Elections in Poland, Liberals win

[Veles]

Yeah, Tusk seems to be a big bro of the Russians, in contrast to Jacek and Pliacek Kacynski.
That photo after Smolensk crash where he gives Putin a hug and sheds a tear is really moving.

Anyway, Tusk what kind of Slavic name is that? I heard he's a Kashubian, perhaps it's their thing.

 

[Leoreth]

Thanks. It's just that the so-called German liberals have abandoned all those angles except economic liberalism.

 

[Algeroth]

Liberal in the European sense means just that, liberal. Both socially and economically, and also pro-European. The Civic Platform is, as far as I understand, a centre-right party.

I agree with you, but PO consider itself to be conservative-liberal party. And that means liberal on economy, conservative on social issues. "Elections in Poland, Liberals win" makes a nice headline, but that's all. OP isn't liberal party.

 

[Winner]

Yeah, but you need to take into account that this is Poland we're talking about. What's standard elsewhere can be considered quite liberal there, especially in contrast to the PiS.

 

[Squonk]

- who is considered the left in Poland? Only the former communists, and isn't there any form of social-democratic/center-left party?

Well, the pre-war PPS (Polish Socialist Party) re-emerged in the 80's and continues to exist, it was even quite noisy in the early 00's, but it's tiny.
The main left-wing force are ex-communists (SLD), but there are several other, smaller left-wing parties.
UP (The Union of Work) was quite important once. it combined both the left-wing of Solidarity and several liberal ex-communists, and it born in the early 90's as a protest against abortion criminalisation and such. But it's completely withered now, and allied with SLD
SdPl (Social-democracy of Poland) are a split-off of SLD. I'd vote for them, if they had any chance.
PPP (Polish Work Party) is a tiny party (0,5% in elections), born out of left-wing Solidarity 1980 trade union.
There are also greens, who are also allied with SLD.
SLD itself was originally a conglomerate of dozens of different fractions and somehow its downfall began when it turned itself into a single unit.

Liberal - it's mostly about economic liberalism, though usually (as in the case of Tusk, but not all PO members) it also means a warm, but not hot, attitude towards the church etc.

- Squonk, does MP really mean member of parliament? Then, just wow.

Yes. And also, the second black MP was elected too.

the black one:

Spoiler :

the gay one:

Spoiler :

the transgendered one:

Spoiler :

Anyway, Tusk what kind of Slavic name is that? I heard he's a Kashubian, perhaps it's their thing.

According to wiki, it originally ment "ace", but as "ace" is a common name for dog in Poland at least (As in most Poland, and Tuz/Tusk in Kashubia), it became a name for all the dogs.

So... Tusk means either "the ace", or "a dog". Strange that nobody used it in political discourse yet.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

"Platforma Obywatelska", what a funny name if you read in Russian, something close to "Philistinist Platform".

 

[Leoreth]

Thanks for your answers.

 

[Veles]

According to wiki, it originally ment "ace", but as "ace" is a common name for dog in Poland at least (As in most Poland, and Tuz/Tusk in Kashubia), it became a name for all the dogs.

So... Tusk means either "the ace", or "a dog". Strange that nobody used it in political discourse yet.

Wait a minute, so this actually means Tuzik? That's how that word sounds in Russian and it too is a generic dog name. I thought it was somehow related to, you know, Toscana or Italian word for "a german" - tudesco or Swedish tysk.

Well, whatever, he still seems to be a decent lad. Infinitely better than Jacek and Placek, anyway (may one of them rest in peace).

"Platforma Obywatelska", what a funny name if you read in Russian, something close to "Philistinist Platform".

Yeah. In Russian the word obyvatel' means "commoner" and has this connotation "a commoner that was just passing by, having nothing to do with the issue". So translated to Russian the party's name would mean "a bunch of people who'll just stand there and observe rather than do anything". Not the best thing to call a party for sure. But, whatever, this shouldn't concern anybody outside Russia.

 

[Winner]

Yeah. In Russian the word obyvatel' means "commoner" and has this connotation "a commoner that was just passing by, having nothing to do with the issue". So translated to Russian the party's name would mean "a bunch of people who'll just stand there and observe rather than do anything". Not the best thing to call a party for sure. But, whatever, this shouldn't concern anybody outside Russia.

This is funny In Czech, obyvatel is a neutral term, it means simply an "inhabitant", someone who lives somewhere. However, when we mean a citizen in the political sense, we say občan. I guess Polish doesn't know this distinction.

 

[Squonk]

"inhabitant" in Polish is "mieszkaniec".
"citizen" is "obywatel".

