Poland, Ponderables, and Peculiar Picture Posing
I went to Poland this past weekend, and saw some old friends. It was great to see familiar faces, and yet another city in Warsaw. It was also nice training martial arts again, something I hadn't done since I left the States. Warsaw was *cold*, but lots of fun. The trip was very informative, too. That city was so shaped by WWII, when it was completely decimated, that practically everything has been rebuilt since then. Kyoshi contantly commented on how new everything was, and how this building and that mall and that park weren't in existence 15 years ago. Truly a city on the fast upswing.
Going there, and seeing where that country's flagship city is 15 years after Communism, and comparing it to that of the Czech Republic, is also pretty remarkable. Prague seems to have a pretty unique sense of lethargy or indifference. Not apathy, but more of a "eh, it doesn't matter so much." Warsaw seemed to have a much stronger rebounding force. The architecture there was also quite different from Prague, which is to be expected, given that much of Prague's architecture was designed a very long time ago, while Warsaw's is within the last 50 years, and really, much more so in the last 15.
And while the Czech language is difficult, I found Polish even tougher. The only reason being that Czech is completely phonetic. Even words with crazy letter combinations like "zmrzlina" are pronounced exactly how they are written. But Polish has consonant combinations with new pronunciations the way English does. For instance, the combination "sz" is like the s in "treasure", "w"s sound like "v"s and they have other letters - e's and a's with cedilles on them, and l's with slashes through them.
Yet one of these combinations did shed some light on a mystery I've wondered about for quite some time. I've been curious as to why the word "Czech" is spelled as it is. I can't think of the letter combination "cz" appearing anywhere else in the English language (and even you came across it, would you think to pronounce it as a "ch"?). But, in Polish (and, I would imagine, in other Slavic languages too), "cz" is pronounced as "ch" in English. (AHA!)
Other ponderables:
in English we have hummed communication, such as "mmhmm" for yes, "mm-mm" for no, etc. Do these hummed sounds carry over from one language to the next?
Who are "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" in other languages?
My friend Ben and I went out for a beer and some soup the other night. At the table next to us there was this couple in their early 40s(ish). They were clearly not from Prague, and were having trouble getting the attention of the waitresses. Ben and I told them to say the magic word "prosim" to get the staff's attention. They thanked us. No biggie... or so it seemed.
Well, a short bit later, Ben and I got up to leave. Immediately, the woman we aided jumped up and handed us her camera. We said, "Sure, we'll take a picture of you..." but that was not her intention. She wanted her man to take a picture of her with the two of us. She stands face-to-face with Ben, literally about 6 inches from his face, looking him up and down. She tries to pull his jacket down off his shoulders, and Ben pulled it back up, saying "No, that's okay. It's fine where it was." Unfazed, she tried again, and again he pulled it back up, reinforcing his no.
The lady then, in a tone of voice which was full of honor, luck, and awe, said, "Punks." She was apparently honored to be taking her picture with two "punks"... She then turns to me, about 6-8 inches from my face, and stares at me. It was a very odd look. She poses for the picture between Ben and myself, and her mate snaps a photo. Ben and I looked at each other and said, "uhh.. ok... we're gonna go now...", but she wanted to take another picture.
For the second picture, she turns her head towards me, and leans in as if she wants to kiss me. I believe my exact thoughts were "Wtf?" The second picture is taken with her leaning in towards me. Then, as we're leaving, the lady thanks us profusely in Russian. "Sposibo sposibo sposibo sposibo..." I reply "pejalsta" and we leave. That ranks up there with the odder experiences I've had in my life...
One last thought -
A comment left on a previous post talked about "333 silver firehose nozzles..." What that is, in Czech, is a phrase used to teach Czech children how to pronounce the Czech letter ř. The pronunciation is - at the SAME time - that of a rolling "r" as exists in Spanish, and the "zh" sound that the "s" makes in "treasure." Go ahead, try it. I dare you.
One of my students introduced me to this phrase, and it got me thinking about that ř sound. If it is so unnatural to the human mouth that even children - who are designed to learn language and speech - have trouble learning it, does anyone else out there think that maybe, perhaps, that sound just may be wise to eliminate from the language entirely? That thought isn't based on a "I'm American, so you should talk my way" idea, but rather, more of a "That's just damn hard for everyone, so maybe everyone's lives would be eased if it's removed..."
