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'Poglish', a portmanteau word combining the words "Polish" and "English," designates the product of mixing Polish and English language elements (morphemes, words, grammatical structures, syntactic elements, idioms, etc.) within a single speech production, or the use of cognate words in senses that have diverged from those of the common etymological root.
Such combining or confusion of Polish and English elements, when it occurs within a single word, term or phrase (e.g., in a hybrid word), may, either inadvertently or deliberately, produce a neologism.
Poglish is a common (to greater or lesser degree, almost unavoidable) phenomenon among persons bilingual in Polish and English, and its avoidance requires considerable effort and attention. Poglish is a manifestation of a broader phenomenon, that of language interference.
As is the case with the mixing of other language pairs, the results of Poglish speech (oral or written) may sometimes be confusing, amusing or embarrassing.

Contents

Mis-metaphrase

Footnotes

References

See also

Mis-metaphrase

One of the two chief approaches to translation, "metaphrase" — also referred to as "formal equivalence," "literal translation," or "word-for-word translation" — must be used with great care especially in relation to idioms.^[1] Madeleine Masson, in her biography of the Polish World War II S.O.E. agent Krystyna Skarbek, quotes her as speaking of "lying '''on''' the sun," and astutely surmises that this is "possibly a direct translation from the Polish."^[2] Indeed, the Polish idiom "''leżeć '''na''' słońcu''" is, if anything, marginally less absurd than its English equivalent, "lying '''in''' the sun."^[3]
Some erroneous lexemic substitutions made by ''Polonia'' — members of the Polish diaspora living outside Poland — are attributable not to mis-metaphrase but to confusion of similar-''appearing'' words which otherwise do not share a common etymology '''or''' meaning. Thus some Poles living in Anglophone countries, when speaking of "''cashing'' a check," will erroneously say "''kasować'' czek" ("to ''cancel'' a check") rather than the correct "''realizować'' czek" ("to ''cash'' a check").
In fact, a remarkably high proportion of Polish terms do have precise metaphrastic equivalents in English, traceable to both Indo-European languages having been calqued since the Middle Ages on the same Latin roots.

Footnotes

1. Christopher Kasparek, "The Translator's Endless Toil," ''The Polish Review'', vol. XXVIII, no. 2, 1983, p. 87.
2. Madeleine Masson, ''Christine: a Search for Christine Granville...'', London, Hamish Hamilton, 1975, p. 182.
3. Christopher Kasparek, "Krystyna Skarbek...," ''The Polish Review'', vol. XLIX, no. 3, 2004, p. 950.

References

★ Christopher Kasparek, "The Translator's Endless Toil," ''The Polish Review'', vol. XXVIII, no. 2, 1983, pp. 83-87.

★ Madeleine Masson, ''Christine: a Search for Christine Granville, G.M., O.B.E., Croix de Guerre, with a Foreword by Francis Cammaerts, D.S.O., Légion d'Honneur, Croix de Guerre, U.S. Medal of Freedom'', London, Hamish Hamilton, 1975.

★ Christopher Kasparek, "Krystyna Skarbek: Re-viewing Britain's Legendary Polish Agent," ''The Polish Review'', vol. XLIX, no. 3, 2004, pp. 945-53.

See also

★ Bilingualism

★ Code-switching

★ False friends

★ Hybrid word

★ Language contact

★ Language interference

★ Mixed language