 

[Veles]

This is funny In Czech, obyvatel is a neutral term, it means simply an "inhabitant", someone who lives somewhere. However, when we mean a citizen in the political sense, we say občan. I guess Polish doesn't know this distinction.

Well, that's a thing about Slavic languages that's misleading: we use the same words, but being all this centuries separated, those words got different connotations, which are not apparent to the foreign Slavic speaker

In Russian this word občan has an obvious realtion to obshina - "a community", hence the Russian obshestvo - "the society in general, as in "human society". Obshinnik would be the direct translation, but this word is cosidered archaic and rarely used.

A Russian word for citizen was initially gorojanin - "the walled city dweller"; eventially it transformed into modern form grajdanin.

"Platforma Obywatelska" translated into Russian would be Grajdanskaya Platforma, all in all - rather bland and not a very arousing name for Russian electorate anyway

"inhabitant" in Polish is "mieszkaniec".

That would be mesh'anin here. And has similiar connotations as German burger - not especially smart and cultured but relatively well-off city dweller.

"Inhabitant" would simply be jytel' or obitatel'.

 

[Squonk]

"burger" in Polish is exactly the same: mieszczanin.

 

[warpus]

This is funny In Czech, obyvatel is a neutral term, it means simply an "inhabitant", someone who lives somewhere. However, when we mean a citizen in the political sense, we say občan. I guess Polish doesn't know this distinction.

We do have this distinction. Obywatel is citizen and Mieszkaniec is inhabitant.. but I'm not really sure which words are in popular use, etc.

edit: xpost, etc.

 

[Veles]

"burger" in Polish is exactly the same: mieszczanin.

mieszczanin

mieszczanin

mieszczanin


While I love Poland and all, I've always wondered how did you manage to survive as a nation with such alphabet?

Szczecin, Krzysztof - so inefficient! Think about how many ink and paper has been unnecessarily wasted spelling those out!

While in magnificent, perfect and God given Cyrillic alphabet we have an elegant letter щ for "szcz", ч for "cz", ц for "ts", ш for "sz", х for "ch" and so on. I mean these are very frequent sounds in Slavic language, Y U NO have separate characters for them?

So Szczecin would be Щецин, Czech - Чех, Krzysztof - Кшиштоф etc.

Just kidding, broski; said all that with the light heart

Polish alphabet has a sense of uniqueness about it fo sho.

 

[Winner]

"inhabitant" in Polish is "mieszkaniec".
"citizen" is "obywatel".

Miešž... what?! Why do you people lisp all the time? Seriously, listening to Polish is like listening to Czech spoken by someone with a with a speech disorder, no offence.

@Veles:
Amen, brother.

 

[Veles]

Miešž... what?! Why do you people lisp all the time? Seriously, listening to Polish is like listening to Czech spoken by someone with a with a speech disorder, no offence.

(plus the word sounds as meškat, which means to linger)

I think it's from mesto, which means "city" in all Slavic languages, excpet Russian where it just means "a place". Oddly enough the word mestechko do mean a small settlement here

I imagine how interesting and intriguing must our rants be to foreigners on here.

@Veles: Amen, brother.

On a side note, how did it happened, that the Cyrillic alphabet didn't gain popularity in Moravia? After all, those Cyril and Methodius bros were making it up specially for Moravians!

 

[Winner]

I think it's from mesto, which means "city" in all Slavic languages, excpet Russian where it just means "a place". Oddly enough the word mestechko do mean a small settlement here

Same as Czech městečko.

If only you didn't use that crazy alphabet. I mean, it was invented here, but we switched to the Latin one due to its obvious superiority

I imagine how interesting and intriguing must our rants be to foreigners on here.

Meh, at least they get the taste of their own medicine, especially the Anglo-Saxons who keep annoying everyone with their absurd little problems all the time

 

[warpus]

Miešž... what?! Why do you people lisp all the time? Seriously, listening to Polish is like listening to Czech spoken by someone with a with a speech disorder, no offence.

Well, they are different languages with common ancestry.. Of course it's going to sound funny to you guys.

Czech sounds like "cute" Polish to me and Russian sounds like drunken Polish

 

[Winner]

Well, they are different languages with common ancestry.. Of course it's going to sound funny to you guys.

Czech sounds like "cute" Polish to me and Russian sounds like drunken Polish

We call it "šišlání" - a speech disorder similar to English "lisp". People who suffer of it can't properly pronounce normal /s/ and /z/ and instead pronounce them as /š/ and /ž/.

The thing is, Polish uses these consonants all the time! To us it sounds like the Poles all suffer of this speech problem

 

[warpus]

There there we'll let you have fun amusing yourself with our superior language and pronunciation. Only for a bit though