V Force Intelligence in Burma

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 86-89:

There were code-breakers too, and radio listening, but possibly the most important of all – especially to those now heading to the front – was V Force.

This extraordinary group of native Burmese under British command operated all along the front and were purely intelligence gatherers and reconnaissance – but they were mightily effective. The commanders had detailed knowledge of the local language, culture and conditions. One of them, based further to the north-east in the Naga Hills, was indicative of the unorthodox approach taken by V Force: Ursula Graham Bower was an anthropologist who had befriended the Naga head-hunters before the war, and, as her Christian name suggested, was a woman.

Another was Captain Anthony Irwin, who was operating in the Arakan, and running his own team under the overall charge of one of the V Force originals, Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Donald.

...

V Force were the eyes and ears of the British effort in the Arakan. While Irwin was dependent on his local recruits to collect intelligence, his task was to be the brains behind the operation. An inadequate brain, it seemed to him to begin with, but he learned quickly enough. On parting, Donald had told him: ‘Trust [your] men with everything you’ve got, and they will never let you down.’ Nearly a year on, Irwin knew those had been wise words indeed.

‘These men’ were Mussulmen – local Muslims who had settled in the area some two hundred years earlier. There was now an ethnic split in the Arakan between Muslim and Maugh, who were Hindu, which had led to civil war in the area as recently as 1941; like any civil conflict, it had been brutal, with entire villages decimated by the opposing factions. The result had been that the southern half of the Arakan was now predominantly Maugh, while the north was almost entirely Muslim. This local tragedy rather played into the hands of the British, however, because the Arakan had been conveniently split into two distinct spheres of influence, something they were able to exploit. Muslims hated Maughs and, because the Maughs were helping the Japanese, they hated the Japanese too. Conversely, the Maughs were willing to work for the Japanese against the Mussulmen and, by association, the British. There were two factors, however, that made this a better deal for the British than for the Japanese. The first was that most of the fighting so far had been in the north of the Arakan, where there were fewer Maughs. The second was that because the Japanese held dear the cult of racial superiority, they treated all conquered people with violent contempt, including the Maughs. Furthermore, because Japanese forces were generally so badly supplied – especially with food – they tended to loot what they could from the Burmese without paying any kind of compensation. This was not conducive to winning trust.

Irwin very quickly became an ardent Burmese Mussulman-ophile. They were tenacious, courageous and had an uncanny knack for remembering data. Details of enemy columns were recalled with accuracy; they could tell Japanese planes from Allied long before Irwin himself could ever distinguish them. They would remember with precision exactly where enemy dispositions were and be able to mark them on a map. ‘If they see a British soldier lying wounded and lost in the jungle, they will get him in somehow,’ noted Irwin. Barney Barnett of 136 Squadron, had first-hand experience of this: ‘If they see a Jap body, they will cut off the head and proudly bring it to me, demanding baksheesh’, he noted.

Once, Irwin was sent a map, beautifully drawn and with Japanese positions clearly marked. Also written on the map was a note. ‘Many Japs are looting the publics,’ had been neatly scrawled in pidgin English. ‘Please tell the bombing mans and bomb nicely. Please tell the bombing mans that there are many good publics near and only to kill the Japanese.’

Polish Realia: Imperatives

Ciągnać 'Pull' [cf. Pociąg 'train', Ger. Zug 'train' < ziehen 'pull']
Chwyć dowolne uchwyty 'Grab any handles [on the equipment]'
Mów, pisz i czytaj [po Japońsku] 'Speak, write and read [Japanese]'
Odkry ponad 70 smaków 'Discover over 70 flavors'
Otwieraj i zamykaj 'Open and close [here]'
Otwórz teraz 'Open now'
Pal tutaj 'Smoke here' [in designated area]
Pchać 'Push'
Pochyl się lekko do przodu 'Lean slightly forward'
Poczekaj tutaj 'Wait here'
Popłyń z nami do Szwecji 'Sail with us to Sweden'
Trzymaj drzwi zamknięte 'Keep door closed'
Siedź prosto 'Sit up straight'
Skontaktuje się 'Contact [us here]'
Skup/Sprzedaż 'Buying/Selling'
Stań przed urządzeniem 'Stand in front of the device'
Ustaw siedzisko 'Adjust the seat'
Wykorzystaj kupon na zakupy 'Take advantage of the coupon for shopping'
Zagłosuj tutaj 'Vote here'
Zamów/Odbierz (tutaj) 'Order/Pick up (here)'
Zeskanuj tutaj 'Scan here'
Znajdź nas 'Find us [here]

Negative imperatives
Nie hałasuj 'Don't make noise'
Nie odrywaj 'Don't tear off'
Nie skacz 'Don't jump'
Zakaz biegania 'No running'
Zakaz palenia 'No smoking'
Zakaz pływania 'No swimming'
Zakaz picia 'No drinking'
Zakaz wjazdu 'No entry'
Zakaz wstępu 'No entry/access'

