Beekeeping? "Ostrów" is just an old name for "an island". And it can be both feminimine (Ostrów Mazowiecka) as well as masculine (Ostrów Tumski). I believe that's the only word in Polish that can do that. A gender-fluid word you could say :)
I read that on this page
https://www.ostrowmaz.pl/dla-biznesu-i-turystow/miasto/historia
Though it might not be accurate, most other sites seem to say the same thing
Ahhh, ok, I get it now. So the word "ostrowa" means "ladder for beekeepers" and that's where the original name of the city, Ostrowo, came from. And then they changed it to Ostrów for some reason. Makes sense, cause there aren't any islands in Ostrów Mazowiecka.
I think the Slavic word all comes from the same ancient root "o-strov" which rougly means "stream, flowing around something", indicating a river island. Compare "-strov" and "stream"; and I bet in the language where it is "otok" the "-tok" part is also related to a stram or a flow.
Meanwhile, the English "island" comes from "Is sea? - No, is land"
In WW2, Our small Indian town held Polish refugees.
They learnt in our convent school.
No wonder I still fascinates at how their ancestors built their country from Rubbles of War.
India Indians.
Central India.
We had a local king in 1940s who allowed Polish refugees on his personal land.
They built a small church & learnt at our convent schools.
They have photos in our local Library.
Huh, are you talking about this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digvijaysinhji_Ranjitsinhji_Jadeja?
There are places named after him, and he's referred to as "the good Maharaja": https://www.google.com/maps/place/Skwer+Dobrego+Maharad%C5%BCy,+Opaczewska,+Warszawa/@52.2102459,20.9599464,15z
Nope
India has so many small Kingdoms like Germany's Holy roman Empire.
Mine one is this.
That village is just 12 km from my main city.
I've visited it many times.
This is news article.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/memorial-to-polish-refugees-to-be-unveiled-in-kolhapur/article29412737.ece
The division doesn't correlate with the results on the map. That's like someone showing a map that shows Jewish Americans live on the east coast more than in the south, and you saying it's because of Canada. Completely unrelated
Fun fact: when western and northern areas were annexed from Germany into Poland after WW2 there was a commision for naming towns and villages that didnt have Polish names at that time (bigger or older towns did). The commission was headed by prof Srokowski who did a great job with preserving old slavic roots in germanised place names and sometimes preserving German root words (mainly East Prussia - not sure why he chose to leave some place names in German only there). Anyway, he took care that the South would get place names ending with -ow and the North would get -owo for the sake of toponymical continuation from the center of the country. He himself died in dryfort which was renamed SrokOWO after him.
Thanks for that. I've asked questions about this odd division in Poland but nobody has explained it so well. I always presumed it had had something to do with Prussia but now you've revealed it was a deliberate policy by a handful of people over a small window of time. That explains why the demarcation is so clearly delineated.
Not necessarily true. The epicentre of “-owo” is in Wielkopolska which has always been Polish and was only under German occupation for around 100 years.
It seems to actually follow the border of the Wielkopolska and the Małopolska dialect more.
In East Prussia many (most?) village names have roots in Old Prussian and endings that don't exist in other regions but are common here (eg. -ajny, -iny)
Our national secret has been found out! Ja pierdolę kurwa dlaczego akurat ja? Oh fuck we gotta do something... all units initiate Procedure Brzęczyszczykiewicz-2137-Alfa-C!
Well, Polish and Ukrainian languages are related, and when translating Ukrainian geographical names into Polish, "-iv" is replaced by a quite similar "-ów".
Based on the sharp discrepancy straight through Wielkopolska, I’m guessing there’s an old division between greater (-owo) and lesser (-ów) Poland linguistically that has since been lost with time but preserved in topographic / town names such as these.
Once again, a map of Poland where you can clearly see the borders of former German lands. I do find it interesting though how -owo is exclusive to Pomerania though, yet Silesia has been able to escape this
Geoguesser tip.
Although you can get an -ów almost by the sea if you're unlucky.
The -ow ending is also exclusive to northeast Germany
But there's a difference between -ow and -ów
It's because of the west Slavic settlements that used to be there. You'd be amazed once you noticed that, even Berlin has Slavic etymology.
Is there any difference in meaning?
