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Friend's comment: > Konichiwa, Brzęczyszczykiewicz-san.

by voytec 1y ago

veggieroll 1y ago
> Brzęczyszczykiewicz For anyone not familiar, this is a Polish joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfKZclMWS1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfKZclMWS1U
- bobmcnamara 1y ago
  Born?
  - veggieroll 1y ago
    Chrząszczyżewoszyce powiat Łękołody
- arwhatever 1y ago
  That is hilarious and would be hilarious even without any context. If I don't bookmark it now then I'll never be able to find it again. :-)
pavlov 1y ago
Sometimes I wonder why Polish didn’t replace the z digrams with accented letters (č, ž etc.) like many other Slavic languages.
- voytec 1y ago
  Why would we? It "just works". We've only changed how we write the letter "ż" some 30-20 years ago. It was previously "ƶ". Also, "ż" and "ź" are not accents but separate alphabet letters.
  - zbyforgotp 1y ago
    There was no typeface change for “ż” - the other typeface is sometimes used now as it was 30 years ago. See the foto at Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BB https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BB
    - voytec 1y ago
      Early primary schooling in the early 90s and some preschool teaching in the late 80s taught me to write "ż" as a "ƶ"[0]. > It represents the same sound in the Polish alphabet, remaining in active usage by some as an alternative for the letter Ż (called "Z with overdot"). > In Polish, the character Ƶ is used as an allographic variant of the letter ⟨Ż⟩ (called "Z with overdot") although once used in Old Polish. Funnily, there's a counter-argument to "Straż Miejska" from article you linked, with "Straƶ Miejska" in another Wikipedia entry[1] :) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_with_stroke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_with_stroke [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Straz_plakietka.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Straz_plakietka.svg
      - zbyforgotp 1y ago
        I started school in 1980 and I don’t remember this. Also books don’t use this typeface no matter how old.
        voytec 1y ago
        And yet, you can see the "Straƶ Miejska" logotype linked in my comment above, with a crown on the eagle, so post-December 31, 1989[0]. It may depend on the region (I was raised in the eastern Poland) but I also remember that in the primary school we used a different symbol for the letter "s". But only in hand-writing while any printed "s" looked like it does currently. I'm unable to find the UTF-8 character resembling the hand-written version. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Poland# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Poland#
- cenamus 1y ago
  Additionally, Polish also has more different consonants that e.g. Czech, where the haček accents were first introduced. sz contrast with ś/si, as does cz and ć/ci, or ż/rz and ź/zi, or dż and dź/dzi (might have swapped one or two) Add in some good etymological reasons why the consonant+i combinations are not respelled and the whole thing makes a lot of sense.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    You could also look at Croatian, which has a similar contrast with e.g. "C", so they use "č" and "ć". This could be easily extended to "s" and "z". Or you could take "ż" and apply the same diacritic to "c" and "s". "rz" is a bit of a special case since it's pretty much etymological - what used to be "r", and corresponds to "r" in the same roots in other Slavic languages, but became to be pronounced like "ź" in Polish. What to do about it depends on whether you want your orthography to be purely phonemic (a better choice IMO, just look at South Slavic languages - it works great for them!) or retain the etymological distinction. But even then it would be better off as a diacritic. What would be really neat tho is having a single Latin-based notation that works consistently across all Slavic languages, similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Turkic_alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Turkic_alphabet. For example, we could use cedilla to represent post-alveolars: ç and ş - and then use acute accent to indicate palatalization ("softness"). So e.g in Czech you'd only need s/ş, in Polish you'd use s/ş/ş́, and in Russian you'd have all four possible combinations s/ś/ş/ş́.
    - voytec 1y ago
      > "rz" is a bit of a special case (...) pronounced like "ź" in Polish Tiny correction: "rz" is spelled exactly like "ż", while "ź" sounds differently.
- abraxas 1y ago
  Ah but we have those too :) The 'rz' phoneme has the same sound as the letter 'ż' which is a different sound from the letter 'ź' (the latter being a softer sound - one that foreigners usually find easier to reproduce). Whether you write a word with the 'rz' or the 'ż' is governed by a set of orthographic rules that are of course peppered with numerous exceptions.
- keiferski 1y ago
  At this point it’s a unique aspect of the language, so much so that changing sz to š for example would feel like a betrayal. There are also a few letters without similar sounds in other Slavic languages (ą and ę) so you’d end up retaining those anyway.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    Those make sense since they aren't digraphs. But c'mon, comparing Czech to Polish, it's pretty clear which orthography was designed first, and which learned from the mistakes of the other :)
    - lifestyleguru 1y ago
      Ok, is it a declaration of war?!
      - voytec 1y ago
        Naaah, let's exchange knedlíky and pierogi recipes, make silly jokes about the other language over a few beers and we're good.
- regnull 1y ago
  Why not have both?
- forinti 1y ago
  Cyrillic would fit so much better.
- sph 1y ago
  You’ll soon find that languages evolved over centuries do not care about consistency and simplicity in grammar rules.