Clickbait
Dowiedz się więcej 'Find out more'
Kup teraz 'Buy now'
Nowy sezon | Oglądaj teraz 'New season | Watch now'
Pobierz aplikacje 'Download app'
Przeglądaj 'Browse'
Sprawdź 'Check [it out]'
Szczegóły wydarzeń na [URL] 'Details of events at [URL]'
Więcej na [URL] 'More at [URL]'
Zagraj teraz 'Play now'
Zarejestruj się 'Register [yourself]'
Zarezerwuj 'Reserve [here]'
Znajdź sklep 'Find store'

Recruiting brochure
Zamieszkaj w USA na wakacje. 'Live in the USA on vacation.'
Poznaj ludzi z całego świata, 'Get-to-know people from the whole world,'
rozwijaj się i odkrywaj uroki Stanów 'develop and discover the charms of States'
po zakończeniu programu wymiany. 'after the end of the exchange program.'

Wyjedź na wakacje do USA! 'Go-away on vacation to the USA!'
Spędź lato w Ameryce w ośrodku kolonijnym dla dzieci
'Spend the summer in America in a [summer] camp center for kids'

RAF & USAAF Eastern Air Command

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 145-147:

Even before Tehran, that a restructuring of the air component was urgently needed was crystal clear to Mountbatten, and the advent of his new command helped provide the impetus for sweeping changes in December 1943. At the Chiefs of Staffs talks in Cairo at the end of November he was able to win the support of General ‘Hap’ Arnold, the Chief of the United States Air Force, for the creation of Allied Air Command. Arnold, along with General George Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staff, and General Alan Brooke, the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff, agreed that Mountbatten, as Supreme Commander, should be entitled to reorganize the air forces within his command as he saw fit. This support was absolutely essential, because what Mountbatten wanted was a truly integrated and coordinated new air command.

By the time the SEAC staff and wider commanders in the theatre had returned to Delhi and Chungking, the Tehran Conference was over and the plans to outflank Burma by sea and also invade the Andamans had been cancelled. General Stilwell, needless to say, was furious, believing Mountbatten’s plans would lead to a greater air focus on the British effort and away from China, still desperately in need of Allied supplies. He told Mountbatten he was lodging a formal protest. Joining with him, as an act of solidarity with his immediate superior, was General George Stratemeyer, commander of the 10th US Army Air Force.

Mountbatten responded with decisive firmness, however, safe in the knowledge that he had Arnold’s and Marshall’s support. He told Stilwell plainly that it was, as far as he was concerned, totally unacceptable to have a subordinate commander holding independent responsibilities for combat air operations. ‘I was,’ he told Stilwell, ‘overriding the objections and publishing a directive that day integrating the British and American Air Forces.’

The day in question was Saturday, 11 December, and the Supreme Commander addressed his entire staff of some 250 men at 8.45 am in the new War Room in his New Delhi HQ. As far as he was concerned, it was a historic day. From henceforth, he announced, the RAF’s Bengal Command and the 10th US Army Air Force would become integrated as one into Eastern Air Command. Overall air commander in theatre would be the British Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Peirse, but the new commander of Eastern Air Command was to be Stratemeyer, who despite his rather half-hearted protest in support of Stilwell now readily accepted the post.

Importantly for the planned coming offensive in the Arakan, in the days that followed further reorganization was completed. On 15 December, Troop Carrier Command was formed, incorporating both a USAAF transport group and an RAF transport wing under the command of Brigadier-General William D. Old, a tough and indefatigable commander who was well known for frequently flying operationally himself. Three days later, 3rd Tactical Air Force was also formed from the US 5320th Air Defense Wing and the RAF’s 221 and 224 Groups, which included the Woodpeckers and other Spitfire squadrons. Finally, into the mix were added a number of army air-supply companies, which used special signals arrangements to connect forward HQs and delivery airfields with supply and base airfields.

Fighting Malaria in Burma, 1944

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 54-55:

[A] pragmatic mindset was most definitely needed in the battle against endemic sickness. Slim recognized, just as the new Supreme Commander recognized, that prevention was better than cure. Mountbatten had made bringing new medical advances and research to the theatre a priority – something that was far beyond Slim’s own influence; but he could improve medical practice and discipline at the front and he was determined to do so as a major priority. Up until the autumn of 1943, if a soldier contracted malaria, for example, he was then transported, while his disease was at its height, hundreds of miles by road, rail and even sea to a hospital in India. This, on average, took him out of the line for around five months. All too often he might then be re-employed in India and never return to Burma. To get around this problem, new Malaria Forward Treatment Units – MFTUs – were now set up. These were, to all intents and purposes, tented hospitals just a few miles behind the front lines. A man with malaria would reach these within twenty-four hours and remain there for three weeks or so until he was cured. When fit, he was sent straight back to his unit.

Mepacrine anti-malaria tablets were also issued to the men, but their introduction was met with the rumour that they caused impotence. This was entirely without foundation, and Slim rigidly insisted that regimental officers make sure the men were taking their Mepacrine. He even introduced spot visits where every man was checked; if the result was less than 95 per cent positive, he summarily sacked the commanding officer. He only ever had to sack three; the message got around quickly and, equally swiftly, that autumn cases of malaria began to fall.

