With spring in bloom it’s time to talk about fruit and vegetables, which effectively diversity our diet. Participants of Polish courses are pleased to hear that many of the names of fruit have been incorporated into the Polish language with virtually no changes: awokado, ananas, banan, figa, kaki, kiwi, just to name a few. However, as you can see, those are exotic fruit (from the Polish point of view), which are not grown in Poland. The well known and generally liked ziemniaki are a different case, though. Their Polish name is nothing other than the translated German "der erdapfel" (apple of the earth), or the French "pomme de terre". In both versions the noun ziemia (earth) appears. We’d like to remind you that depending on the part of Poland you are in, you eat ziemniaki (nationwide), kartofle (the form often used in the south of Poland), or pyry (Wielkopolska or Silesia).
IMMIGRANTS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST
Some of the vegetables are successfully grown in Poland now, and when using their names we don’t even realize how far they came here from. Who would have thought that melon is derived from the Greek "melopepon" (soft apple) and arbuz comes from the Turkish word "karpuz" (which was borrowed from the Persian language – "charpuz"). Bakłażan is a similar case, it is derived from the Turkish word "badenjan". It’s worth noting that in the past another word was used to name this tasty vegetable: oberżyna (from the Catalan "alberginia", which, in turn, was borrowed from the Arabic "al badinjan").
ITALIAN FRIENDS, OR NAMES OF VEGETABLES OF ITALIAN ORIGIN
It is our Italian cousins , however, that make up the largest family. Students of Polish, especially those from Italy, are astonished to see how many Polish names of vegetables sound almost the same as their Italian equivalents. Kalafior – cavolfiore, fasola – fagioli, karczoch – carciofo, pomidor – pomodoro, szpinak – spinacio, cukinia – zucchina, brokuł – brocco, i.e. sprout, etc. We owe the existence of those words in Polish to an Italian aristocrat Bona Sforza, who became the queen of Poland in the 16th century, and introduced the custom of planting vegetables that had been unknown in Poland before. It soon turned out that they easily adapted to the cool climate we have here. And that is probably the reason why a bunch of vegetables (carrot, celery root, leek, parsley) used to make homemade broth is commonly known as ... włoszczyzna (from Włochy, Polish word for Italy).
