Connections.

[kiya]

We live for words and die for words
Principles we can afford . . .

--"One By One", Chumbawamba

Discussion on rasfc about languages. Political influence on.

My great-grandparents (great-great? Mom hasn't been consistent) were subversives. Taught Polish when it was illegal.

Need to learn language. Honor ancestors who would have died for it.

Memory.

Comments

Similar thought, had to share.

[frozencapybara.livejournal.com]

My grandmother emigrated from Germany before WWII - not immediately before, but soon enough before that she dealt with bullying over her obviously German name in grade school. When her family emigrated, they wanted to seem more "American" - and so the she and her sisters were only allowed to speak English, even at home. She doesn't know German, since she hasn't spoken it since she was too young to remember.
I have long considered this one of the great tragedies of our family history. It's part of why I studied German in college - that, plus learning more about my ancestry (it's amazing how much you can learn about a culture by studying its language), plus I like the way German sounds.

So, what I'm saying here is: go you! Polish! Good! Yay! Or something like that, anyway. :)

Is Polish a Germanic language, or does it have a different root? I know absolutely nothing about it, which is probably bad - I ought to know more about eastern european languages, though Polish is pretty low on my list of ones to study. Hungarian's pretty high, since I'm part Hungarian and the language is supposed to be very strange (i.e. not germanic or romance or any other category - its it's own thing), and Russian just sounds neat. I've never heard Polish spoken.
(By the way: I'm a closet language geek. Can you tell? :)

Re: Similar thought, had to share.

[kiya]

Slavic. Western branch, I believe.

Yeah, western Slavic. (Russian's eastern Slavic.)

It's more or less Latin-alphabet, with a few additions (like three different Zs, which I can't remember which is which in the pronounciations, need to brush up).

Apparently the grammar's a bear. (Inflections through seven cases would just be the beginning!)

Re: Similar thought, had to share.

[larksdream]

It's complicated, but not significantly more so than many languages. I have a friend who is 100% American (by which I mean, unilingual) and he's not doing half bad with it. I lent him some books and things; would you like me to find out what's been most useful for him? Also google for Polish-American organizations in your area (they are called Polonia); there is sure to be a class or two available in a college town.

There are two funky z's (plus the standard vanilla z, which is pronounced as you'd expect). The one with the dot is to z what "sh" is to "s", a "zh" sound like in Zsa Zsa Gabor. The one with the apostrophe-like mark is a softer version, the same sound made with the tongue further forward and its middle pressed up.

Re: Similar thought, had to share.

[kiya]

I know there are Polonia organisations around here; this was a major settling point for a wave of Polish immigration around the Depression.

I would love recommendations. Yay. (I've got one of those tape-learning things around somewhere, which I think will do me for having the sound around to correct myself by, but which are just wrong for actually getting my head to learn stuff.)

Re: Similar thought, had to share.

[larksdream]

I would love recommendations.

I shall inquire from my friend who's learning. :-)

Re: Similar thought, had to share.

[larksdream]

My friend Matt says:

The book I've learned the most from is called "Polish: A Rough Guide Dictionary Phrasebook". It's published by Rough Guides. The book of yours I got the most out of is the "Teach Yourself Polish: A Complete Course for Beginners."
[snip]
I forgot to mention the software I bought which obviously is good since there is some audio involve. It's called "Learn Polish Now". I found it on Amazon.

Re: Similar thought, had to share.

[kiya]

Woot! Danke.

Also woot-woot, one of those I already own. :)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know what that's like. My dad doesn't speak Burmese properly, so he was never able to teach it to me, and every so often I feel there's a huge part of my... makeup that's missing. Rare though it is, I live in London, and could probably take classes at SOAS - but I'm crap at languages, and it wouldn't be the same.

[morningwind.livejournal.com]

My mother has refused to teach me Japanese; the little Japanese I can remember is my grandma's contribution from when I was very young, but most of it has flown out of my head. I considered taking Japanese in college, but was surprised at the intensity of Mom's diapproval. The way she talked me out of it was by reminding me of how difficult the language is (she's right about that) and how having to study it in college would be miserable, what with 8:00 classes everyday and Language Learning Lab time and etc.

It's not that Mom's ashamed of Japanese culture (she even majored in East Asian Studies), but she certainly resents it...and I think her opposition to me learning Japanese stems from that, and perhaps a desire to "shield" me from getting hurt. The latter I can understand, but I've never been all starry-eyed about Japan and I fully recognize that in Japan I would only be a gaijin: a foreigner. Still, just learning the language would be awfully nice.

[kiya]

(Heh. I was going to ask if you'd studied any other languages for a moment, and then had a "Duh, right, stupid question" response. ;) Advantage of knowing your high school curriculum, hey wot?)

I've got a number of friends who've studied it (one with a tendency to mutter in it a lot of the time), and some others who have picked up bits from hanging out a lot with the first group.

Do you have any friends who're studying the language? You might be able to pick up bits of it with that sort of osmosis, or even help them with drills and the like.

[morningwind.livejournal.com]

I have friends who like to learn Japanese catch-phrases or curses, but that's about it. ;) I've found that I'm pretty good at understanding my mom and grandma when they speak. Actually reproducing entire sentences? That's a different matter.

I'm going to try to study it on my own, since Japanese classes here are a pretty hefty committment. Good luck with Polish!