.
Evidently there was a Russian guard at Stutthof when my cousin was there and he said the following.
‘Dawaj, dawaj wołali przeklinajać i kopiąc.’
What does kopiąc meanć Can’t find it any dictionary so am thinking it is grammar problem.
Shamick:
“kapiac” means “while kicking” (kopie is kicking in masculine form) … (kapiac is past tense … now I am getting in dangerous sides because I don’t know all the proper English terms of conjugations)
So the sentence is
“common, common they were screaming while swearing and kicking”
“dawaj” is Russian .. I am pretty sure it means common but not 100%
It seems to me that they were doing something and encoring even themselves or someone (most likely themselves) while swearing and kicking …
If you have anything at all I can help (free) since I am Polish native, you can send me email /// shamick at gmail
russ:
> What does kopiąc meanć Can’t find it any dictionary so am thinking it is grammar problem.
See http://www.sjp.pl/kopi%B1c
That’s a very useful online dictionary which has every inflected form of the words, so you can type in something like kopiąc and get its “basic” form (verb infinitive, noun nominative, etc) that you can then find in a normal dictionary.
michael farris:
“The preposition “na” determines the instrumental case”
Actually ‘na’ can be followed by either the accusative (biernik – kogo co) or locative (miejscownik – o kim o czym) but never the instrumental (narzędnik – kim czym).
In the example here, it’s the locative.
Master Polish:
Oh, mea culpa. Of course, this was a locative case.
Kuba:
Shamick, russ, master and michael thanks for the help. I will check out the sjp site. I was hoping there was such a site.
It then means the guards are saying
Come on, come on swearing and kicking.
Works for me.
Kuba:
Russ thanks for the site.
Is there a Polish spell checker site?
I have not found one on the net so far.
I use Word and am on a Mac
Master Polish:
Dear Kuba,
Why not use spellchecker in Firefox or OpenOffice/MS Office?
Kuba:
Master,
I have MS Office I’ll see if there is a Polish spell checker in it.
Not sure how to use firefox on a .doc though. Are you saying you can spell check any document via Firefox?
Master Polish:
Nope, but Firefox is able to spellcheck any text in text fields, such as the very one you are using to post the comments above. Usually, it is just a matter of installing a specific language as an add-on 🙂
Kuba:
Master,
I have the Polish version of Firefox running so I will check it out. thanks.
z0ltan:
Well, in my opinion, having a flexible and traditionally derived orthography adds to the richness of the language. I used to be of the opinion that having a perfectly logical and consistent orthography that matches the currently spoken version of the language would be best, but I realised that such as system is usually quite insipid. No doubt English, being my native tongue, did not let me viscerally understand that it had a horrendously inconsistent orthography, but I experienced the irritation with a language like Russian. The voicing/devoicing, okanye/akanye aspects, the soft/hard signs were irksome to begin with, but then I realised that that added to the charm and natural parallel evolution of the language and the orthography.
With a language like Hungarian, which arguably has an even more phonetic spelling than Polish, I found it a bit dry and soulless, even though learning the spelling of words was a breeze.
Justyna:
Hi,
I’m living in Poland, I was born here and I’m very, very happy when I see that many people who say, that they love this language! My heart is getting bigger, thanks!
Anna,
As an ordinary Pole I’d really miss ó, ż, ę, ą, dzi, dź… everything that you’d change! That’s just our charm and I personally love it! Thank You for encouraging to learning Polish and for so many nice words! :))
Powodzenia, wszystkiego dobrego, zdrowia!
And Shamick,
“Dawaj” probably did came from Russia, but it does exist normally in Polish language too. 😉
Juan:
While it’s true that once you learn the rules, polish is easy to pronounce, I would say it’s neither easy to read nor write.