Just overnight the rhetoric of escalation has become rather heated. To set the stage, Larry Johnson reminds us: MORE ON TACTICAL NUKE EXERCISES AND RUSSIAN ESCALATORY OPTIONS The current Russian exercise did not spring out of a black hole nor was it hastily conjured up in a period of a week or two. The planning for this exercise started months ago, and it appears that Russia had it on the shelf ready to go when circumstances dictated.
Just to clarify - it’s a colloquial name, like Fritz fit Germans, Gans (Hans) for Latvians, Lyagushatnik (frogger) for Frenchman, and yes - khokhol for Ukrainians. Emotionally rather neutral and a bit condescending.
Thanks, didn't know that. The "Psh-" combination, which is relatively common in Polish as an initial--word beginning--is written "Prz." RZ in Polish is normally pronounced like the voiced "S" in measure = ZH, but when preceded by an unvoiced consonant is pronounce like the English unvoiced SH sound. It's a good illustration of how Polish orthography looks strange to English speakers but the sounds themselves are quite easy for English speakers, albeit the combinations are sometimes unfamiliar. So SZCZ isn't really so hard, it's just that it's often word initial, but ... freSH CHeese, combine it all and say SHCHeese.
The "ZH" sound in Polish is normally written Ż (zet z kropką, z with a dot). So why spell it as RZ sometimes? It's not done simply to confuse non-Poles. It's a pointer to a phenomenon that is extensive in Polish to a degree that sets it off from other Slavic languages, although it's present in most, maybe all, Slavic languages. The "funny" spellings like SZ, CZ, DŻ, RZ are called ex-palatal or hardened--they are consonants that at an earlier stage of the language were soft or palatal but were hardened in their pronunciation. The result is that Polish has an extensive series of exactly parallel consonants that are exactly the same, except that one series is hard, the other is soft--and, of course, the voiced v. unvoiced distinction is preserved. This is very common in languages around the world. Chinese has exactly the same phenomenon. In PinYin spelling Q, X, J (typically followed by "i" as in Polish ć/ci, ś/si, ź,zi, dź/dzi) are soft versions of the hard CH, SH, ZH. Xi is pronounced like "she", only with a very soft "sh" sound--English speakers, when they get Xi's name approximately correct, usually make it sound hard. English does distinguish--in pronunciation but not in spelling--these hard and soft sounds, but not as sharply. So, SHEET and SHOW display distinctly soft and hard versions of the SH sound, and so forth--the difference is in the tongue position.
Which brings us back to RZ. Why does Polish orthography, which is otherwise completely phonetic to an extent that puts other languages to shame, have two ways of writing the "zh" sound: RZ and Ż? The reason is etymological/historical. English spelling preserves this convention extensively, maintaining French, Latin, and Old English spelling conventions and making English spelling a hopeless jumble--and yet we consider it worthwhile to preserve these historical and, yes, cultural recollections.
In Polish there used to be soft and hard L and R. The formerly hard L is sometimes written Ł but is typically pronounced like a W (hard Polish L is also written normally). The soft R was hardened to the ZH/Ż sound, but was written RZ to show that it had formerly been pronounced as a soft R. This is a typical distinction between Polish and Russian, which doesn't harden soft consonants, or not to the same degree. In Russian the word for river is RYEKA--the "YE" signifying the soft R. In Polish it becomes RZEKA.
As for PRZ in Polish, this is typically a prefix or preposition attached to the front of words (English FORget, etc.). The common forms, the only ones probably, are PRZE- and PRZY-, pronounced PSHE- or PSHY- (in Polish Y is uniformly pronounced like the "i" in it, and can only follow a hard consonant, whereas "i" is pronounced "ee" and can only follow a soft consonant--just like in Chinese, Russian, etc.). So, that means those Polish prefixes were originally written either PRE- or PRI (that's a guess).
Aren't you glad you asked? Oh, you didn't ask, did you.