The regimental officers were also told to maintain strict medical discipline in other areas. Trousers were to be worn, not shorts; and shirts were to be worn with the sleeves down before sunset when insects were at their worst; minor abrasions were to be treated immediately and before, not after, they turned septic. The fight against sickness, Slim insisted, had to be a united effort: discipline, sound practice and common sense were key. And already, as the year drew to a close, the health of Fourteenth Army was showing signs of improving – not massively so just yet, but on the chart that hung on Slim’s wall in his office at Comilla the curve indicating hospital admissions was beginning to sink.

Polish Realia: Locative Plurals

From a WARS card in a PKP train.

Spotkaj się z nami: [Meet with us:]

w czasie sprzedaży mobilnej z wózka mini-bar
[during mobile sales with the minibar trolley]

w wagonach gastronomicznych
[in dining cars]

w wagonach sypialnych i w kuszetach
[in sleeping and in couchette cars]

w restauracjach stacjonarnych WARS w Warszawie
[in WARS station restaurants in Warsaw]

podczas imprez okolicznościowych (WARS CATERING)
[during special events]

How to Feed British Indian Troops

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 50-52:

These 500,000 men had to be fed three meals every single day and, because of the castes, religions, tribes and nationalities involved, an added complication was the thirty different ration scales needed to feed the army. Fresh meat was difficult both to source and to transport, and refrigeration was limited to say the least, so for those who could eat meat the only solution was to provide them with tinned corned beef, or bully beef as it was called, although this was monotonous and lacked the nutrients of fresh meat. Hindus and Muslims, however, could not eat tinned meat, so they had to go without altogether. The trouble was, acceptable substitutes, milk and ghi – clarified butter – were not available in the right quantities either. Much of the tinned milk sent from Britain and America simply did not survive the long journey. The result was a severe shortage of food supplies. At the Assam front, [Gen. William] Slim discovered that instead of the 65,000 tons that should have been stored at the base depot in Dimapur, there were just 47,000 tons, a deficiency of nearly 30 per cent, and much of the shortfall worked against the Indian troops. ‘The supply situation was indeed so serious,’ wrote Slim, ‘that it threatened the possibility of any offensive.’

Part of the problem was bad management at Delhi, and Slim and Snelling were appalled to discover that the system of peacetime financial control was still in place when it came to procurement. Incredibly, if large quantities of dehydrated food were ordered from Indian contractors, demands for tinned supplies from Britain were then cancelled. On the face of it, that was fair enough, but it had been decreed that dehydrated vegetables were, in terms of scale of issue, a quarter that of tinned goods. In other words, for every 100 tons of dehydrated goods ordered in India, 400 tons of tinned veg orders from Britain were cancelled. This was bad enough, but made worse because there was always a massive discrepancy between the quantities ordered in India and those that were ever actually delivered. Consequently, shortages had been allowed to escalate quickly.

To try to solve this, Slim and Snelling had gone to see Auchinleck in person, who vowed to deal with the supply issues as a matter of urgency. By cutting red tape and tightening the administration of food supply, Auchinleck’s staff at Delhi were able steadily to increase the flow of rations. In fact, just acknowledging earlier shortcomings was a marked step in the right direction.

Despite this improvement, both Slim and Snelling realized they needed to adopt a very hands-on approach themselves; it was no good depending on Delhi to sort out their supply issues. As a result, other sources of meat, such as sheep and goats, were reared locally where possible. They also hired some Chinese to set up duck-rearing farms for both meat and eggs, while along the Imphal front 18,000 acres of vegetables were cultivated.

Driving Tanks into Burma, 1944

From Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 10-12:

Before taking over 7th Indian Division, Messervy had been Director of Armoured Fighting Vehicles in New Delhi and had been a vociferous advocate of more tanks in theatre. It had taken much beating of drums, but eventually he had managed to prove to his superiors that medium tanks such as US-built Lees and Shermans could operate in South-East Asia. The 25th Dragoons had been the first to equip with these 30-ton machines, and it had been planned some days earlier that during the night of 4/5 February the regiment would cross over the Ngakyedauk Pass and report for duty with 7th Division to the east of the Mayu Range, ready to take part in Messervy’s planned assault on Buthidaung.

Later that night, C Squadron also crossed the pass. Among them was twenty-year-old Trooper Norman Bowdler from Dunchurch in the English Midlands. Just a week before, Bowdler had been the loader in his five-man crew, but when the driver had got sick he had taken over and now was responsible for getting their mighty Lee up and over this treacherous pass – and in the dark. He found it a terrifying experience. Above them, Allied aircraft were flying over in order to disguise the sound of the tanks, which would have easily carried to the Japanese positions in the still night air. ‘It was a bit dodgy,’ Bowdler admitted. ‘I mean, getting a thirty-ton tank round these S-bends – well, some of the bends were so severe that you had to go backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards to negotiate them.’ He was keenly aware that for all the feat of engineering the creation of the pass undoubtedly was, it was little more than a widened mule track and certainly a long way from being a proper road. In some places, parts of it were bridged by laid tree trunks and Bowdler was worried that at any moment stretches of it would simply crumble away and they would tumble down one of the sheer precipices to the ravine floor 200 feet below. ‘It was so narrow,’ he said, ‘and the tank so heavy – we were fully loaded with ammo, fuel and everything.’ At times, one of the tank’s tracks was actually overhanging the edge of the road as he slewed the beast around a corner. At best there was little more than a yard or so either side of the Lee, and the margins were especially tight around corners that offered very, very little room for manoeuvre.