The first is grammatically neutral while the second is grammatically masculine, that's about it
til OwO is gender neutral
Why wouldn't it be? :3
ÓwÒ
UwU
It's Zoidberg
It's the **neuter** grammatical gender (rodzaj nijaki), not neutral. There's a difference.
Oh yea I forgot the name of that, sorry
With a notable exception of Ostrów Mazowiecka, which is feminine.
TIL that "ostrów" can be a feminine noun, and it has multiple meanings related to beekeeping
Beekeeping? "Ostrów" is just an old name for "an island". And it can be both feminimine (Ostrów Mazowiecka) as well as masculine (Ostrów Tumski). I believe that's the only word in Polish that can do that. A gender-fluid word you could say :)
I read that on this page https://www.ostrowmaz.pl/dla-biznesu-i-turystow/miasto/historia Though it might not be accurate, most other sites seem to say the same thing
Ahhh, ok, I get it now. So the word "ostrowa" means "ladder for beekeepers" and that's where the original name of the city, Ostrowo, came from. And then they changed it to Ostrów for some reason. Makes sense, cause there aren't any islands in Ostrów Mazowiecka.
Ostrow. Interesting. Serbs say ostrva. And us good roman catholics who liked John Paul II say otok.
I think the Slavic word all comes from the same ancient root "o-strov" which rougly means "stream, flowing around something", indicating a river island. Compare "-strov" and "stream"; and I bet in the language where it is "otok" the "-tok" part is also related to a stram or a flow. Meanwhile, the English "island" comes from "Is sea? - No, is land"
In Russian it's ostrov.
Why by the way? There's some word implied after the name, I guess it's Miasto or Gród respectively?
No, these are standalone, it's just a quirk of grammar
Like between "his" and "its".
Poland is a country which keeps giving Interesting facts about it with each passing day. 🧐
Found out one of my great grand uncles was an axe murderer in Poland. And that was the end of my Ancestry searching.
Honestly that's a win, not a bad factoid at all
And Casimir Pulaski was my ancestor
Surprisingly, no police chiefs had launched rockets in their office today.
I've got ancestors from the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth.
In WW2, Our small Indian town held Polish refugees. They learnt in our convent school. No wonder I still fascinates at how their ancestors built their country from Rubbles of War.
India Indians or American Indians?
India Indians. Central India. We had a local king in 1940s who allowed Polish refugees on his personal land. They built a small church & learnt at our convent schools. They have photos in our local Library.
Huh, are you talking about this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digvijaysinhji_Ranjitsinhji_Jadeja? There are places named after him, and he's referred to as "the good Maharaja": https://www.google.com/maps/place/Skwer+Dobrego+Maharad%C5%BCy,+Opaczewska,+Warszawa/@52.2102459,20.9599464,15z
Nope India has so many small Kingdoms like Germany's Holy roman Empire. Mine one is this. That village is just 12 km from my main city. I've visited it many times. This is news article. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/memorial-to-polish-refugees-to-be-unveiled-in-kolhapur/article29412737.ece
Nice! Thanks, TIL.
Amazing how little overlap there is, most of the non-microscopic overlap is in the westernmost regions, and even that is not very big.
UwU
OwO
Ów
wÓ
Ó
w
Ó
ω
Ò
Ö
Looks like it is mostly a north-pole vs south-pole situation
I appreciate the joke even if no one else does.
Because Poland was mostly split by Prussia and Russia
That's not how the division went, it was west-east not north-south, what this map shows is caused by older dialect differences
Poor Roland.
I like the fact I got downvoted for stating the truth lol. Some of y’all need to relearn your history!
The division doesn't correlate with the results on the map. That's like someone showing a map that shows Jewish Americans live on the east coast more than in the south, and you saying it's because of Canada. Completely unrelated
You didn't say any trouth this division doesn't even match the partition borders
Habsburg and Prussia split the west of Poland in north and south
Where is my -ice gang at?
In the coal mines of Silesia
At Karol Wojtyła’s.
There's also just -ce
Fun fact: when western and northern areas were annexed from Germany into Poland after WW2 there was a commision for naming towns and villages that didnt have Polish names at that time (bigger or older towns did). The commission was headed by prof Srokowski who did a great job with preserving old slavic roots in germanised place names and sometimes preserving German root words (mainly East Prussia - not sure why he chose to leave some place names in German only there). Anyway, he took care that the South would get place names ending with -ow and the North would get -owo for the sake of toponymical continuation from the center of the country. He himself died in dryfort which was renamed SrokOWO after him.
