Comments on: Polish Homonyms (or is it homophones?)

By: Jessia

Jessia — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:30:20 +0000

so does zamek (błyskawiczny – zipper). Can you think of any less related ones?

By: Mchl

Mchl — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:34:31 +0000

“Zamek” comes from “zamykać” (to close) either a door to the room, or people within walls

Also, old Polish word for “zamek” as a building is “kasztel” where you can see some similarity to English ‘castle’

By: Jessia

Jessia — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:12:49 +0000

pociąg (train) and pociąg (e.g. do alkoholu – a penchant for, to “feel the pull of”).

The difference between most of these Polish homonyms and the English ones is that most of the Polish ones seem to be logically related (e.g. tępy – it’s not rocket science to figure out how and why blunt (knife) is related to dense/stoopid as in the local village idiot). The possible exception here is zamek, but even here it’s all to do with securing things in various ways, whether by stone walls or innovative interlocking teeth.
So are these really homonyms or just extensions of meaning of a single root. I mean, it’s not exactly like “bear” (grizzly) and “bear ” (carry), is it?

By: russ

russ — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:09:17 +0000

zamek (castle, zipper, lock, …) seems to be a classic example…

various nouns in different cases that are coincidentally the same form, often singular nominative of one and plural genitive of another, e.g. “matematyk” (a male mathematician, or plural genitive of mathematics), “rad” (the element radium, or plural genitive of advice), etc.

panstwo (country, or Mr & Mrs)

By: GNeuner

GNeuner — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:21:54 +0000

I am a German learning Polish, and I have to admit that I am always amazed at how similar German is to Polish. Not in the words as such of course (one being a Slavic, the other a Germanic language), but in the way both languages form their words.
Himmel in German is pretty much the same as niebo, when we first learned English we had a small problem as to why that simple word was supposed to be two different ones in the new language…
The same as the combination of right/law: in Polish prawo, in German Recht.
And I come across things like that all the time. The words have completely different origins, but they are used the same way in both languages.