As a result, it took them much of the night to cross. Bowdler found it more difficult going down the reverse side without the natural braking effect of the climb. Low gears helped, but he was very mindful that this huge weight, crunching over a road that would not pass muster in most people’s book, and being hurried by gravitational pull, could all too easily slip out of his control. The levels of concentration needed were immense, but at long last the road began to level out and in bright moonlight they emerged into an area of paddy, criss-crossed with bunds – the paddy walls – and then eventually leaguered up in an area of elephant grass. Not so very far to the south, Bowdler could hear small arms firing and even the occasional shout. He’d already been in battle before, but here, in the milky darkness of the 7th Division Administrative Area, there was a distinct air of menace.

Lunar Calendar Animal Names in Polish

From Moja Japonia, by Anna Golisz (Petrus, 2010), pp. 207-208 (with Google Translation into English):

W Japonii istnieje kilka kalendarzy, w tym od 1873 roku także gregoriański.
(There are several calendars in Japan, including the Gregorian calendar since 1873.)

Kolejnym jest kalendarz księżycowy pochodący z Chin, który w Japonii był używany przez wiele wieków. (Another is the lunar calendar originating from China, which has been used in Japan for many centuries.)

Obecnie pozosałością tego jest nazywanie kolejnych lat od nazw 12 zwierząt: (Currently, the legacy of this is to name the following years from the names of 12 animals:)

myszy, krowy, tygrysa, królika, smoka, węża, konia, owcy, małpy, koguta, psa i świni. (mouse, cow, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.) [I deleted the indefinite article Google Translate added to each animal name. J]

Wrocław: Każda podróż to opowieść

The catchphrase on a travel poster, Każda podróż to opowieść 'Every journey is a story', in our fine hotel in Wrocław caught my eye because Polish opowieść is cognate with Romanian poveste 'story, tale', an old borrowing from Slavic. The Romanian infinite verb is a povesti 'to tell a tale/story/lie, etc'. But for a polyglot traveler, podróżnik poliglotów, călător poliglot, every journey is a vocabulary lesson.

We were in Wrocław sightseeing for a few days on the way to a conference in Szczecin for my better (unretired) half and some other foreign teachers in Poland and neighboring countries. One of Wrocław's major tourist attractions is the hundreds of tiny krasnal 'gnomes' all over the city, but I found its topographical vocabulary more interesting, especially in contrast to Kielce, which was never a castle town (or a river town).

Like every old town in Poland, Wrocław has a ratusz 'town hall' in a rynek 'central market square' surrounded by its stare miasto 'old town'. Our hotel overlooked one piece of the old moat (fosa) side of the old town. The Odra river, with its many branches, islands (wyspy) and bridges (mosty) bordered the far side of the stare miasto, which is nowadays typically criss-crossed with trams and busses. The large railway stations in both Wrocław and Krakow touch the edges of each city's carefully maintained stare miasto, which is surrounded by przedmieścia 'suburbs', a bit like the Japanese jōkamachi 'castle towns' that lie outside the castle walls and moats. One such early suburb in Wrocław is Przedmieścia Świdnickie (formerly Schweidnitzer Vorstadt), which lay outside the Świdnica Gate.

By the way, every one of the (six or eight) young English-speaking staff we queried at our hotel had studied six or more years of German in school, then let that ability lapse in favor of informally acquired (often fluent) English! This seems to be the pattern throughout Polish Silesia.

Polish Diaspora in France

My latest compilation from Culture.pl has an article on the Polish diaspora in France. Here are some excerpts:

When we think of the Polish diaspora, France is rarely the first place that comes to mind – often overshadowed by the UK, the US or Germany. Yet the Polish presence in France is older, more complex and more deeply woven into the country’s cultural fabric than most realise.

Through interviews with contemporary Polish migrants and archival research into historical communities, a layered story emerges – one as much about shared histories as it is about work, struggle and identity. Beginning with 19th-century exile, expanding through interwar labour migration, and continuing into today’s cosmopolitan realities, Poles have long helped shape the life of their adopted country. And France, in turn, has shaped them.

The earliest sustained Polish presence in France took shape in the 19th century, following the failed November Uprising of 1830-1831. Thousands of officers, intellectuals and activists fled the Russian-controlled partition and sought refuge in France, launching what became known as the ‘Great Emigration’. This wave of political exiles – over 5,000 by 1833 – formed one of the most enduring diasporic communities of the era. Unlike other groups who returned after political amnesties, most remained as long as Poland's partitioned status endured.