I confess as someone who knows Russian but not Polish, the latter’s orthography always befuddled me. Not any more thanks to your discussion here! Now I see that those intimidating consonant clusters really just represent sounds equivalent as to familiar Cyrillic characters (SZCZ = Щ, RZ = Ж, etc.) Don’t know why I never saw this before.
Polish orthography is actually strictly phonetic. Once you learn the rules--and they're really pretty simple--you're good to go. There are some extras, too, that make things simple. Basically, Polish has only 5 vowels, all clearly enunciated and distinguished, with none of the "vowel reduction" that Russian characteristically features in unstressed syllables. That makes spoken Polish rather more articulate for the learner, despite the way it may sound to outsiders. Further, Polish has a rigid penultimate stress system--sharply distinguishing it from Russian. The only exception to this isn't really an exception, since it's also rigidly limited and predictable--1st and 2nd person pl. for past and conditional, which don't apply in Russian, which lacks those structures to begin with.
That's the good news. The rest is good news/bad news. The bad news is that Polish has lots of rules that Russian lacks. The good news is that most, but not all, of those rules are predictable from Polish very logical phonology.
That said, every person I've met who learned Russian first is dismayed by what they see as unnecessary complications in Polish grammar. By contrast, people who learn Polish first see Russian grammar as a kind of Polish made simple, but are dismayed by the free stress system.
Easily identifiable differences:
Polish makes a big deal about masculine nouns, and especially masculine personal nouns. Two possible endings for genitive singular, -a -u, and sadly not truly predictable. The plural of masculine personal nouns adds more endings and more sound changes.
Polish reflexive się, unlike in Russian, roams around sentences pretty freely.
Polish in past and conditional has a full set of separate masculine and feminine endings for person and number for verbs in the past and conditional. There's also a partial set for neuter nouns. Conjugating for gender is usually a bit of jaw dropper for people used to Western European languages.
Very characteristic of colloquial Polish--you won't see this in newspapers, etc.--is shifting those verbal endings for the past and conditional from the verbs to pronouns, conjunctions,, even adverbs at times.
Standardization of education and media plus massive population transfers after WW2 has changed things, but in the past there was more of a dialectical continuum from West to East. Standard Polish is what I've been describing, and that is fundamentally based on the Great Polish of the Poznań area. As you go south (Lesser Polish, around Krakow), east (into Belaurus and especially western Ukraine) and northeast (into Lithuania) Polish dialects sound different and grammar sometimes varies from the standard. Lithuanian Polish sounds very Russian to me. Poles from western Ukraine sometimes drop verbal endings in the past, a bit like Russian. Contrary to what Putin thinks, the influences work both ways and the standard languages are mostly based on politically predominant dialects.
So, the first “z” softens the initial “r” to produce basically the same syllable as in Russian ГРЕГор. But the last “rz” pruduces “sh” without any final “r” sound at all? So transliterated as something like “Gryegosh”?
No. RZ is an "expalatal", meaning, "formerly (ex) soft but now hard." RZ is a hard sound, exactly equivalent to Ż and Russian ж. In both Polish and Russian (and many other languages, including English) the voicing of consonants is affected by contiguity to other consonants and also by position. In GRZEGORZ the first RZ is pronounced exactly like Russian ж or Polish Ż and remains voiced because it's next to the voiced G. However, the RZ at the end of the word is devoiced by position--word final voiced consonants are devoiced in Polish, more or less like in German and Russian. Thus, the river Bug is pronounced as if the G were a K, Book instead of Boog. It's all totally consistent and just like Russian in that respect. Regarding the whole system of expalatal consonants you could say that Polish has taken the hard/soft distinction and developed a thoroughgoing and systematic phonology based on it--extending it well beyond Russian. Thus, while Russian ж has an exact Polish equivalent (Ż), Russian has no soft equivalent of ж--Polish Ż does have a soft equivalent. Similarly, Russian ч and щ are always soft, but Polish has both soft and hard versions: ć/cz, ść/szcz (this isn't exactly like щ). Polish phonology is extremely thorough and systematic. It takes certain tendencies and applies them consistently to every conceivable situation.