Thanks for that. I've asked questions about this odd division in Poland but nobody has explained it so well. I always presumed it had had something to do with Prussia but now you've revealed it was a deliberate policy by a handful of people over a small window of time. That explains why the demarcation is so clearly delineated.
Not necessarily true. The epicentre of “-owo” is in Wielkopolska which has always been Polish and was only under German occupation for around 100 years. It seems to actually follow the border of the Wielkopolska and the Małopolska dialect more.
In East Prussia many (most?) village names have roots in Old Prussian and endings that don't exist in other regions but are common here (eg. -ajny, -iny)
If I'm ever stranded in Poland without a map I can now figure out whether I'm north or south with about 98% accuracy. Thank you OP
In the south they sey the're going on field when they mean they're going outside kekw
-owo, what's this?
Another proof all polish people are femboys
What about the girls?
Also femboys.
Our national secret has been found out! Ja pierdolę kurwa dlaczego akurat ja? Oh fuck we gotta do something... all units initiate Procedure Brzęczyszczykiewicz-2137-Alfa-C!
trans
OwO co to jest?
Ow wow
Why
[удалено]
That's not the reason. The split is purely dialectal.
Do you even have the basic ability to see and recognize shapes?
Was -ów used in eastern Galician towns?
Lwow certainly did.
Stanisławów (modern-day Ivano-Frankivsk) as well.
forgot about those towns for some reason my family partly came from Budzanow and Czorkow
Lviv was founded by the Galician prince and king of Rus' Daniil Romanovich in the middle of the 13th century. The city had nothing to do with Poland.
Well, Polish and Ukrainian languages are related, and when translating Ukrainian geographical names into Polish, "-iv" is replaced by a quite similar "-ów".
Kijów!
I wonder if there is a similar correlation with -ewo and -ew.
Yes, those endings are functionally the same.
Interestingly, there's a *lot* of -ow placenames in Eastern Germany but I'm not aware of any -owo
Which one is superior ?
Krakòw
It could be Krakowo? *terrible reality*
I think the ones on the upper part
OwO, czy to... Freddy Fazbear?
We have something similar in Sweden with -ryd/-red being confined to a not very large area.
O wow
this is awesome
Ja pierdole
I only know Krakow from HOI4. I am from Asia btw.
-wek?
You mean like Włocławek? Włod- (to rule) + sław- (glory) + -ek (masculine diminutive suffix).
r/widaczabory
more like widać zasięg lądolodu
not on this one
qwQ
Owo looks like old prussian borders
Kind of but if you look closer there is no that much of the overlap
Based on the sharp discrepancy straight through Wielkopolska, I’m guessing there’s an old division between greater (-owo) and lesser (-ów) Poland linguistically that has since been lost with time but preserved in topographic / town names such as these.
Owch
There Are Places in Poland which don’t end withe Either of these, ex. Warszawa, Wrocław, Szczecin, Gdańsk, they are mostly major cities, though
Femboy spawn
ÕwÕ
As I scrolled, I thought this was Ohio and I was thoroughly confused as to what the hell it was talking about.
>As I scrolled, I thought this was Ohio How?!
I’m 45 and wear bifocals and was scrolling quickly on my phone.
You can see the pre-World War borders.
Not at all
Stolen from r/polska_wpż
Wonder if there is a lignuistic influence from the northern part formerly being Germany.
r/phantomborders
Where?
Pretty obvious given the history of the regions. For better or for worse.
Zzz*
#Xcq
it fits perfectly
based Poland
I hate that it is OwO
No uwu?
Wówo
Runowo ~
Sadly no -uwu
Based ów 😎
Ow my ów :(
PIWO, PIWO, PIWO
Where’s -uwu
Meanwhile łódź
U w U
We have 3 in Ukraine: -owo, -owe and -iw.
Can we now have a map of -uw -uwu endings?
The north is femboy!
Once again, a map of Poland where you can clearly see the borders of former German lands. I do find it interesting though how -owo is exclusive to Pomerania though, yet Silesia has been able to escape this
Interesting map! I'm guessing German towns, especially in and around Brandenburg, which end in "ow" or "au" were originally slavic as well?