One bold but ultimately unsuccessful plan – to form a Polish legion to fight in Portugal’s Liberal Wars in 1833 – was led by General Józef Bem and reflected the enduring ideal of transnational solidarity. It gave lasting currency to the phrase ‘For our freedom and yours’ (‘Za wolność naszą i waszą’), which became a defining expression of Poland’s internationalist military ethos throughout the 19th century.

Polish émigrés built schools, charitable institutions and political societies. Some were initially settled in places like Belle-Île-en-Mer off the coast of Brittany, while growing numbers made their way to Paris, which would soon become a central hub of Polish cultural and political life in exile.

...

Building on these early foundations, Paris evolved into what some would later call ‘Poland’s second capital’. Throughout the 19th century, the city became a vibrant centre where Polish political elites, artists and intellectuals gathered, united by a commitment to preserving national identity in exile.

Nowhere was this more visible than at the prestigious Collège de France, where Polish national poet Adam Mickiewicz was appointed the first Chair of Slavic Literature in Western Europe in 1840. His lectures, a blend of cultural commentary and political advocacy, attracted wide audiences – including figures like George Sand – and reflected diasporic longing for unity and liberation. Though ultimately dismissed for the political intensity of his teachings, Mickiewicz remained an emblematic figure in Franco-Polish cultural relations.

That same spirit of cultural continuity shaped another enduring institution: the Polish School in Paris, founded in 1842 by General Józef Dwernicki and fellow émigrés. The school aimed to raise children in Polish language and tradition, even as they grew up on foreign soil. With Mickiewicz himself serving as vice-president of its council, the institution embodied how deeply intertwined education, culture and politics were in émigré life – a place where Polish identity could be preserved and transmitted across generations born in exile.

Palauan Musical Obituary

Last October, Jim Geselbracht posted on his Palauan Music blog an obituary titled "Sorry, I Really Must Go" with his memories and also a long list of musical selections to listen to from the life of a very productive Palauan singer, composer, and educator, who began composing when Japanese enka  and evocative Japanese phrases permeated many Palauan songs.  Some of the recordings are very faint, pieced together from old tapes, but well worth a careful listen.

This week we lost another insightful voice in Palauan music: Mengesebuuch Yoichi K. Rengiil passed away at the age of 84 in Guam. Yoichi, both a singer and composer, was born in 1941 and grew up in Ngeremlengui.  In the early 1950s, he moved to Koror to attend the Palau Intermediate School and then left for Guam in 1956 to attend high school and start college.  He returned to Palau in 1963 and taught social studies at the Palau High School.  In the 1960s, he teamed up with Aichi Ngirchokebai, Hidebo Sugiyama and Julie Tatengelel to perform at Aichi’s theater in Koror and at village bais on Babeldaob.  He left Palau again in 1967 to complete his college education at the University of Guam and then obtained a Masters in Education Administration at UH Manoa in 1973.  Yoichi was an active member of the Modekngei, serving as the Principal at the Belau Modekngei School in the 1970s. His professional resume is deep, and I will leave it to others to remember that part of his life, but in this post I would like to acknowledge his contribution to Palauan music.

Yoichi and I met regularly via Zoom over the past five years to discuss Palauan music, language and stories and he was an important mentor to me in understanding the meaning behind the rich musical legacy of Palauan music. From our discussions, I learned of seven songs that he composed between 1963 and 1987:

• Did er a Sechou, 1963 or 64
• Oh! Somebody Me Keleng Saingo, 1968
• Sayonara, But I Love You, 1968 or 69
• Chellelengem ma Klungiolem, 1969 or 70
• Decheruk er a Capitol Hill, late 1960s (co-wrote with John Skebong)
• Merat el Kerrekar, 1970
• Ng Di Kmedu e ng mo Ngemeded, 1986 or 87

The first song Yoichi ever composed has become a classic: Did er a Sechou. Named for the bridge in the jetty at Ngeremlengui, the song was not autobiographical, as many people think, but rather Yoichi telling the story of a man from Ngeremlengui who was heartbroken over the end of his relationship with his wife and children. The first recording of this song is from the Ngerel Belau Radio tapes, recorded sometime between 1963 and 1967, with Yoichi singing and backed by the VOP (Voice of Palau) band consisting of Hidebo Sugiyama on mandolin and Aichi Ngirchokebai on guitar.

Cold, Cold Heart in Palau

I just discovered that I had missed the last two posts to Jim Geselbracht's wonderfully nostalgic (for me) Palauan Music blog. I heard lots of Palauan renditions of Japanese enka and American country and western music during my earliest fieldwork in Micronesia in the 1970s. In his latest post, Jim looks at the antecedents of the Palauan song Aggie Chiang from the 1980s, whose melody goes back at least to 1951 recordings by Hank Williams, Dinah Washington, and Tony Bennett. Hank Williams may have adapted it in turn from You'll Still Be in My Heart (1945) by "T" Texas Tyler and his Oklahoma Melody Boys. Jim posts links to all those renditions.