Again, the Polish system is remarkably similar to Chinese in that one respect.
I think eventually Russia will have to use a nuke on a European country (UK or France) to prove a point to the USA and everyone else. This madness won't stop until then, and even then, maybe the end of "us" is nearer than we realize.
I fear you may be right. Ironically this will play right into the hands of the Russophobes. It will confirm Putin’s reputation as the Hitler of the 21st century and condemn Russian-Western relations to eternal antagonism.
It is very unwise to allow persons that are, or have ever been foreign citizens to serve in high offices. They live under every stone, and are always up to no good, I wonder why ???
The Poles bear as much responsibility for starting WWII as anyone. Incredible arrogance. Unbelievable stupidity. Why do most Polish leaders share these qualities?
Poland keeps disappearing from the world stage and reappearing–but always in a different place. Clearly, geography has a role to play in this. But so does stupidity.
Do you consider that the current Polish government is sane and competent?
Do you consider Pilsudski's government to have been sane and competent?
I rate the current Polish government on the same low level as virtually every other EU government. Lower than Hungary. Piłsudski was both sane and competent. Poland in 1920 had the cards stacked against it. While Piłsudski's initial ambitions were unrealistic, he showed himself able to adapt. His successors were not as capable. However, Poland never really had a chance situated between Germany and the USSR with no counterbalancing great powers. The Polish attempt at neutrality as between Germany and the USSR was sensible, but doomed to fail. But not through stupidity.
Poland's fundamental problem has always been that it's too large to be truly absorbed--the history of Warsaw Pact Poland clearly proves that; even the USSR backed off from imposing itself as it did in Hungary and Czecho--but not large enough to ignore its powerful neighbors. The current government has shown itself far less competent and sane than Piłsudski in attempting to align itself closely with a Neocon led US government.
Your harping on "stupidity" shows your own stupidity, as did your assertion that Poland "caused" WW2.
Many of us here can be rightly criticized, I think, for assigning 'stupidity' as an explanation for this or that when a more thoughtful explanation would probably be more accurate.
This guy also tweeted "thank you USA" immediately after the nord stream pipelines blew up, effectively misdirecting responsibility away from the four Ukrainians in a rented yacht.
These maniacs still think the Russians are bluffing, or even worse, that they could win a nuclear war against them. Where are all those lefty Euro anti-war protesters from the 1980s?
While we’re at it, whatever happened to the American anti-war Left? It’s the strangest thing, like someone just threw a switch and suddenly shut it down around 2008.
I agree but with a caveat. Leftist opposition to war managed to be expressed under Demonrat presidents — LBJs progressive bona fides didn’t help him in this regard. So it’s not a partisan issue as much as it is ideological.
I suspect the recent shift in polarity has to do with the leftists’ pavlovian reaction to anything labelled right-wing or “fascist”. Wars in the Cold War era were fought against leftist regimes — ergo, they were Bad. Twentieth-first century wars, on the other hand, have been successfully coded as anti-fascist. So they are Good. Plus, with the demise of Communism, Liberalism (i.e., muh Democracy) is the only remaining progressive ideology for Leftists to rally around. That’s how erstwhile Trotskyites become neocons, who in turn, become indistinguishable from neolibs.
In short, leftists have never been anti-war, per se. They have only been against “reactionary” wars. Lenin is the poster child here. He opposed World War I as bad because “imperialism.” But in the same breath he advocated converting that very same war into a class war and, voila, its now a righteous cause.
Russian slur for Poles is “Psheck” imitating pshsh-shzh-shsh sounds of spoken Polish. Polyak just means Pole.
Just to clarify - it’s a colloquial name, like Fritz fit Germans, Gans (Hans) for Latvians, Lyagushatnik (frogger) for Frenchman, and yes - khokhol for Ukrainians. Emotionally rather neutral and a bit condescending.