Going there, and seeing where that country's flagship city is 15 years after Communism, and comparing it to that of the Czech Republic, is also pretty remarkable. Prague seems to have a pretty unique sense of lethargy or indifference. Not apathy, but more of a "eh, it doesn't matter so much." Warsaw seemed to have a much stronger rebounding force. The architecture there was also quite different from Prague, which is to be expected, given that much of Prague's architecture was designed a very long time ago, while Warsaw's is within the last 50 years, and really, much more so in the last 15.
And while the Czech language is difficult, I found Polish even tougher. The only reason being that Czech is completely phonetic. Even words with crazy letter combinations like "zmrzlina" are pronounced exactly how they are written. But Polish has consonant combinations with new pronunciations the way English does. For instance, the combination "sz" is like the s in "treasure", "w"s sound like "v"s and they have other letters - e's and a's with cedilles on them, and l's with slashes through them.
Yet one of these combinations did shed some light on a mystery I've wondered about for quite some time. I've been curious as to why the word "Czech" is spelled as it is. I can't think of the letter combination "cz" appearing anywhere else in the English language (and even you came across it, would you think to pronounce it as a "ch"?). But, in Polish (and, I would imagine, in other Slavic languages too), "cz" is pronounced as "ch" in English. (AHA!)
Other ponderables:
My friend Ben and I went out for a beer and some soup the other night. At the table next to us there was this couple in their early 40s(ish). They were clearly not from Prague, and were having trouble getting the attention of the waitresses. Ben and I told them to say the magic word "prosim" to get the staff's attention. They thanked us. No biggie... or so it seemed.
Well, a short bit later, Ben and I got up to leave. Immediately, the woman we aided jumped up and handed us her camera. We said, "Sure, we'll take a picture of you..." but that was not her intention. She wanted her man to take a picture of her with the two of us. She stands face-to-face with Ben, literally about 6 inches from his face, looking him up and down. She tries to pull his jacket down off his shoulders, and Ben pulled it back up, saying "No, that's okay. It's fine where it was." Unfazed, she tried again, and again he pulled it back up, reinforcing his no.
The lady then, in a tone of voice which was full of honor, luck, and awe, said, "Punks." She was apparently honored to be taking her picture with two "punks"... She then turns to me, about 6-8 inches from my face, and stares at me. It was a very odd look. She poses for the picture between Ben and myself, and her mate snaps a photo. Ben and I looked at each other and said, "uhh.. ok... we're gonna go now...", but she wanted to take another picture.
For the second picture, she turns her head towards me, and leans in as if she wants to kiss me. I believe my exact thoughts were "Wtf?" The second picture is taken with her leaning in towards me. Then, as we're leaving, the lady thanks us profusely in Russian. "Sposibo sposibo sposibo sposibo..." I reply "pejalsta" and we leave. That ranks up there with the odder experiences I've had in my life...
One last thought -
A comment left on a previous post talked about "333 silver firehose nozzles..." What that is, in Czech, is a phrase used to teach Czech children how to pronounce the Czech letter ř. The pronunciation is - at the SAME time - that of a rolling "r" as exists in Spanish, and the "zh" sound that the "s" makes in "treasure." Go ahead, try it. I dare you.
One of my students introduced me to this phrase, and it got me thinking about that ř sound. If it is so unnatural to the human mouth that even children - who are designed to learn language and speech - have trouble learning it, does anyone else out there think that maybe, perhaps, that sound just may be wise to eliminate from the language entirely? That thought isn't based on a "I'm American, so you should talk my way" idea, but rather, more of a "That's just damn hard for everyone, so maybe everyone's lives would be eased if it's removed..."
posted by David at 8:24 PM
2 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
My favorite Czech word is Slibotechna, meaning Promise-o-matic. It's a person who always goes back on their word.
I don't think anybody will be too successful in convincing Czechs to drop their r hacek. They're very defensive of anything remotely Czech. Have you had them brag to you about Capek inventing the word "robot?"
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