Polish Insect Terms: Ants, Ladybugs

A recent compilation from Culture.pl contains a long article on entomological etymology. Here are some excerpts on ants and ladybugs:

Mrówka (ant) is a word from the 15th century, the Polish name for an insect known to entomologists as Formica. It comes from the Proto-Slavic *morvь / *morvьjь, related to names in other Indo-European languages. Both the Polish mrówka, the Greek mýrmēks and the Spanish hormiga derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *morṷo- / *morṷĭ-. Etymologists explain the meaning of the word mrówka as ‘a biting bug’.

In the 16th century, the word mrowie (a large cluster of ants) was derived from mrówka and today means ‘a multitude, a group’ (e.g. of people), as well as ‘shivers, goosebumps’. Ants are associated with the fact that they build large anthills and can carry large objects that are much heavier than they are. These insects, like bees, are a symbol of industriousness – someone can be said to be pracowity jak mrówka (as industrious as an ant). Another important feature is their size. You can say that something is małe jak mrówka (as small as an ant). There is also a saying, włożyć kij w mrowisko (poke a stick into an anthill), that is, ‘to stir up trouble, to irritate’.

One of the most numerous families among bugs are beetles. The bug Coccinella septempunctata has been known as biedronka, the ladybug, since the 19th century. Earlier, in the 17th century, the name was biedrunka and had a number of dialectal variants, e.g. biedruszka / biedrawka / biedrzonka / biedrzynka and others. The ladybug’s characteristic appearance, regular dots on its chitinous cover, which according to a naive view of the world indicate their age, allows us to explain the connection of the Polish name biedronka with the dialectal word biedrona, the term for a spotted cow. Therefore, the derivative biedronka with the suffix -ka would mean ‘small cow’. This etymology is supported by other words, including: bierawa,the name of a cow with spots around its hips, back or belly; biedrawy, the name of an ox with patches around its hips; biedrzysty, meaning spotted. According to Wiesław Boryś, the basis was the adjective *bedrъ ‘having spots on its hips’ or ‘spotted, mottled, piebald’, from the Proto-Slavic *bedro-, Polish biodro, the hip.

The etymology of biedronka as a small cow would also find an explanation in another name for this animal, boża krówka, God’s cow, or formerly, krówka Maryi Panny, Virgin Mary’s cow. The ladybug was considered a gift sent from God and was supposed to bring people happiness, hence the children’s rhyme ‘biedroneczko, leć do nieba, przynieś mi kawałek chleba’ (ladybug, fly to heaven, bring me a piece of bread). The perception of the ladybug as a mediator between the human world and the divine world has also been established in other languages: English (ladybird, Virgin Mary’s bird), American (ladybug, Virgin Mary’s bug), German der Marienkäfer, Virgin Mary’s beetle), French la bete a bon Dieu, God’s little animal, or even in the name used in Argentina, vaquita de San Antonio, St Anthony’s cow) and in another Slavic language, Russian, божья коровка (bozh’ya korovka, God’s cow). These are just a few examples demonstrating that the dialectal names of the ladybug in many languages, which later became common terms, consist of an element related to the divine world, as well as an element naming another animal – analogously to the Polish compound boża krówka.

Grains of Poland

During the heyday of the Hanseatic League, Poland was the granary of Europe, and its diet remains very rich in grains. Hardly any of its many breads contain just one grain, and one of its many brands of yogurt calls itself 7zbóż '7cereals'. Here are the cereal grains listed in its jogurt z brzoskwinią, gruszką i ziarnami zbóż 'yogurt with peach, pear and cereal grains' variety: jęczmień, pszenica, żyto, owies, gryka, ryz, pszenica arkisz, otręby pszenne 'barley, wheat, rye, oat, buckwheat, rice, spelt wheat, wheat bran'.

Speaking of food labels, here is the breakdown of wartość odżywcza 100 g productu 'nutritional value in 100 g of product':
Wartość energetyczna 'energy value' 96 kcal
Tłuszcz 'fat' 2,5 g
w tym kwasy nasycone 'incl. saturated fatty acids' 1,8 g
Węglowodany 'carbohydrates' 14,7 g
w tym cukry 'incl. sugar' 13,5 g
Błonnik 'fiber' 0,6 g
Białko 'protein' 2,6 g
Sól 'salt' 0,07 g

Multiply by 3 for the 300 g tub of yogurt!

Polish Insect Terms: Flies, Mosquitoes

A recent compilation from Culture.pl contains a long article on entomological etymology. Here are some excerpts on flies and mosquitoes.

Remaining in the circle of bugs from the family of flies, let’s discuss one of their most popular representatives, the housefly (Latin name, Musca domestica). The word mucha has been present in Polish since the 15th century and is a general Slavic word. It comes from the Proto-Slavic *mucha, *mous-ā, ‘fly’.

Andrzej Bańkowski describes the meaning of the word mucha as ‘unclear’. For this word, he seeks the etymology in the Sanskrit root of the verb muṣ-, ‘to steal, to rob’. Wiesław Boryś, on the other hand, believes that it is a word with an onomatopoeic root, from the sound made by flying insects, based on *mū- / *mus-. This root was expanded by the suffix -sā, which then became the regular suffix -cha. Similarly, the same transformation occurred in the suffix of the word pchła (flea).