Thanks, didn't know that. The "Psh-" combination, which is relatively common in Polish as an initial--word beginning--is written "Prz." RZ in Polish is normally pronounced like the voiced "S" in measure = ZH, but when preceded by an unvoiced consonant is pronounce like the English unvoiced SH sound. It's a good illustration of how Polish orthography looks strange to English speakers but the sounds themselves are quite easy for English speakers, albeit the combinations are sometimes unfamiliar. So SZCZ isn't really so hard, it's just that it's often word initial, but ... freSH CHeese, combine it all and say SHCHeese.
The "ZH" sound in Polish is normally written Ż (zet z kropką, z with a dot). So why spell it as RZ sometimes? It's not done simply to confuse non-Poles. It's a pointer to a phenomenon that is extensive in Polish to a degree that sets it off from other Slavic languages, although it's present in most, maybe all, Slavic languages. The "funny" spellings like SZ, CZ, DŻ, RZ are called ex-palatal or hardened--they are consonants that at an earlier stage of the language were soft or palatal but were hardened in their pronunciation. The result is that Polish has an extensive series of exactly parallel consonants that are exactly the same, except that one series is hard, the other is soft--and, of course, the voiced v. unvoiced distinction is preserved. This is very common in languages around the world. Chinese has exactly the same phenomenon. In PinYin spelling Q, X, J (typically followed by "i" as in Polish ć/ci, ś/si, ź,zi, dź/dzi) are soft versions of the hard CH, SH, ZH. Xi is pronounced like "she", only with a very soft "sh" sound--English speakers, when they get Xi's name approximately correct, usually make it sound hard. English does distinguish--in pronunciation but not in spelling--these hard and soft sounds, but not as sharply. So, SHEET and SHOW display distinctly soft and hard versions of the SH sound, and so forth--the difference is in the tongue position.
Which brings us back to RZ. Why does Polish orthography, which is otherwise completely phonetic to an extent that puts other languages to shame, have two ways of writing the "zh" sound: RZ and Ż? The reason is etymological/historical. English spelling preserves this convention extensively, maintaining French, Latin, and Old English spelling conventions and making English spelling a hopeless jumble--and yet we consider it worthwhile to preserve these historical and, yes, cultural recollections.
In Polish there used to be soft and hard L and R. The formerly hard L is sometimes written Ł but is typically pronounced like a W (hard Polish L is also written normally). The soft R was hardened to the ZH/Ż sound, but was written RZ to show that it had formerly been pronounced as a soft R. This is a typical distinction between Polish and Russian, which doesn't harden soft consonants, or not to the same degree. In Russian the word for river is RYEKA--the "YE" signifying the soft R. In Polish it becomes RZEKA.
As for PRZ in Polish, this is typically a prefix or preposition attached to the front of words (English FORget, etc.). The common forms, the only ones probably, are PRZE- and PRZY-, pronounced PSHE- or PSHY- (in Polish Y is uniformly pronounced like the "i" in it, and can only follow a hard consonant, whereas "i" is pronounced "ee" and can only follow a soft consonant--just like in Chinese, Russian, etc.). So, that means those Polish prefixes were originally written either PRE- or PRI (that's a guess).
Aren't you glad you asked? Oh, you didn't ask, did you.
I confess as someone who knows Russian but not Polish, the latter’s orthography always befuddled me. Not any more thanks to your discussion here! Now I see that those intimidating consonant clusters really just represent sounds equivalent as to familiar Cyrillic characters (SZCZ = Щ, RZ = Ж, etc.) Don’t know why I never saw this before.
Polish orthography is actually strictly phonetic. Once you learn the rules--and they're really pretty simple--you're good to go. There are some extras, too, that make things simple. Basically, Polish has only 5 vowels, all clearly enunciated and distinguished, with none of the "vowel reduction" that Russian characteristically features in unstressed syllables. That makes spoken Polish rather more articulate for the learner, despite the way it may sound to outsiders. Further, Polish has a rigid penultimate stress system--sharply distinguishing it from Russian. The only exception to this isn't really an exception, since it's also rigidly limited and predictable--1st and 2nd person pl. for past and conditional, which don't apply in Russian, which lacks those structures to begin with.