Friend's comment: > Konichiwa, Brzęczyszczykiewicz-san.

by voytec 1y ago

Friend's comment: > Konichiwa, Brzęczyszczykiewicz-san.

> Brzęczyszczykiewicz For anyone not familiar, this is a Polish joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfKZclMWS1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfKZclMWS1U

bobmcnamara 1y ago
Born?
- veggieroll 1y ago
  Chrząszczyżewoszyce powiat Łękołody
arwhatever 1y ago
That is hilarious and would be hilarious even without any context. If I don't bookmark it now then I'll never be able to find it again. :-)

pavlov 1y ago

Sometimes I wonder why Polish didn’t replace the z digrams with accented letters (č, ž etc.) like many other Slavic languages.

voytec 1y ago
Why would we? It "just works". We've only changed how we write the letter "ż" some 30-20 years ago. It was previously "ƶ". Also, "ż" and "ź" are not accents but separate alphabet letters.
- zbyforgotp 1y ago
  There was no typeface change for “ż” - the other typeface is sometimes used now as it was 30 years ago. See the foto at Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BB https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BB
  - voytec 1y ago
    Early primary schooling in the early 90s and some preschool teaching in the late 80s taught me to write "ż" as a "ƶ"[0]. > It represents the same sound in the Polish alphabet, remaining in active usage by some as an alternative for the letter Ż (called "Z with overdot"). > In Polish, the character Ƶ is used as an allographic variant of the letter ⟨Ż⟩ (called "Z with overdot") although once used in Old Polish. Funnily, there's a counter-argument to "Straż Miejska" from article you linked, with "Straƶ Miejska" in another Wikipedia entry[1] :) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_with_stroke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_with_stroke [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Straz_plakietka.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Straz_plakietka.svg
    - zbyforgotp 1y ago
      I started school in 1980 and I don’t remember this. Also books don’t use this typeface no matter how old.
      - voytec 1y ago
        And yet, you can see the "Straƶ Miejska" logotype linked in my comment above, with a crown on the eagle, so post-December 31, 1989[0]. It may depend on the region (I was raised in the eastern Poland) but I also remember that in the primary school we used a different symbol for the letter "s". But only in hand-writing while any printed "s" looked like it does currently. I'm unable to find the UTF-8 character resembling the hand-written version. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Poland# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Poland#
cenamus 1y ago
Additionally, Polish also has more different consonants that e.g. Czech, where the haček accents were first introduced. sz contrast with ś/si, as does cz and ć/ci, or ż/rz and ź/zi, or dż and dź/dzi (might have swapped one or two) Add in some good etymological reasons why the consonant+i combinations are not respelled and the whole thing makes a lot of sense.
- int_19h 1y ago
  You could also look at Croatian, which has a similar contrast with e.g. "C", so they use "č" and "ć". This could be easily extended to "s" and "z". Or you could take "ż" and apply the same diacritic to "c" and "s". "rz" is a bit of a special case since it's pretty much etymological - what used to be "r", and corresponds to "r" in the same roots in other Slavic languages, but became to be pronounced like "ź" in Polish. What to do about it depends on whether you want your orthography to be purely phonemic (a better choice IMO, just look at South Slavic languages - it works great for them!) or retain the etymological distinction. But even then it would be better off as a diacritic. What would be really neat tho is having a single Latin-based notation that works consistently across all Slavic languages, similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Turkic_alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Turkic_alphabet. For example, we could use cedilla to represent post-alveolars: ç and ş - and then use acute accent to indicate palatalization ("softness"). So e.g in Czech you'd only need s/ş, in Polish you'd use s/ş/ş́, and in Russian you'd have all four possible combinations s/ś/ş/ş́.
  - voytec 1y ago
    > "rz" is a bit of a special case (...) pronounced like "ź" in Polish Tiny correction: "rz" is spelled exactly like "ż", while "ź" sounds differently.
abraxas 1y ago
Ah but we have those too :) The 'rz' phoneme has the same sound as the letter 'ż' which is a different sound from the letter 'ź' (the latter being a softer sound - one that foreigners usually find easier to reproduce). Whether you write a word with the 'rz' or the 'ż' is governed by a set of orthographic rules that are of course peppered with numerous exceptions.
keiferski 1y ago
At this point it’s a unique aspect of the language, so much so that changing sz to š for example would feel like a betrayal. There are also a few letters without similar sounds in other Slavic languages (ą and ę) so you’d end up retaining those anyway.
- int_19h 1y ago
  Those make sense since they aren't digraphs. But c'mon, comparing Czech to Polish, it's pretty clear which orthography was designed first, and which learned from the mistakes of the other :)
  - lifestyleguru 1y ago
    Ok, is it a declaration of war?!
    - voytec 1y ago
      Naaah, let's exchange knedlíky and pierogi recipes, make silly jokes about the other language over a few beers and we're good.
regnull 1y ago
Why not have both?
forinti 1y ago
Cyrillic would fit so much better.
sph 1y ago
You’ll soon find that languages evolved over centuries do not care about consistency and simplicity in grammar rules.