The word mucha is also used to name other bugs, e.g. a szkląca mucha (glazed [lantern] fly) is another expression for a firefly. The diminutive of the word fly (muszka) is very popular and is the source of, among other things, the common name for the diminutive fruit fly: muszka owocówka. Mucha also creates many word compounds: for example, muchomór, a toadstool is a fungus that poisons and kills flies, and a muchołówka, flytrap, is a carnivorous plant that eats flies.

For humans, a fly is not a useful animal but rather a nuisance. You can say about someone that they are as pesky as a fly: natrętny jak mucha. Flies are associated with dirt and stench, so when something is described as mucha nie siada, ‘a fly won’t land on it’, it means that it is ‘successful, perfect, impeccable’, so clean that a fly does not want to be there. When someone is lured by something, strives to achieve something, it is said that they fly to something / someone like a fly to glue / to honey: jak mucha na lep / do miodu. On the other hand, ruszać się jak mucha w mazi / smole / miodzie, to move like a fly in goo, tar, honey, means ‘to do something slowly, sluggishly, to be lazy’. Ginąć / padać jak muchy, to die / to fall like flies, means ‘en masse’. One can also have muchy w nosie, flies up your nose, ‘to be in a bad mood’.

Another useless insect that makes people’s lives miserable is komar (the mosquito). The earlier form of the name for this insect is komor; Franciszek Sławski provides the variant forms kumar, kumor. This term functioned in many local and personal names (e.g. the towns of Komorowice, Komorowo, Komorów). It was not until the 19th century that the name with the suffix -ar became popular: the mosquito, popularized by, among others, writers from the Borderlands – Adam Mickiewicz devoted a poem to this bug. In the poem ‘Komar, niewielkie licho’ (The mosquito, little devil), he described a situation that is also probably familiar to everyone today: ...

All the forms mentioned above come from the Proto-Slavic word *komarъ (or *komarь with a soft yer), which in turn comes from the Proto-Indo-European onomatopoeic root *kem- / *kom-, ‘to buzz’. Wiesław Boryś explains the original meaning of komar as ‘(persistently) buzzing bug’.

A mosquito is primarily associated with annoyance, intrusiveness – hence you can przekomarzać się z kimś (trade barbs with someone), which Brückner translates as ‘to irritate someone like a mosquito’. You can also say about someone that they ucięli komara (lit., cut a mosquito), meaning to take a short nap, usually without getting enough sleep.

Polish Insect Terms: Bees, Wasps

A recent compilation from Culture.pl contains a long article on entomological etymology. Here are some excerpts on bees and wasps.

In a survey conducted by linguist Marcin Maciołek for his doctoral thesis Kształtowanie się nazw owadów w języku polskim. Procesy nominacyjne a językowy obraz świata (The Formation of Names of Bugs in Polish: Nominative Processes and the Linguistic Image of the World) in 2012, some respondents indicated the bee as an example of a typical owad (bug). Although the astonishing diversity of this group of animals does not allow for the identification of a single, prototypical member, the bee is certainly one of its more charming representatives. Due to their usefulness, bees evoke a rather positive attitude in humans, evidenced, among other things, by the frequently used diminutive pszczółka (little bee). For centuries, they have been a symbol of industriousness, as evidenced, among other things, by citations from the Bible. The bee was also considered a divine, a sacred animal, which is why in Polish the word used for their dying is umrzeć (used for humans), not zdechnąć (used for animals). The designation of a bee was sometimes associated with a taboo: it could not be spoken of after dusk lest the evil powers of the night harm it, hence the interchangeable terms boży robak (God’s worm) / święty robak (holy worm).

The word pszczoła has Proto-Slavic origins, probably even Proto-Indo-European – if we go back that far in the language, we will discover that the Polish pszczoła and the English bee most probably come from the same Proto-Indo-European form *bhiquelā! In Proto-Slavic, the proto-word was *bьčela or *bъčela (they differ in the quality of the yer – a Proto-Slavic vowel). If we wanted to discover the etymology of Polish pszczoła (bee), we’d discover that it is an onomatopoeic word: probably the Proto-Slavic root was an onomatopoeic *bъk-, *bъč-, related to the Proto-Slavic verb *bučati, brzęczeć – to buzz (about bugs). The suffix *-ela would indicate the meaning of *bъčela as ‘that which buzzes’.

The name of this bug was initially pczoła in Poland, with the consonant š (sz) eventually inserted. Language strives for economy, also in terms of articulation, hence the consonant group pč- (pcz-) was expanded to pšč- due to the desire to avoid excessive articulatory energy input. This also explains why the spelling of the word pszczoła is an orthographic exception, since there was never any ‘r’ in this word that could become a ‘rz’.

Wasps do not enjoy as good a reputation as their ‘cousins’, the bees. They are not useful from the point of view of humans – they are considered negative, dangerous, unpleasant bugs, in contrast to the hard-working, holy bees. An important feature of wasps, one with which they are usually most associated, is their painful sting. You can also say about someone that they are as evil as a wasp or as sharp as a wasp (zły jak osa and cięty jak osa, respectively]. Due to the gender of this noun in Polish, this term is usually used in relation to women. Only a woman can have a wasp waist – this expression is associated with the characteristic narrowing of the body structure of this bug. Unlike other phraseologisms related to wasps, however, it does not have a negative connotation but is rather a compliment.