That's the good news. The rest is good news/bad news. The bad news is that Polish has lots of rules that Russian lacks. The good news is that most, but not all, of those rules are predictable from Polish very logical phonology.
That said, every person I've met who learned Russian first is dismayed by what they see as unnecessary complications in Polish grammar. By contrast, people who learn Polish first see Russian grammar as a kind of Polish made simple, but are dismayed by the free stress system.
Easily identifiable differences:
Polish makes a big deal about masculine nouns, and especially masculine personal nouns. Two possible endings for genitive singular, -a -u, and sadly not truly predictable. The plural of masculine personal nouns adds more endings and more sound changes.
Polish reflexive się, unlike in Russian, roams around sentences pretty freely.
Polish in past and conditional has a full set of separate masculine and feminine endings for person and number for verbs in the past and conditional. There's also a partial set for neuter nouns. Conjugating for gender is usually a bit of jaw dropper for people used to Western European languages.
Very characteristic of colloquial Polish--you won't see this in newspapers, etc.--is shifting those verbal endings for the past and conditional from the verbs to pronouns, conjunctions,, even adverbs at times.
Standardization of education and media plus massive population transfers after WW2 has changed things, but in the past there was more of a dialectical continuum from West to East. Standard Polish is what I've been describing, and that is fundamentally based on the Great Polish of the Poznań area. As you go south (Lesser Polish, around Krakow), east (into Belaurus and especially western Ukraine) and northeast (into Lithuania) Polish dialects sound different and grammar sometimes varies from the standard. Lithuanian Polish sounds very Russian to me. Poles from western Ukraine sometimes drop verbal endings in the past, a bit like Russian. Contrary to what Putin thinks, the influences work both ways and the standard languages are mostly based on politically predominant dialects.
Interesting and very helpful. Thanks!
BTW, here's a good example re RZ. The Polish for Gregory is GRZEGORZ, from Gregor. The RZ at the end of a word is voiced to SH.
So, the first “z” softens the initial “r” to produce basically the same syllable as in Russian ГРЕГор. But the last “rz” pruduces “sh” without any final “r” sound at all? So transliterated as something like “Gryegosh”?
No. RZ is an "expalatal", meaning, "formerly (ex) soft but now hard." RZ is a hard sound, exactly equivalent to Ż and Russian ж. In both Polish and Russian (and many other languages, including English) the voicing of consonants is affected by contiguity to other consonants and also by position. In GRZEGORZ the first RZ is pronounced exactly like Russian ж or Polish Ż and remains voiced because it's next to the voiced G. However, the RZ at the end of the word is devoiced by position--word final voiced consonants are devoiced in Polish, more or less like in German and Russian. Thus, the river Bug is pronounced as if the G were a K, Book instead of Boog. It's all totally consistent and just like Russian in that respect. Regarding the whole system of expalatal consonants you could say that Polish has taken the hard/soft distinction and developed a thoroughgoing and systematic phonology based on it--extending it well beyond Russian. Thus, while Russian ж has an exact Polish equivalent (Ż), Russian has no soft equivalent of ж--Polish Ż does have a soft equivalent. Similarly, Russian ч and щ are always soft, but Polish has both soft and hard versions: ć/cz, ść/szcz (this isn't exactly like щ). Polish phonology is extremely thorough and systematic. It takes certain tendencies and applies them consistently to every conceivable situation.
Again, the Polish system is remarkably similar to Chinese in that one respect.
We need more popcorn.
I think eventually Russia will have to use a nuke on a European country (UK or France) to prove a point to the USA and everyone else. This madness won't stop until then, and even then, maybe the end of "us" is nearer than we realize.
