Słowa nowe z pamięci: Żywność II

[muckefuck]

Owoce

arbuz
ananas
borówka
cytryna
czereśnia
figa
jabłko
malina
melon
orzech włoski
orzeszka ziemna
pomarańcza
pomidor
śliwa
winogron
wiśnia
żurawina

Comments

[tisoi.livejournal.com]

hmmm..

arbuz - this sounds familiar, but i do not know what it is.
ananas - pineapple
borówka
cytryna - citrine
czereśnia - cherry?
figa - fig?
jabłko - apple
malina
melon - watermelon
orzech włoski - Italian something?
orzeszka ziemni
pomarańcza - pomegranate?
pomidor
śliwa
winograd - grape?
wiśnia
żurawina

[strongaxe.livejournal.com]

arbuz - watermelon (I had never heard of this one)
ananas - pineapple
borówka - blueberry (I knew this, but couldn't remember what it meant; the dictionary didn't list it either)
cytryna - lemon
czereśnia - sweet cherry
figa - fig
jabłko - apple
malina - raspberry
melon - melon
orzech włoski - walnut (Italian nut)
orzech ziemny - peanut (nut of the earth)
(Perhaps also the feminine diminutive - orzeszka ziemna?)
pomarańcza - orange (perhaps from French pomme orange?)
pomidor - tomato (perhaps from French pomme d'or?)
(it's curious that there is nothing similar to pomme de terre)
śliwa - plum (śliwka is also used)
winogrona - grape
wiśnia - cherry
żurawina - cranberry (I didn't know this one, and neither did the dictionary)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Right idea about pomarańcza except that the proximate source is Italian pomarancio, a variant of dialectal melarancio. Pomeranze exists in some northern German dialects.

Speaking of dialects, the Polish Wikipedia article on "potato" lists eight other names for ziemniak in Polish: bandura, kompera, kartofel, pyra, grula, bulwa, perka, rzepa. Kartofel is an obvious borrowing from German and--according to most of my sources--still the most popular term in Polish. Ziemniak is apparently a neologism (derived from earlier jabłko ziemne) intended to replace it. I suspect kompera and possibly pyra are derived from German as well. Grumbere is a dialect word favoured by the German speakers of the Banat and elsewhere corresponding to Standard German Grundbirne "ground pear"; it's easy to see how kompera could be derived from this by dissimilation. Pyra looks like it could also be a form of German Birne or else a derivative from the same ultimate source (Latin pera). Perka looks like a straightforward diminutive of the Latin word.

Bulwa is actually familiar to me because it was apparently part of the Danziger dialect of German. At least native Danziger Günther Grass uses it in his works.

[strongaxe.livejournal.com]

The two I am familiar with are kartofel (which seemed to be used more generally), and ziemniak (which seemed to be used in the southwest, where my father is from). I also have a vague memory of grule but at the moment, I can't seem to recall the meaning (or singular) of that word. The other terms are unfamiliar to me.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Actually I would've expected kartofel to be the usual word in the southwest, since Silesians have a penchant for Germanisms. Or did you mean "southeast"?

[strongaxe.livejournal.com]

Oops - yes I did. My father is from in and around Nowy Sącz.

(ACK. I have found TWO bugs in LJ javascript:
1) When I click on "More Options..." without checking "check spelling and preview", it immediately submits the post
2) When I click "delete" in IE6, it never acknowledges the button clicks)

[joliecanard.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised by rzepa, that would normally be turnip, as it is in other Slavic languages (Rus, Ukr, Serb, Mak, I'm sure of, at least: repa, also seen as repka).
Oddly though, I have a Mak dictionary that lists repka as beet, which is way off from turnip.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

"Turnip" is its usual meaning in standard Polish as well, but the substitution is not surprising since potatoes displaced turnips from the diets of most Central Europeans. It's somewhat similar to the way in which "corn" came to mean "maize" in the USA although in England it usually designated wheat (and oats in Scotland). Rutabagas were also a relatively late introduction to Poland and came to be called in places rzepa szwedzka "Swedish turnip".

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

wiśnia - cherry

Sour cherry, since you specified "sweet" for the other. In fact, if someone says "cherry" I assume "czereśnia" as default. NB: the name's the same in Turkish. Not sure if it travelled from Slavic to Turkish or vice versa.

żurawina - cranberry (I didn't know this one, and neither did the dictionary)

Interestingly, "żuraw" means "crane", so the bird's associated with the fruit in both languages.

Some very popular fruits you do not list: agrest, porzeczki (żółte, czerwone i czarne), gruszka.

pomarańcza - orange

The arguments as to the gender of this fruit between my parents (who grew up at most 20 miles apart) were endless. So, at least for some Poles "pomarańcz" is also acceptable.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I was banging my head against a wall trying to remember both gruszka and brzoskwinia, but all I could recall for each was the first few letters. I hate it when that happens! For truskawka and dynia, I couldn't even recall that much.

Other terms I memorised and forgot include morwa and głóg; are there specific names for their fruits or would you simply say "owoce (or "jagody") morwy" and "owoce głogu"?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Oh, and on an etymological note: Cranberries are native to North America, so I suspect żurawina is a direct calque on the English.

Since sour cherries are native to Pontus but Turks aren't, I suspect the direction of borrowing was Slavic > Turkic, but I don't have any hard evidence for that. Something about vişne just looks anomalous even if it doesn't actually violate any rules of Anatolian Turkish phonotactics.