The etymology of osa is not related to its ‘character traits’, however. It has Proto-Indo-European roots, and the names of this family in other languages ​​indicate a common origin reconstructed by researchers to Proto-Indo-European *ṷobhsā, osa. Baltic, Romance and Germanic languages ​​have preserved the initial v-, so for example, in Lithuanian, osa is vapsvà; in Latin it is vespa; and in English it is ‘wasp’. As Maciołek writes, in accordance with the law of the open syllable in the Proto-Slavic languages [all syllables had to end in a vowel, ed.], the intra-word consonant group *-bs- was simplified into -s-, hence the Proto-Indo-European *ṷobhsā became the Proto-Slavic *(v)osa, and today in Polish it has the form osa.

Andrzej Bańkowski sees the meaning of the name osa in the verb *webh-, ‘to weave’, which is related to the fact that wasps weave their nests from plant fibres. Wasp nests are a very important place for them, and they defend it fiercely. Maciej Rak cites a regional saying: włożyć kij w gniazdo os (‘to put a stick in a wasps’ nest’, meaning ‘to irritate, to provoke a bad situation’; in general language, this saying is related to ants: włożyć kij w mrowisko, ‘to put a stick in an anthill’).

Dziękuję za cud!

9 stycznia 2026

Jako linguista, najbardziej obawiałem się utraty języka.

Ale,
Dzięki Bogu,
Dzięki szpitalu,
Dzięki służbom ratownictwa medycznego,
Dzięki wam wszystkim z neurologii,

Nawet po udar,
Mogę chodzić
Mogę mówić
Mogę uczyć się więcej języka polskiego!

My Stroke of Luck

I was discharged from the Cardiology Dept. of Wojewódzki Szpital Zespolony w Kielcach on December 19, after 9 days in their care, just in time for plummeting temperatures and fresh snowfall. And also in time for the arrival of our daughter's eagerly awaited visit. After 10 days of recovery at home, we took the train to Krakow, where we spent New Year's Eve (Sylwester) and part of New Year's Day before taking the train back to Kielce. Although I didn't join my wife and our visitors for any sightseeing, I must have strained my heart on the way back home, because I woke up the next morning in the throes of a stroke.

My wife dialed 112 on her Polish phone and soon got a response from an English-speaking dispatcher who sent an ambulance crew to our apartment. Very soon, two sturdy men came in, tested me for stroke symptoms, then got me dressed, tightly grabbed each arm and walked me to the elevator, then out to the ambulance. Acting quickly at the ER, they slathered me with antiseptic povidine-iodine from my thighs to my shoulders to prepare for a mechanical thrombectomy, the optimal treatment for an ischemic stroke if performed within 6 hours. Within 2 hours, the doctors located the clot in the back of my neck, made a small incision in my groin, then threaded catheters through my blood vessels to the clot. A tiny device at the catheter's tip grabbed the clot and removed it, restoring blood flow in my brain.

I woke up in an intake ward with each patient confined to bed and hooked to monitors that went off frequently for the next 24 hours, as did a few of the patients. During next morning rounds, however, my surgeon came by, tested my coordination, and told me (in English) that they had found the clot and removed it, that it was not in a position to cause lasting damage, and that I would be walking by day's end. I nearly cried in relief!

Sure enough, later that day an orderly wheeled me in my bed and with my personal effects locker (szafka) into a small room with private WC that included a shower! I had no trouble getting out of my old bedclothes, taking a long hot shower that scratched my terrible rash from the povidine-iodine antiseptic (which took daily injections to clear up), and changing into new bedclothes before anyone else came by.

My wife arrived with new supplies in time to meet the previous occupant and chat in English with his son. The father told me in Polish that he had stayed there 7 days, and added "Gut schlafen!" On my seventh day, I got to meet the next occupant. He was a workaholic builder with his own laptop and cellphone hotspot (and a hole in his heart). We traded notes in macaronic mixtures of Italian & Romanian, Polish and English. (He had a sister in Switzerland who spoke several more languages.) I also mixed some Romanian and Italian with one of the cleaning ladies (from Tuscany), and exchanged a bit of German with one of the technicians who fitted me with a portable 24-hr EKG one day, and a portable 24-hr BP-monitor a day or two later.

The Neurology Complex of Wojewódzki Szpital Zespolony w Kielcach is highly rated. The bulletin board near the nurses station displayed a certificate awarding it an ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System status for 2019 through 2028. It is no coincidence that Holy Cross Voivodship is demographically the oldest in Poland. One of their sonograph technicians thoroughly explored my carotid arteries on their high-quality equipment and said he found no abnormalities. A senior technician later ultrasonically investigated the left atrium of my heart, which used to host a thrombus in situ. He didn't find anything, so it seems that that thrombus is what broke off, lodged at the base of my neck, and caused my stroke, until it was removed by my surgical team. A miracle!