I fear you may be right. Ironically this will play right into the hands of the Russophobes. It will confirm Putin’s reputation as the Hitler of the 21st century and condemn Russian-Western relations to eternal antagonism.
FWIW, this is why I believe Putin won't do it. And he certainly won't do it (drop a nuke) first. I believe he has said this.
It is very unwise to allow persons that are, or have ever been foreign citizens to serve in high offices. They live under every stone, and are always up to no good, I wonder why ???
The Poles bear as much responsibility for starting WWII as anyone. Incredible arrogance. Unbelievable stupidity. Why do most Polish leaders share these qualities?
"Unbelievable stupidity."
He said, looking in the mirror.
???
“The Poles bear as much responsibility for starting WWII as anyone.” Maybe in some alternative universe, but not this one.
Poland keeps disappearing from the world stage and reappearing–but always in a different place. Clearly, geography has a role to play in this. But so does stupidity.
Do you consider that the current Polish government is sane and competent?
Do you consider Pilsudski's government to have been sane and competent?
I rate the current Polish government on the same low level as virtually every other EU government. Lower than Hungary. Piłsudski was both sane and competent. Poland in 1920 had the cards stacked against it. While Piłsudski's initial ambitions were unrealistic, he showed himself able to adapt. His successors were not as capable. However, Poland never really had a chance situated between Germany and the USSR with no counterbalancing great powers. The Polish attempt at neutrality as between Germany and the USSR was sensible, but doomed to fail. But not through stupidity.
Poland's fundamental problem has always been that it's too large to be truly absorbed--the history of Warsaw Pact Poland clearly proves that; even the USSR backed off from imposing itself as it did in Hungary and Czecho--but not large enough to ignore its powerful neighbors. The current government has shown itself far less competent and sane than Piłsudski in attempting to align itself closely with a Neocon led US government.
Your harping on "stupidity" shows your own stupidity, as did your assertion that Poland "caused" WW2.
Many of us here can be rightly criticized, I think, for assigning 'stupidity' as an explanation for this or that when a more thoughtful explanation would probably be more accurate.
Radosław Sikorski is married to Anne Applebaum who might well be Victoria Nuland's doppelgänger.
This guy also tweeted "thank you USA" immediately after the nord stream pipelines blew up, effectively misdirecting responsibility away from the four Ukrainians in a rented yacht.
LOL!
These maniacs still think the Russians are bluffing, or even worse, that they could win a nuclear war against them. Where are all those lefty Euro anti-war protesters from the 1980s?
While we’re at it, whatever happened to the American anti-war Left? It’s the strangest thing, like someone just threw a switch and suddenly shut it down around 2008.
Opposition to war becomes a tougher place to be when the erstwhile opponent is the one conducting the war, n'est-ce pas, mon Frère?
I agree but with a caveat. Leftist opposition to war managed to be expressed under Demonrat presidents — LBJs progressive bona fides didn’t help him in this regard. So it’s not a partisan issue as much as it is ideological.
I suspect the recent shift in polarity has to do with the leftists’ pavlovian reaction to anything labelled right-wing or “fascist”. Wars in the Cold War era were fought against leftist regimes — ergo, they were Bad. Twentieth-first century wars, on the other hand, have been successfully coded as anti-fascist. So they are Good. Plus, with the demise of Communism, Liberalism (i.e., muh Democracy) is the only remaining progressive ideology for Leftists to rally around. That’s how erstwhile Trotskyites become neocons, who in turn, become indistinguishable from neolibs.
In short, leftists have never been anti-war, per se. They have only been against “reactionary” wars. Lenin is the poster child here. He opposed World War I as bad because “imperialism.” But in the same breath he advocated converting that very same war into a class war and, voila, its now a righteous cause.
Yes. I agree with you.
Perhaps an additional 'caveat' is that offensive war is often a thing which those who crave power and money do.
Poseidon, anyone? I wonder if they are deployed in numbers yet.
Propaganda is such a powerful conditioning agent...